The State and the Strangers: The Role of External Forces in a Process of State Formation in Viking-Age South Scandinavia (c. AD 900–1050)

Abstract

This contribution focuses upon the role of external forces (strangers) in state formation. In many societies, the process of state formation appears to have conflicted with traditional patterns of social organization, which constrained the leading promoters of the state. In this situation, the incorporation of a third party of agents constitutes a potential strategy for those promoters to bypass the established order of society and implement a new organizational structure. Based on this assumption, archaeological data relating to a particular process of state formation, namely Viking-Age south Scandinavia (c. 900–1050), are evaluated. Individuals and groups of people of foreign origin are identified in the context of runic monuments, settlements, burials, and treasure finds. The roles of these ‘strangers’ in internal social affairs and the presuppositions and consequences of their involvement are discussed. It is argued that they functioned as influential catalysts, not only in the implementation of structural principles of state organization, but also in its later collapse.