Outer Archipelago Fishing as a Resource in the Societies of the Late Iron Age and Middle Ages

In the outer archipelago of the province of Södermanland in the east of middle Sweden, the remains of fishing camps are frequent. The remains consist of hut ruins, jetties and places where the fishermen dried their nets. The oldest fishing camps of this type are dated to the Viking Age or just before. Although the changes in society during centuries influenced the economic conditions for fishing, the kind of fishing that people were practicing in the outer archipelago, was almost the same until the beginning of the twentieth century. The fishing camps arose in a system of a manor economy where the aim was to supply the household of the manor with fish. Gradually this redistributive economy was changed into a market economy. The changes in the economy system influenced also the outer archipelago fishing. Anybody was able to fish. The only demand was that the fishermen had to pay a tax to the Crown or the nobleman who controlled the fishing camp.