The Prehistory of Denmark - From the Stone Age to the Vikings

Some 15,000 years ago, man looked out for the first time over the desolate, windswept landscape of northern Europe which has only much closer to the present – for about the last millennium – borne the name of Denmark.

In time hunters and gatherers made these northern regions habitable. Around 6000 years ago agriculture and a more settled way of life gained a foothold.

Since the nineteenth century the long millennia of prehistory have been divided into three main periods called after the principal material for making everyday implements and weapons. The Stone Age ended around 4000 years ago and was succeeded by the Bronze Age, which was followed some 2500 years ago by the Iron Age, the later part of which, around 800 AD, gradually became the Viking Era. A thousand years ago, ‘prehistory’ came to an end in Denmark. All of our knowledge of Nordic prehistory comes from artefacts found in the soil and our interpretation of them.

The fantastic grand narrative of the movements and settlements of mankind through 15,000 years in the geographical area that is Denmark today has been told by the archaeologist Jørgen Jensen (1936-2008), dr.phil. and for many years a curator at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.

For more than 150 years Danish archaeology has flourished internationally thanks to its methods and large, well documented quantities of finds.

This book is an abridged and slightly updated version of Jørgen Jensen’s four-volume work 'Danmarks Oldtid', which was published in 2001-2004.