Norwegian guerrilla warfare in the Iron Age

[Iskander2013]

http://sciencenordic.com/norwegian-guerrilla-warfare-iron-age

Norwegian guerrilla warfare in the Iron Age


At the same time the axe became a weapon of choice among Norwegian warriors, society collapsed and warfare became a free-for-all.

This is the crux of a doctoral dissertation that researcher Ingrid Ystgaard will defend this spring at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

She has studied weapons found in graves and the battle techniques they suggest during the transition from the early to the late Iron Age. The division between these periods was around 500 AD.

This was the time when the Western Roman Empire collapsed, and the warfare practices of Southern Europe lost their foothold, even in the High North.

Major alliances were splintered and smaller bands of men started warring against one another. And significantly, the battle axe became a favoured weapon.
Mystery of the stone fortifications

Ystgaard has studied and written about the simple stone fortifications that were built for protection on hilltops or other sites that were easy to defend.

Research shows these fortifications were only in fashion for a while. They were relatively common and were maintained from around 400 AD to 600 AD.

Then, perhaps over the course of a single generation, they were abandoned and left to crumble.

Ystgaard wondered why people gave up fortifications that had been used for more than six generations.

She found one answer in some 100 weapon graves in mid-Norway. These are ancient graves where the dead were buried along with the weapons they had carried. At the start of the period she studied – from 400 AD till nearly 500 AD – the Western Roman Empire was still intact and its warfare practices were still having an effect on life as far away as Northern Europe.

"The Roman Empire's weapon technology and warfare set the standards not just in the Empire and its provinces, but also here, in free Germania and up through Scandinavia. The arms we find until the 500s are a Germanic adaptation of Roman legionnaire equipment," explains Ystgaard.
Chaos weapon

The standard weaponry prior to around 500 AD included the double-edged sword, lances, javelins and shields. The idealised Roman battle stuck to rather well-organised rules as far as warfare went.

Two armies faced each over and soldiers began the fight by hurling javelins at each other. With a little luck this could take the enemies' shields out of the picture or kill them with a direct hit.

Then the armies would clash, jabbing with lances and trying to break each other's lines. The object would be to get around behind the enemy. Once that was accomplished, swords could be used in close combat.

There was no need for an axe in this type of battle. Nevertheless, around 500 AD axes started appearing in warrior graves.

"The axe can be used as a weapon against another person, but also as a tool for breaking into something. If you stop staging large battles in the field, but try and take out the boss where he can be found, in a raid on his home, then you need an axe. This is a completely different principle for warfare," explains Ystgaard.

"The axe provided a chaos factor, it arrived on the scene and changed the entire picture – what could it be used for? It was the start of a change, armaments were modified for guerrilla warfare, for raids and fighting at close quarters."
Free-for-all

Ystgaard's main theory is that the fall of Rome had consequences in the north, outside the Empire. Continental Europe was in crisis and important trade partners as well as sources of inspiration and knowledge vanished. This led to a local crisis in distant Norway.

"As I interpret it, the onset of the axe and the use of fortifications are interlinked. Warfare started to be directed toward people of the same social order. War used to be focused on other regions, but now the warlord in the neighbouring rural district was the enemy," says Ystgaard.

"It was kind of a free-for-all. You get a bunch of warlords who build fortifications and have their own troops of followers and they are trying to steal from each other. These were very rough times."
150 years of anarchy

But nothing lasts forever – not even anarchy like this. Suddenly, in just a few years around 600 AD, the stone fortifications go completely out of style.

Ystgaard thinks the costs of everybody fighting one another probably grew too excessive.

"This is such an unstable system − it was no longer viable. By around the year 600 most of the smaller chieftains had been vanquished, there were just a few rulers left. Then you get a new concentration of power in the country," she says.

This formed the foundation for centralising power among a few major chieftains, or petty kings. From that it was just another 200 years before the famous attack at Lindisfarne in England – the start of the Viking Era.

[aligern]

That's fascinating and it is entirely believable that the sudden appearance and disappearance of widespread low level fortification indicates a societal change. However, if we drew a parallel with say medieval England the fortifications could indicate that local olds belonged to a fairly centralised state but were set against revolution from below as an upper class sought to dominate .  Or they could be indicators of status and be a matter of fashion or set up against a centralisising state. The problem with so much archaeology is that it is easily explained in the way that the author wishes, though of course it renders some explanations implausible.
As to German warfare in 500AD being based upon Roman warfare. This ignores the long Germanic traditions which are there, as far as we can see, before Rome. The weapon set of two spears for stabbing or throwing backed up by a sword or hand axe  looks to run right on through the period.

FWIW I suspect that the adoption of the two handed axe as a weapon has more to do with  shipboard use , but that and any other theory would be difficult to prove. If one looked for another Henry then breaking shield walls would be a good candidate. If I read the article aright then breaking down doors is suggested as a reason for axe use, but wasn't burning defenders out the accepted method?
Roy

[Erpingham]

That's fascinating and it is entirely believable that the sudden appearance and disappearance of widespread low level fortification indicates a societal change.

