‘The defense of threatened peoples is archaeologically demonstrated by fortifications, dykes and underwater barriers as well as ring forts. … The datings cluster in two periods, the Late Roman - Early Migration period (third to fifth centuries), and the Viking Age (tenth to eleventh centuries). The first is contemporary with the many sacrifices of spoils-of-war, the second with a period when written sources are available. … The first period could be characterised as one of tribal warfare, in which the many polities were forced to join larger confederations through the pressure of endemic warfare and conquests …. In this period, the inhabitants of South Scandinavia too were "peoples in arms", as Herwig Wolfram has expressed it … . In the archaeological record, the indicators of war seem to disappear after AD 500, not to reappear in large numbers till the Viking Age. Was this period Pax Danorum, as suggested by Ian Wood? I think that the silent archaological record indeed could indicate that the Danes had won almost total hegemony in the eastern North Sea basin and the south-westen Baltic. Thus this phase can be understood as a period of consolidation between an early phase of tribal warfare and a later phase in which territorial defense of the Danish kingdom becomes visible in the record.’
{This is in ’perfect' agreement with Håkon Melberg's hypothesis, "Origin ...", p760: (concluding the discussion of literary and archaeological findings):
‘These proto-Danish immigrants overran part of the Danish Isles and launched a northward drive to annex Central Sweden, with its iron-ore resources, and after this increase of their power they struck southward again to incorporate Zealand and set up the Kingdom of Denmark. That was the first major phase in the creation of the Scandinavian nations by the Danes. Thenceforward Denmark continued to pour bands and armies of conquerors into the Scandinavian peninsula. .. The decades about A.D. 200 and the third quarter of the 6th century A.D. are the two termini marking the total span of time in which the Danes carved out and consolidated Norway and Greater Sweden... The almost constant axis in that long politico-strategic and ethnic process were the Danish Isles and Danicised Central Sweden. Two particularly vehement outbursts of aggression occurred in the second half of the 5th century and the first part of the 6th, all building up to a climax about A.D. 560. Those years saw military operations on an unprecedented scale.. so decisive that they initiated an epoch of inter-Scandinavian peace.'
In time scale it also coincides with the period in which the hill forts played an important role in Norway, according to Dagfinn Skre in his description of the development on Romerike i "Herredømmet ..."}
I think this provides some of the archaeological support that Melberg was looking for. To me it looks like the archaeologists now are developing a picture very similar to the one Melberg derived on a basis of mainly linguistic and ethnic nomenclature studies. It is a pity that it took 50 years, and that Melberg's work still is unknown.
In addition to the paper by Ulf Näsman I read two other excellent papers in "The Making of Kingdoms. Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History", (This interesting book is still scarce in Norway, one copy in Oslo, and that one missing, probably because an eager student or researcher has hidden it for exclusive use in a remote place in the shelves, so I had to borrow it from Uppsala), namely Morten Axboe's paper "Towards the Kingdom of Denmark." and Jan Peder Lamm's paper "The Bracteate of the Century - the new find of a unique Migration Period bracteate in Uppland, Sweden".
Fig. 1 in Lamm's paper, (after K. Hauck) shows the geographical distribution of the bracteate finds, concentrated in south Norway, in particular Rogaland, south Sweden, and Denmark. Seen together with Svante Norr's suggestion in "To Rede and to Rown", p 173 '... the early runic inscriptions on, for example, the gold bracteates of the Migration Period ... were probably less important as texts than as social markings ...' . Should the bracteates be considered only as trade goods, or is it more reasonable to see them as identifiers of a ruling class, naturally with a high concentration at the centres of power?Morten Axboe analyses the gradual concentration of power in Denmark, p. 114:
'Finally, in the 6th century we have the first historical sources mentioning the Danes, who are said to derive from the Swedes and to have driven the Heruli from their ancient homelands ... The Danes by then had established themselves as a power of importance in Northern Europe. ... The lords of Himlinghøje hardly set out to "win all Denmark" - they would not have understood what we were talking about...' This remark starts an interesting chain of observations:1) There was no such thing as Denmark before the area was won and controlled by the Danes.
2) Whatever the goal, they set out and they won, and more than present-day Denmark. Even up to Ottar's time it probably included the south western part of present Sweden. At the time of the bracteates it is not unlikely that it included both South Sweden and South Norway, cfr. concentrations of bracteates (and early runic inscriptions ?). (In addition to the evidence of the homogeneity of the 'oldnorse' language)
3) There was no such thing as 'Norwegians' before the concept of 'Nor(th)way' was established, and in some way delimited.
4) It is not reasonable to assume that this name could have been chosen by people born and raised in the area.
5) To a Northwards expanding people, 'Nor(th)way' would be a natural name to apply.