ABSTRACT
This final chapter combines the various strands of evidence and argumentation presented in individual case study chapters and the chronological overview of hoards. The author offers answers to the main questions raised in the book: the hoards’ relationship with trade and bullion economy, and the light they may shed on the sheer amount of silver in circulation; the nature and function of trade centres and the fact that they may not have been indispensable for a fair amount of trading to occur; the nature of the different societies benefiting from the influx of silver in the Viking Age, with emphasis on the differences between them, and their use of it, with particular reference to the significance of containers and size of deposits as indicators of intention of retrieval. The author illustrates and quantifies the flows of silver into the Baltic zone within the wider framework of the Viking world, and outlines different ways the silver could have circulated in the three case study regions, with their different political and social conditions.
