Highlights

•Violence-induced skeletal trauma is frequent in Viking Age Norway, rare in Denmark.

•Viking Age weapons (swords) were more numerous in Norway than Denmark.

•Rune stones and earthworks reveal Denmark to be more stratified than Norway.

•Where present, robust centres of authority helped contain violence in Scandinavia.

•Norway and Denmark were distinct societies in the Viking Age.

Among the findings: weapons and interpersonal violence in Norway was much more widespread than in Denmark, and the social pyramid in Denmark was progressively steeper and more complex than in Norway.

“Official” executions accounted for the preponderance of violence in Denmark, while rare in Norway.

Denmark was evidently a more “civilianized” society than Norway.

The comparative research supports the primary proposition. The research, furthermore, suggests that Denmark and Norway were sociologically distinct societies, which accords with recent findings that the respective regions displayed distinct, though still similar, genetic profiles.