This is the fifth and last volume in a series presenting the results of one of Scandinavia's most important excavations, carried out in the town of Ribe in southern Denmark from 1970-76. There, researchers extracted remains of a permanent settlement and marketplace founded in 704-710. The findings revealed an 8th-century trading site of a character never seen before in the Scandinavian region, and this has put Denmark in a new light in North-European development of this period. Volume 5 compares the results of the excavations in the 1970s with those made in the following decade. A team of scholars from the humanities and natural sciences have contributed articles that examine different perspectives of the subject. Like the entire series, the present volume, containing rich material from the little-known 8th century in Scandinavia, is an important contribution to research in the history of civilization.