From the 8th century to the 11th century, some Scandinavians, as a stronghold of Scandinavia Peninsula, exploited westward to Iceland and Greenland, even Canada, south to mainland Western Europe and southwest to Britain and Ireland. Tyranny and poor living conditions might be the main reasons for their invasion (Owen 1999 10). There are two invader sources, one was from Norway, we called them ‘Norse’, the other was from Denmark, we called them ‘Danelaw’. At the beginning of the Vikings’ expansion, piracy and trade are the main elements. After a period of time, they began to settle down in the colonies. This essay will be focus on the Viking settlements in Britain. Figure 1 shows that both of Norse and Danelaw had influenced …show more content…
There is only one longhouse built in wood in this site had been used for a long time which may belong to a family farm. The Vikings usually demolished the old house, and then setup a new house on the old one. Those relative small rooms also had a fireplace, may be used for baking, brewing or crop processing. The second earliest house are made of stones with more than 14 meters long with rounded corners slightly curved walls and a cobbled forecourt. Its main living room more than 10 meters long and a fireplace in the middle of the room. A short corridor connected the room with another small square room which had a fireplace. There are two small stone buildings beside them, arranged in right angles to the abandoned houses. One possibility is an outbuilding and another in niches found a large piece of pottery plate (Owen 1999, 46). Besides, there is an internal more than 8 meters long, up to four meters wide fine Nordic longhouse, one end of the house may be separated by wooden planks. A piece of silver and a whale bone paddle were found in the fireplace and some fine spicules, flint and other living utensils in the earth floor. The last one has a small area which is about seven meters …show more content…
The development of these settlements changed the original custom of Viking activity, in other words, it ended the traditional explanation of invasion and looting in the Viking period in the Britain Isles (Hall 1990, 22). The Vikings made a great contribution in the expansion of the European territory, re-molding the political structure, the establishment of a powerful country, and stimulate business and encourage the development of cities and towns (Owen 1999, 7). In many places of England and Scotland, there are still a lot of their