Shipbuilding in Ancient Scandinavia: Neolithic Era to the Iron Age

If you've ever taken a look at Scandinavia, you'd notice that it mostly consists of hills, mountains, forests, and, more of the same. Breaking up this rough monotony are a profusion of fjords, lakes and rivers. Thanks to these waterways, Nordics could travel between two points much quicker than by land. This would give rise to a hardy, seafaring culture that would persist to this day. Nordic history has always been driven by the technological and societal innovations tied to travel by water.

Finland for example, is sometimes called the land of a thousand lakes - Finland has approximately 187,000 lakes, making up 10% of its total land area. This was very useful for its primordial population, whose economy was entirely centered around hunting and gathering. When you've harvested all the berries in an area, or hunted all the animals, you had to move on. During winter, you could easily travel over snow and ice using skis and sleighs. Nordic winter transportation is a video for another day however. During summer, they used boats.

Sources:
Viking Longship - Osprey Publishing
Finlands Historia - Torsten Edgren, Lena Törnblom
Ship and Society: Maritime Ideology in Late Iron Age Sweden - Gunilla Larsson

0:00 Neolithic Shipbuilding
4:48 Bronze Age Shipbuilding
8:24 Iron Age Shipbuilding
11:54 Conclusion
12:47 give me money