Outland Networks– transports and exchange in the global north (AD 0-1300) (OUTNET)

Time period:

1 December 2025 – 30 November 2028

Project leader:

Andreas Hennius

Project member:

John Ljungkvist, Eva Svensson

Funder:

Swedish Research Council

Type of award:

Project grant

Total funding:

4,809,000 SEK

This project will explore the networks that connected the outland areas in the north with central agrarian regions in southern Scandinavia during the Iron Age and Early Medieval period (0-1300AD). Several studies have been made on the diversity of resources and production, from forests and mountains in the north and the presence of these materials in central agrarian regions. However, there is still no satisfying understanding or models covering the complete process from extraction, refinement, storage, transportation and exchange of resources, from the mountains to the coast.  The aim of the OUTNET project is to unravel the networks connecting the outland production areas with the central regions and elite environments in agrarian Scandinavia by identifying and analysing the intermediate trading sites and transportation routes. For this purpose, we will develop a method for detecting smaller nodal points in the landscape, which will be useful also beyond this study. This will be done through detailed landscape analyses, including registered monuments and finds, retrogressive methods, field surveying and metal detecting.The role of the outland resource extraction has lately been identified as a missing link to understand the societal development during the late Iron Age and a key component to understand the development of trade and urbanisation during the Viking Age.