The Earliest History of the Danes

Sønderborg Folkeuniversitet presents a lecture on the earliest history of the Danes - migrations and foreign relations in the 6th century CE.

The lecturer is historian and archaeologist Johan Zakarias Gårdsvoll, who has conducted extensive research into the sources of Danish origins. He is among other things co-author - together with Eske Willerslev - of an international DNA study in which biological material from Iron Age individuals has been DNA-sequenced and related to the associated archaeological find contexts.

The lecture covers the Danes' military conflicts and diplomacy with their nearest neighbours, viewed from a perspective spanning from Nydam on Sundeved to Ravenna in Italy and the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium. The Migration Period and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire form the background for new state formations, and source-critical analyses of contemporary written sources now make it possible to place these events in a Danish perspective.