Collapse_ How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Jared Diamond [110]
The prelude to the Iceland and Greenland fugues was the Viking explosion that burst upon medieval Europe after A.D. 793, from Ireland and the Baltic to the Mediterranean and Constantinople. Recall that all the basic elements of medieval European civilization arose over the previous 10,000 years in or near the Fertile Crescent, that crescent-shaped area of Southwest Asia from Jordan north to southeastern Turkey and then east to Iran. From that region came the world’s first crops and domestic animals and wheeled transport, the mastery of copper and then of bronze and iron, and the rise of towns and cities, chiefdoms and kingdoms, and organized religions. All of those elements gradually spread to and transformed Europe from southeast to northwest, beginning with the arrival of agriculture in Greece from Anatolia around 7000 B.C. Scandinavia, the corner of Europe farthest from the Fertile Crescent, was the last part of Europe to be so transformed, being reached by agriculture only around 2500 B.C. It was also the corner farthest from the influence of Roman civilization: unlike the area of modern Germany, Roman traders never reached it, nor did it share any boundary with the Roman Empire. Hence, until the Middle Ages, Scandinavia remained Europe’s backwater.
Yet Scandinavia possessed two sets of natural advantages awaiting exploitation: the furs of northern forest animals, seal skins, and beeswax prized as luxury imports in the rest of Europe; and (in Norway as in Greece) a highly indented coastline, making travel by sea potentially faster than travel by land, and offering rewards to those who could develop seafaring techniques. Until the Middle Ages, Scandinavians had only oar-propelled rowboats without sails. Sailboat technology from the Mediterranean finally reached Scandinavia around A.D. 600, at a time when climatic warming and the arrival of improved plows happened to be stimulating food production and a human population explosion in Scandinavia. Because most of Norway is steep and mountainous, only 3% of its land area can be used for agriculture, and that arable land was coming under increasing population pressure by A.D. 700, especially in western Norway. With decreasing opportunities to establish new farms back at home, Scandinavia’s growing population began expanding overseas. Upon the arrival of sails, Scandinavians quickly developed fast, shallow-draft, highly maneuverable, sailed-and-rowed ships that were ideal for carrying their luxury exports to eager buyers in Europe and Britain. Those ships let them cross the ocean but then also pull up on any shallow beach or row far up rivers, without being confined to the few deepwater harbors.
But for medieval Scandinavians, as for other seafarers throughout history, trading paved the way for raiding. Once some Scandinavian traders had discovered sea routes to rich peoples who could pay for furs with silver and gold, ambitious younger brothers of those traders realized that they could acquire that same silver and gold without paying for it. Those ships used for trade could also be sailed and rowed over those same sea routes to arrive by surprise at coastal and riverside towns, including ones far inland on rivers. Scandinavians became Vikings, i.e., raiders. Viking ships and sailors were fast enough compared to those elsewhere in Europe that they could escape before being overtaken by the locals’ slower ships, and Europeans never attempted counterraids on the Viking homelands to destroy their bases. The lands that are now Norway and Sweden were then not yet united under single kings, but