great change. The Northmen were now so powerful that they made large settlements in the West, in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, &c.; and in the East, in Russia; which made Scandinavia, during several centuries, the central-point for an extensive commerce between the East, and the northern parts of Europe. Both by Viking expeditions, and by commerce, a higher civilization was brought from the West to the North. The many emigrations from Scandinavia weakened the power of the numerous small kingdoms; and when Christianity was introduced into the North, independent conquering kings formed three larger kingdoms, of which Denmark contained the flat, and fertile, portions; Norway the remote mountainous; and Sweden the transition parts. It was now, that the three principal Scandinavian tribes, the Norwegians, Swedes, and the Danish Goths, got each their king.
We have thus seen how the antiquities and barrows serve to prove, that the flat fertile Denmark must have been peopled earlier, than the northern parts of Sweden and Norway, which were full of immense forests and mountains. The monuments shew the peopling of Scandinavia in a natural point of view; which view finds confirmation, and that in a remarkable degree, rather than contradiction, in the most ancient and trustworthy of our historical records. Meantime, it is obvious, that most points of the present review of our subject can only receive their due explanation from future researches; for science is as yet too young to furnish us, at once, with all the explanations which we require.
It has therefore been the peculiar object of the present work, merely to collect and compare the results obtained by science, up to the present moment, with the information afforded by history, in order to prove, to how great a degree, the antiquities and barrows have already afforded, and doubtless will continue to afford, important and indispensable information, not only to the ancient history of the North; but, at the same time, to that of all Europe. With regard to the value of the information already acquired by these investigations into the monuments
