ABSTRACT
The emergence of trading sites and the increasing economic specialisation of trade and craft production have a central position in explanations for the social and political changes in European societies in the period c. ad 800–1200. This chapter highlights the extensive resource exploitation in the wooded and mountainous areas of southern Norway. It takes three different landscape types in the interior of South Norway as a starting point. These are areas that in many respects appear furthest away from the central trading sites that emerged along the coast of South Norway during the Viking Age and early Middle Ages. The chapter outlines their geographical, environmental and archaeological features, and describing recorded economic activities and resource exploitation. The three study areas lie in the inland region, which is usually referred to as 'the Uplands' in historical sources, including Historia Norwegie. In written medieval sources 'Upland' is usually a common name for the inland region of eastern Norway.
