21.3 Europe: a.d. 601 to 700  (Page 4/4)

Wales

This remained as a western Celtic fringe.

Scandinavia

Additional Notes

Norway

An excavation at Kvalksund, Norway, shows that by about A.D. 600 sizable sailing ships were being built. These were shallow-draft vessels with planked decks but no keels. Thus, new mobility on the sea, coinciding with increased hunger at home, led to the Viking raids some two centuries later. (Ref. 160 )

Sweden

This was an age of gold called the Vendel Period, in Sweden. The Swedes were beginning to push north and west to the northwest coast of Norway.

Denmark

The Danes sea-faring was steadily increasing and they were already occasionally raiding the coasts of France.

Finland

This country was very sparsely occupied by Lapps whose early history remains something of a mystery. Speaking a Finno-Ugric tongue, traditionally it has been considered that they originated in central Asia but recent genetic studies indicate that they are true native Europeans.

Eastern europe

Baltic area

Thomas (Ref. 213 ) says that the one contribution made by Slavs to human improvement was the re-introduction of the heavy plow, which was a variation of one used in northern Italy in the 1st century C.E. It had a knife-like iron blade in front which slashed vertically into the ground, a plowshare which cut horizontally through the ground and a mold-board which turned the soil over to one side. We have remarked earlier that the German put this to very good use in this century. Closely related to the Slavs were the Lithuanians, who together with the Letts and the ancient Prussians, formed the Baltic branch of the Indo-European family. They lived between the present day Memel and Estonia.

Poland had Slavic people divided into many tribes with no unification or organization at this period.

Russia

Part of far eastern Russia was controlled by the great Turkish Confederacy which simultaneously dominated all of central Asia up until 630. The Khazar Khanate in southern Russia expanded rapidly, defeating their Caucasian neighbors, the Alans and the Bulgars and it was some of the latter who fled to the Danube next to the remaining Avars. Some went to the Volga where they remained under Khazar suzertainty. By 650 the Khazar Khanate extended from the Dnieper to the Caspian Sea, with a very modern city, Itil, as capital on the north shore of the Caspian. Northward they extended almost to the headwaters of the Volga. Their rulers accepted the Jewish religion, apparently to assert their independence from both Moslems and Christians.

Just north of the Black Sea, the Utigur and Kutrigur Huns coalesced and took a new name - Great Bulgaria. (Ref. 136 ) Elsewhere in western Russia the Slavs lived more or less freely and independently. In the very far north there were still the scattered Finns and/or Lapps. (Ref. 137 ) Additional Notes

Forward to Europe: A.D. 701 to 800