where did the vikings orginate?

Question

i really really want to know where the vikings orginated?? please help

Answer 1

Try these sites, they may help:

Answer 2

The Norse were a people group from the area also known as Scandinavia - the modern countries of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

"Viking" was an activity some (but not all) Norse people participated in. "Viking" come from an Old Norse word meaning "detour". Thus, a "vikingr" (to use the Norse form), was one who "turned away" from normal, everyday activities, to do something different - like raiding England or France, sailing west for Iceland.

The Viking Age stretched from the 8th to 11th centuries. There are many theories about why the Norse turned to viking, among them the popular one that the Medieval Warm Period had raised the population, creating internal pressures for which going viking was an outlet (however, this is disputed by some scholars).

Answer 3

Norway

Answer 4

Scandinavia.

Answer 5

also called Norseman, or Northman, member of the Scandinavian seafaring warriors who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the 9th to the 11th century and whose disruptive influence profoundly affected European history. These pagan Danish,Norwegian, and Swedish warriors were probably prompted to undertake their raids by a combination of factors ranging from overpopulation at home to the relative helplessness of victims abroad.

The Vikings were made up of landowning chieftains and clan heads, their retainers, freemen, and any energetic young clan members who sought adventure and booty overseas. At home these Scandinavians were independent farmers, but at sea they were raiders and pillagers. During the Viking period the Scandinavian countries seem to have possessed a practically inexhaustible surplus of manpower, and leaders of ability, who could organize groups of warriors into conquering bands and armies, were seldom lacking. These bands would negotiate the seas in their longships and mount hit-and-run raids at cities and towns along the coasts of Europe. Their burning, plundering, and killing earned them the name vikingr, meaning “pirate” in the early Scandinavian languages.

The exact ethnic composition of the Viking armies is unknown in particular cases, but the Vikings' expansion in the Baltic lands and in Russia can reasonably be attributed tothe Swedes. On the other hand, the nonmilitary colonization of the Orkneys, Faroes, and Iceland was clearly due to the Norwegians.
The thick ice cap that covered Sweden during the last glacial period began to recede in the southern region about 14,000 years ago. About 12,000 years later the earliest hunters in the region began following migratory paths behind the retreating ice field. The stratified clay deposits that were left annually by the melting ice have been studied systematically by Swedish geologists, who have developed a dependable system of geochronology that verifies the dates of the thaw. The first traces of human life in Sweden, dating from about 9000 BC, were found at Segebro outside Malmö in the extreme southern reaches of Sweden. Finds from the peat at Ageröd in Skåne dated to 6500 BC reveal a typical food-gathering culture with tools of flint and primitive hunting and fishing equipment, such as the bow and arrow and the fishing spear. New tribes, practicing agriculture and cattle raising, made their appearance about 2500 BC, and soon afterward a peasant culture with good continental communications was flourishing in what are now the provinces of Skåne, Halland, Bohuslän, and Västergötland. The so-called Boat-Ax culture (an outlier of the European Battle-Ax cultures) arrived about 2000 BC and spread rapidly. During the Neolithic Period, southern and central Sweden displayed the aspects of a homogeneous culture, with central European trade links; in northern Sweden the hunting culture persisted throughout the Stone and Bronze ages.

Settlers became familiar with copper and bronze around 1500 BC. Information about Sweden's Bronze Age has been obtained by studying rock carvings and relics of the period, as, for example, the ornate weapons of chieftains and other decorative items preserved in the earth. The early Bronze Age (c. 1500–1000 BC) was also characterized by strong continental trade links, notably with the Danube River basin. Stone Age burial customs (skeleton sepulture, megalithic monuments) were gradually replaced by cremation. Rock carvings suggest a sun cult and fertility rites. Upheavals on the continent, combined with Celtic expansion, seem to have interrupted (c. 500 BC) bronzeimports to Scandinavia, and a striking poverty of finds characterizes the next few centuries. The climate, comparatively mild since the Neolithic Period, deteriorated, necessitating new farming methods. At this time, iron reached the north.

For the early Iron Age (c. 400 BC–c. AD 1) the finds are also relatively scanty, showing only sporadic contacts with the La Tène culture, but they become more abundant from the Roman Iron Age (c. AD 1–400) onward. The material from this period shows that Sweden had developed a culture of its own, although naturally reflecting external influences.

Trade links between the Roman Empire and Scandinavia gave Rome some knowledgeof Sweden. The Germania (written AD 98) of Tacitus gives the first description of the Svear, or Suiones (Swedes), stated to be powerful in men, weapons, and fleets. Other ancient writers who mention Scandinavia are Ptolemy, Jordanes, and Procopius.


The Viking Age

At the beginning of this period a number of independent tribes were settled in what is now Sweden, and their districts are still partly indicated by the present divisions of the country. The Swedes were centred in Uppland, around Uppsala. Farther south the Gotär lived in the agricultural lands of Östergötland and Västergötland. The absence of historical sources makes it impossible to trace the long process by which these provinces were formed into a united and independent state. The historical events leading to unification are reflected darkly in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf—which gives the earliest known version of the word sveorice, svearike, sverige (Sweden)—and also in the Old Norse epic Ynglingatal, contained in the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson.

Answer 6

Norway, really sturdy people.