It's hard to judge from just a summary but the small fortifications marks lack of central authority thing does have parallels e.g. during the Anarchy.  Also, the pele towers along the Anglo-Scottish border.  So, certainly plausible.

On axes, their big attributes are power and reach.  More reach than a sword, more impact than a spear.  So something that makes that an advantage.   Maybe countering increased armour use, or for breaking the stalemate in a shieldwall fight?

[Patrick Waterson]

One does note the increasing popularity of substantial axes as Danes and Norse spread across Europe, culminating in the establishment of the Varangian Guard.

Can we associate the axes with the adoption of svynfilking tactics, the adoption of wedges in the 'boar's head' deployment, presumably intended to split an enemy line?

If I remember correctly, in the sagas the spear and sword remain the hero's weapons of choice.  But does the axe have a role to play there?

[Erpingham]

Can we associate the axes with the adoption of svynfilking tactics, the adoption of wedges in the 'boar's head' deployment, presumably intended to split an enemy line?
[\quote]
Well, according to legend, the svinfylking originates in just this period.  However, it isn't a tactic mentioned much (and most of these in legendary contexts), so it would be hard to see why axes became popular through it.

If I remember correctly, in the sagas the spear and sword remain the hero's weapons of choice.  But does the axe have a role to play there?

Probably true but saga heroes use all sorts of weapons.  Two handed weapons do feature, including axes, the mysterious atgeir and the hogspjot /hewing spear (which is quite like a later partisan or langue de bouef)

[Patrick Waterson]

Thanks, Anthony: so we have some measure of correlation, though no obvious pattern of cause and effect.

To recap what we have so far, we see:

1) A change in government type (essentially from some to none): this seems to be reflected in the nature and distribution of strongholds.

2) A change in weaponry, with increasing though not universal popularity of axes.

3) A change in tactics, at least in sagas: more aggressive, more disruptive formations seem favoured.

Now when central authority begins to be reasserted in Scandinavia as the Dark Ages pass into the Mediaeval period, what changes in weapon types and tactics - and stronghold nature and distribution - do we see?

[Erpingham]

I think the problem we will have is a lack of information.  So far, we have commented on reports of a Scandinavian doctoral thesis.  The language of this report is (unless it is me) slightly idiosyncratic and it is hard to be sure how much is the journalist and how much the academic.  So middle iron age weaponry apparently is a copy of Roman weaponry (is it?) then late iron age weaponry is new and suited to guerilla warfare.  The only new weapon featured is a large axe - not yet a broad-bladed one but hefty.  Does the thesis contain information on other "guerilla" weapons e.g. bows, smaller shields? Because large axes were later used in bona fide shieldwalls, so why couldn't they be in this period?  Unless someone can turn up some evidence of the weapon set changes and some suggestions how that new weapon set reflected changed tactics from quasi-Roman to guerilla, tactically we are stumped. 

[Duncan Head]

So middle iron age weaponry apparently is a copy of Roman weaponry (is it?)

Western MediterroEuropean Way of War? 

[aligern]

This whole Roman copy theme these days does irritate. I conceded to the pro Romanists that the Empire is hugely dominant economically and culturally, however there is a tendency to say that what happens militarily and tactically around its borders is the result of Roman culture moving outwards. This is , of course, in contradiction to what used to be believed, that many military influences moved from the periphery into the Empire....barbarisation.
So, for example, the adoption of long swords by Northern barbarians is seen as deriving from the Roman cavalry spatha.  That this sword id is possibly adopted from Celtic cavalry in the last century BC is ignored. That spathas are long and slim and elegant and lightly hilted  whereas Early Dark Age German and Viking area swords are long (30 inches plus in the blade), but wide and heavily hilted is ignored.  If one looked for the prototypes of these weapons there are Celtic, Early German and above all  Eastern (steppe) swords that look much more appropriate.  However, these are also used by Roman or early Byzantine soldiers. Well Maurice suggests Herulian swords which does look like they are adopted from Eastern German barbarians and that the Romans move from a slim spatha that is used for fencing, to a really heavy sword with a powerful blade downstroke.
Of course it is not at all certain which way influences flow in a world in which men and ideas move backwards and forwards across a frontier, but its just too much to assume that all the weaponry and tactics are a one way passge from Rome outwards.
Roy

[Duncan Head]

I've just come across this paper: Weapon graves in Iron Age Norway (1-550 AD) at
http://arkeologi.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/weapons-graves-in-iron-age-norway-1-550.html

(Also at http://www.academia.edu/1970096/Weapon_graves_in_Iron_Age_Norway_1-550_AD_)

It's an interesting companion to the Ystgaard  study; ending in 550 it deals mostly with the "Roman" period, remarking only that there seems to be more regional variation after c.500. This one also throws a bit more light on how far the Roman-era warfare was Roman-influenced.