NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 35.

that one needs to reconsider the data for Nordic vessels and evaluate what these craft were actually used for in order to disentangle the myth of the everpresent warship. Subsequently, there is much interesting discussion of the physical attributes of different types of vessel, transport-routes and nd-distribution patterns (particularly of rivets), a discussion which will doubtless engineer plenty of detailed debate and which is very valuable. However, none of this adds much to Larssons core contention that only through a reconsideration of the reality of the data can one properly deconstruct the overriding popular myth of the Nordic ship which obscures our understanding. Her conclusion (pp.93 4) does not even mention this theory, so clear in her introduction! Too many chapters of By the Water fail to follow through between introduction and conclusion in this way, and it is a very great pity, for there is much hard work here by a number of exceptional scholars. That being said, there is much of value in By the Water. What is particularly welcome are the range of non-English sources used and less-well-known sites and materials discussed, opening these up to the English-speaking world. For instance, Niclas Bjrcks chapter on the coastal Neolithic in eastern Sweden (pp.1136) is an extremely useful consideration of coastal settlement practices for a period and region that maritime archaeology has had a tendency to ignore in favour of other more ostensibly maritime communities such as those of the Mesolithic and Bronze Ages. Similarly, Soa Anderssons Boundary Thinking: the Medieval Arena of Lake Vnern (pp.14269) and Johan Rnnbys concluding Lands End (pp.17091) about the island of Landsort in the southern Stockholm archipelago are both valuable additions to the growing body of regional analyses of zones of transport geography and maritime enclaves/ nichesconcepts of social, technological and geographical marine boundaries, both real and imagined. Studies such as these are particularly useful since they provide solid evidence for Westerdahls and others basic hypotheses about the functioning of such zones. Teigelake and Edbergs chapters, for all their faults, make a similar contribution to our understanding of such zones on inland waters. What is particularly interesting to note in By the Water is the emphasis placed on environmental determinism in the processual mould. Such a perspective, although popular elsewhere, has been deeply unfashionable within British archaeology since the advent of post-processualism in the mid 1980s. However, By the Water very reasonably demonstrates how an environmentally-deterministic perspective can be extremely valuable, particularly to maritime archaeology where there can be no doubt that the sea profoundly inuenced human behaviour. So long as the more unworkable large-scale, generalistic models to which environmental determinism has been prone are abandoned, there is nothing wrong in considering how the environment shaped human behaviour and
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thus the archaeological record. What is needed are subtle, small-scale studies of how humans act, and interact, in the maritime sphere. By the Water contains such studies; it also demonstrates how such an old school processual approach as environmental determinism can be usefully allied with a more poetic, post-processual interpretation of ancient societys more esoteric aspects and non-archaeological sources (see Rnnby, Blverket, Stockholm, 1995: 128). Beneting from each perspective, this combination of the best elements of processual and post-processual techniques allows the factional baggage that has bedevilled archaeologists since the rst growth of selfconsciously theoretical thinking in the 1960s to be shed. Books such as By the Water demonstrate how, through such developments, maritime archaeology is stepping out of the shadow of mainstream archaeology to develop self-consciously theoretical approaches, a distinctive maritime archaeological voice that does not slavishly follow trends but rather reects the complex realities of the distinctive maritime milieu. With so many ne contributions so much more is the pity that the full promise of By the Water was not met. But do not be disheartened: this reviewer for one has no doubt that this promise will be fullled soon enoughthere is too much good thinking here for it not to be. By the Water demonstrates that, as so often, our Scandinavian and Baltic colleagues are ahead of the rest of us. Let us have more books like this. JOE FLATMAN Institute of Archaeology, University College, London

Viking Empires
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ANGELO FORTE, RICHARD ORAM, and FREDERIK PEDERSEN 420 pp., 80 b&w illustration, 5 maps Cambridge University Press, Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK, 2005, 30 (hbk), ISBN 0-521-82992-5 This book is an ambitious undertaking. According to the introduction it is: A denitive new history of ve hundred years of Viking civilization and the rst study of the global implications of the expansion, integration and re-orientation of the Viking world. In the opinion of the present reviewer, this promise is not fullled. In the rst chapter, we read that: From its inception it was the purpose of the book to trace the history of Viking expansion both in the east and in the west. With the recent fall of the Iron Curtain there is a need for a re-evaluation of Scandinavian inuence across Eastern Europe, in particular in terms of the Scandinavian contribution to the regions military, commercial and dynastic development. However, this

