Baltic Finnic and Scandinavian Social Interaction in the Fur-hunting North, c AD 700-1200

IN CURRENT VIKING-AGE STUDIES, slaves are brought forward as the main commodity creating the flow of dirhams from Islamic regions to Eurasia and Scandinavia. This article instead stresses Pre-Viking and later fur hunting as the primary factor driving the Svear and other Scandinavian peoples eastwards and it presents the geographical and economic shifts in the eastern fur trade from the 7th century to the High Middle Ages. Through artefacts, scientific analyses and written sources we can show how the social impact of different actors at the northern end of the fur-trade network varied over time. In this way, a new picture of Scandinavian expansion to the east emerges with a higher chronological resolution, one that emphasises a more prominent role played by the Baltic Finns and the Sámi.