SUCHAŃ, POLAND—Archaeologists have returned to northern Poland to examine a site that may have been inhabited by Scandinavian settlers 1,500 years ago. In 2006, single-sided coins known as bracteates, metal pendants, and a ring, all resembling artifacts from Bornholm, Denmark, were discovered on the surface of the site. The bracteates bear an image of a rider on horseback and rune inscriptions on the rims. Recent aerial and geophysical surveys suggest that the settlement was inhabited for hundreds of years. “Findings to date suggest a very significant infiltration of Scandinavian elites from the area of southern Sweden and Bornholm to the areas of Western Pomerania in Late Antiquity, which probably were the point of origin of the later Viking influence in these areas,” Aleksander Bursche of the University of Warsaw explained to Science & Scholarship in Poland. To read about Scandinavian warriors in the early Middle Ages, see ARCHAEOLOGY's "The First Vikings."
