A replica Viking longboat inward the Up Helly Aa festival inward Lerwick, Shetland Islands. The Norse warrior race dominated European seas inward the eighth century.
Photograph: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty
Vikings conquered Europe thank you lot to an unexpected technological innovation. They learned how to brand tar on an industrial scale as well as used it to waterproof their longships then that they could undertake large-scale, lengthy pillaging trips closed to Europe – as well as across the Atlantic, nation archaeologists. Norse raiders were the original Boys from the Blackstuff, it transpires.
The regain is the operate of Andreas Hennius, of Uppsala University. In Antiquity, he reports finding critical show that shows output from tar pits inward Scandinavia increased dramatically but every bit Vikings began raiding other parts of Europe. These pits could cause got made upward to 300 litres inward a unmarried production cycle, plenty to waterproof large numbers of ships. “Tar production … developed from a small-scale action … into large-scale production that relocated to forested outlands during the Viking period,” says Hennius. “This modify … resulted from the increasing need for tar driven past times an evolving maritime culture.”
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