After analyzing the DNA that was extracted from the bones of medieval cod, scientists were able to establish that more than a thousand years ago, the Vikings traded fish almost throughout Europe.
According to James Barrett of the British University of Cambridge, the fish trade became one of the factors that gradually linked different parts of Europe together in the Middle Ages. One of the main shopping centers in the early Middle Ages was Hedeby. This is the place where north and south met, Christians - with pagans, civilized nations - with barbarians who did not recognize money.
In the past few years, scientists have managed to establish many details and life not only of Europe, but also of other parts of the world in antiquity, when writing did not yet exist. All these data were obtained thanks to the discovery of a technique for extracting DNA from the remains of living things (animals and people), as well as a certain fusion of archeology and chemistry.
Archaeologists, geneticists and chemists have established when humans learned to drink milk and keep livestock, when beer, cheese and other foods were invented, when Europeans began to prepare food and store it in pots. In addition, scientists learned that the first Vikings appeared on the territory of Scandinavia about ten thousand years ago.
Barrett and his colleagues managed to uncover another ancient historical mystery that related to the appearance of the first Vikings and confirmed the hypothesis that is popular at present, the essence of which boils down to the fact that the Scandinavians were originally traders, and only later became pirates and conquerors. The researchers came to a similar conclusion after studying the DNA of cod, the remains of which were found in one of the largest trade centers located in the north of Europe (we are talking about Hedeby, which was located in the south of the medieval Kingdom of the Danes, the Viking state on the territory of modern northern Germany and Denmark) …
The DNA in the cod remains was well preserved due to the cold climate and other favorable conditions. Thanks to this, scientists were able to restore mitochondrial DNA, which makes it possible to trace the pedigree of its owner, as well as the entire genome of the fish. Thus, historians have established where this cod was caught and what species it belonged to.
Scientists were extremely surprised when they found that almost all the cod that got into most of the shopping centers of future Denmark and Germany, including Hedeby, was caught a thousand kilometers from these territories, in the Arctic waters of the Atlantic and in the vicinity of the modern Lofoten Islands. (Norway).
The discovery is of great interest for several reasons, Barrett said. First of all, it testifies that the first Vikings were engaged in the sale of cod and swam thousands of kilometers in order to make a sale or exchange for those goods that interested them. In addition, this discovery indicates that the first European shopping centers appeared much earlier than scientists thought until recently.
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In addition, this discovery indicates that the tradition of Norwegian dried cod production originated in the Lofoten Islands about a thousand years ago, having survived to this day almost in its original form. According to the chronicles of the early Middle Ages, the Vikings could have started catching, drying and selling fish as early as the fifth century AD.
Thus, the researchers conclude, all these data make the story of the transformation of the Scandinavians from peaceful traders into robbers who terrified peaceful countries even more interesting and exciting.