2006 The Authors. Journal Compilation 2006 The Nautical Archaeology Society

REVIEWS

in itself would require a monograph, and early in our work we decided that the time was not yet right to embark upon such a venture. There went the global implications. There is a large literature on the Viking impact on Eastern Europe, on the role of Scandinavians in the formation of the Russian state, and on the trade between east and west. Trade has, among other things, resulted in a very large number of silver treasures with Arabian coins on the island of Gotland. I fail to understand why the fall of the Iron curtain has led the authors to exclude the eastern half of the Viking World. The book is mainly based on written sources and general historical and archaeological literature. Archaeology plays a minor part, and the rich numismatic evidence is not used at all. An unusual approach is the chronological framework. The book goes back to the birth of Christ, and traces the formation of early political structures in Scandinavia, mainly Denmark, as an introduction to the Viking Age. At the other end, the usual dates for the end of the Viking Age, in the mid-11th century, are rejected. For Scotland, the last date given is the treaty of Perth in 1266. It can be debated if this is a good idea or not. The political development in Scandinavia and the former Viking lands after the end of pagan belief in Scandinavia is usually seen as common European medieval history. The story of raids, colonisation and trade is told in chapters divided both in time and space. This means that the same events are treated several times, with some repetition. One of the authors is a specialist on the medieval history of Scotland, and this is seen in the very detailed treatment of Shetland, Orkney, Northern Scotland and the Irish Sea. I am not a specialist in this topic, but the presentation is clear and to the point as far as I can judge. The very detailed text would be much easier to read if more detailed maps and some genealogical tables had been included. Other parts of Viking settlement, like Normandy, are treated in a much more cursory way. The two chapters on the North Atlantic expansion and sailing are good, and it is gratifying, for once, to see the so called bearing dial from Greenland being rejected as a navigation instrument. The text is full of unnecessary mistakes, giving the impression of a book written too fast and without the necessary quality control. Have the publishers stopped using consultants? I will give a few examples: On p.34, Smland is a small island, mentioned with Gotland and land: a few pages earlier, it is correctly described as part of mainland Sweden. On p.47 Kaupang is located on the west coast of Norway, on p.52 it is correctly placed on the west coast of the Oslo fjord, which is in eastern Norway. On p.73 the well-known grave slab from St Pauls in London with an animal in the Ringerike style is dated to the 870s instead of the early 11th century, and the four-legged lion-like animal is seen as Odins eight-legged horse Sleipner.

On p.137 the building of the Long Serpent is described after Snorre Sturlasons Heimskringla. The translation given is at best controversial, in my opinion, wrong. On p.148 the metal copper is called a pigment. On p.174 the city of Bergen is a new, planned foundation from towards the end of the 12th century. A large re is recorded in the city of Bergen in 1170, so the city must be older. On p.180 the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair is described as a militant Christian. According to the saga, he was denitely militant in his many battles to unite Norway under his rule, but nothing is said about whether he was pagan or Christian. Before 900 AD in Norway, pagan is more probable. Page 352 states that king Olaf was killed at Stiklestad in a battle against Canute of Denmark. Some of Olafs opponents were allied with Canute, but he was not directly involved in the battle. On p.372 the four Danish brothers, successively kings of Denmark, are the sons of Estrid instead of grandsons. The authors have clearly read a lot about the Viking Age. It is evident that one or more of them is able to use Scandinavian literature. There is a denite bias towards Danish publications. Of the works listed in the bibliography, 280 are in English, 45 in Danish, 10 in Norwegian, 6 in Swedish, 2 in Icelandic/Old Norse, 12 in German and 18 in Latin. In some cases, the choice of source is strange. The Norse settlement at LAnse aux Meadows on Newfoundland has B. Wallaces paper in Acta Archaeologica as the only source; the 2volume report by Anne Stine and Helge Ingstad on the discovery and excavation is not listed. The Danish historian Aksel E. Christensen and the undersigned have been treated as one person in the bibliography. The choice of illustrations is a bit surprising. Out of 70 illustrations, 13 are of medieval buildings. Other illustrations, of sites and monuments related to Viking activities, are more to the point. Only three are of artefacts from the Viking Age, and ten are of the replicas of the Skuldelev ships. The authors must have had a great time in Roskilde, sailing and rowing the replicas. As a conclusion; the authors should be congratulated on the idea of looking at the Viking Age from a new angle. Sadly enough, the result is rather disappointing. ARNE EMIL CHRISTENSEN University Museum of Cultural History, Oslo

Land Sea and Home: Proceedings of a Conference on Viking Period Settlement

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(Society for Medieval Archaeology, Monograph 20) JOHN HINES, ALAN LANE and MARK REDKNAP (eds) 482 pp., 156 b&w illustrations Maney Publishing, Hudson Road, Leeds LS9 7DL, UK, 2004, 54/$98, ISBN 1-904350-25-9
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2006 The Authors. Journal Compilation 2006 The Nautical Archaeology Society