Original version
Complexity and Dynamics. Settlement and landscape from the Bronze Age to the Renaissance in the Nordic Countries (1700 BC–AD 1600). 2023, 85-97
Abstract
Sickles and other reaping tools made of iron were taken into use as late as 200 BC in central Scandinavia, even though iron was known several hundred years earlier. This delay inspires two related questions: why did Scandinavians not take advantage of iron earlier; and why did they start around 200 BC? According to earlier research, this late utilization of iron was due to hostility to new technology. This paper suggests that the acceptance of new technology coincides with a year without a summer, caused by a volcanic eruption or other climatic disturbances in 207 BC. I argue that the bad year caused a scared population to open their minds to new technological solutions. The settlement at Dilling, where excavation results have proved so interesting, was located on the stone-free marine plains where the new iron tool was more effective than on the stony moraine, and the larger amount of fodder each person could harvest made it feasible and possibly desirable to keep cattle close to the settlement, thereby decreasing the use of forests and outfields for grazing. More cattle and possibly a new way to treat the dung made manuring better and the span between fallow periods longer, thereby making it possible or desirable to stay longer at a settlement and to build houses that lasted longer.