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History of Denmark
Ancient Denmark
People lived in what is today Denmark more than 100,000 years ago, but they were likely forced to leave for a time because of the ice cap that covered the land for some of the intervening time during the ice age. It is thought that people have lived continually in Denmark since around 12,000 BC. Agriculture made inroads around 3,000 BC. The Nordic Bronze Age period in Denmark was marked by a culture which buried its dead, with their worldly goods, beneath burial mounds. Many dolmens and rock tombs (especially "passage graves") date from this period. Among the many bronze finds from this period are beautiful religious artifacts and musical instruments, and the earliest evidence of social classes and stratification.
During the Pre-Roman Iron Age (500 BC - 1 AD), the climate in Denmark and southern Scandinavia became cooler and wetter, limiting agriculture and setting the stage for native groups to migrate southward into Germania. At around this time, people began to extract iron from the ore in peat bogs. Evidence of strong Celtic cultural influence dates from this period in Denmark and much of northwest Europe, and is reflected in some of the older place names.
The Roman provinces, whose frontiers stopped short of Denmark, nevertheless maintained trade routes and relations with Danish peoples, attested by finds of Roman coins. About AD 200 the first runic inscription appeared. Depletion of cultivated land in the last century BC seems to have contributed to increasing migrations in northern Europe and increasing conflict of Teutonic tribes with Roman settlements in Gaul. Roman artifacts are especially common in finds from the first century AD. It seems clear that some part of the Danish warrior aristocracy served in the Roman army.
Occasionally people were killed and thrown in bogs during this time. They are known as bog bodies. Today these people are uncovered very well preserved and are valuable resources of information about the people who lived in Denmark during this period.
The Germanic Iron Age
The material culture of northern Europe during the mass migrations of the 5th-7th centuries is referred to as the Germanic Iron Age. Among the most well-known remains from the period are the "peat bog corpses," among those the well-preserved bodies of two men deliberately strangled.
Middle ages
Earliest literary sources
Widsith and Beowulf and by later Scandinavian writers, notably Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1200) provide some of the earliest descriptions of Danish culture. Much is mythical and legendary. Like Homer an earlier culture is described imperfectly from a later perspective. However, they may contain some historical facts.
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