Norway’s three northernmost counties, Nordland, Troms and Finnmark, constitute North Norway, where two peoples lived side by side but also geographically separated during the period of time in focus here; the Late Iron Age (AD 600–1050). Germanic people, partly living by farming and stock keeping, settled the outermost coastal areas of Nordland and Troms. The Sami are believed also to have been present in these areas but most Sami foragers lived in the inner fiord systems, in the interior and in Finnmark.
Graves are an important Iron Age category of finds, especially so when it comes to blacksmith’s tools, of which all have been found in graves; therefore, burial traditions are crucial to our knowledge of this period. Our understanding of the Sami and the Germanic peoples is influenced by their practice of different burial traditions. Most Sami Iron Age graves are from Finnmark but they are almost nonexistent in parts of Nordland and Troms where the Germanic settlements dominate. Thus our knowledge of the Sami Iron Age presence in these areas is particularly incomplete (Figure 18.1).
The Norwegian Iron Age blacksmith has usually been considered to be a socially powerful man of high status (Hagen 1967, 215; Sjøvold 1974, 306) but other statuses related to the blacksmith’s craft have not been much emphasized in traditional archaeological literature. Archaeological and ethnoarchaeological studies have shown that such statuses may have influenced his social standing as much as his craftsman-like skills (Saltman et al. 1986; Barndon 1992; 2001; 2004; Herbert 1993; Rijal 1998; Haaland et al. 2002; Haaland 2004). This paper will explore the craft of the blacksmiths in northern Norway during the Late Iron Age: was he a smith primarily or was he involved in iron production? Did he exclusively work with iron or did he work soft metals as well? What was the blacksmith’s social standing?
Some of the above mentioned studies emphasize magic and ethnicity as being important in determining who practiced blacksmithing. Any magical connotation to the craft of the blacksmith is likely to have had an impact on his social standing. Also, in a land of two peoples, was ethnicity a factor regulating who worked as a blacksmith? Ethnicity is not easily recognizable in the archaeological material and thus it can be a dubious category to employ. My study is primarily based on archaeological material, but I have also made use of written evidence, like the Nordic sagas and post-medieval sources to get a better understanding of the non-material aspects of the role of the blacksmith.