Vikings Traded First (Then Plundered)Vikings Traded First (Then Plundered)

Vikings Traded First (Then Plundered)
May 18, 2015 03:34 PM ET // by Laura Geggel, LiveScience

The Viking Age may not have started with the plundering of England, but with the peaceful trading of handcrafted combs made out of reindeer antlers, a new study suggests.

Until now, researchers thought the Viking Age began in June 793, when Norwegian Vikings raided Lindisfarne, an island off the northeast coast of England. But new research suggests Vikings were traveling from Norway to Ribe, one of Scandinavia’s earliest towns and a lively trading center on the west coast of Denmark, as early as 725, the researchers said.

In fact, the bustling mercantile town may have given the Vikings an economic incentive to sail south to Denmark, the researchers said. And, coincidentally, these types of travels likely helped the Vikings refine and master the boating and navigational skills that helped them explore (and plunder) countries near and far, they added.

“This shows us that merchants and other travelers from the north were visiting Ribe long before the start of the Viking Age as we know it,” the study’s lead researcher, Steve Ashby, a lecturer of medieval archaeology at the University of York in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. “Even in its early stages, the town was attracting visitors from afar. We have long wondered whether Ribe, and places like it, kick-started the Viking expansion in trade, travel and warfare, but it has been difficult to prove.”

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