Among the mechanisms driving social evolution, population size and growth are among the most important. With regard to Swedish history, the study of the dynamics of demographic development in Sweden during the first millennium was carried out by many scientists, including the archaeologist O. Hienstrand. At the beginning of the XI century. for East Götaland 6,500 people are assumed, for Western Götaland - 5,700 people, for Småland - 7,800 people, Halland (southwest coast) - 1,200 people, Bohuslän (north of Halland, where modern Gothenburg is) - 3,000 people, Blekinge (a small part of the southern coast east of Skane) - 600 people, Öland (an island stretching along the southeastern coast of Sweden) - 1,700 people, Dalsland-Värmland (the very west of central Sweden, on border with Norway) - 1,300 people, Närke (in the center of central Sweden, known as part of Svejaland, from the southeast bordered with Eastern Götaland) - 890 people, Helsingland (located north of Uplandia, mentioned by Adam Bremen as a region, located to the north of the Sveons and inhabited by the Skridfinns, i.e. the Sami) - 690 people.
Hienstrand's work also provides more extensive demographic statistics for the Malaren region, in which, to show the dynamics of demographic development, data are provided from the first centuries AD: 100, 500 and 1050. the beginning of our era (100), presumably there were 3,000 people, by the beginning of the 6th century. (500 years) - 9,500 people. and, accordingly, by the end of the Viking era, as it was given in the text of the article, 40,000/43,000 people. But then in the IX century. in the most populated part of Svejaland, under equal favorable conditions, there could be no more than 30,000 people.
We do not have data on what lands were still under the hand of the Svei king. It is only known that the process of unification around the Uppsala dynasty took place slowly and was stretched over centuries. Most likely, the core of the Svei lands did not go beyond the Melaren region. But the number of the population, which, including the elderly, the sick, women and children, was no more than 30,000 people, is clearly not enough to provide both material and human resources for those grandiose trips to Eastern Europe that modern Normans dream of.
In addition to the size of the population, sociopolitical evolution is influenced by such a factor as the absence of "crowding" or environmental constraints. In Swedish history, this factor was due to two circumstances.
The first is that the population of the Swedish historical regions in the Wendel-Viking one was dispersed over large areas and in the absence of an urban environment. Hienstrand calculated the population of 40,000 - 45,000 people in the Mälaren region (which usually includes the Upland, Södermanland and Westmanland regions) by the beginning of the 11th century, lived on an area of approximately 29,987 square kilometers. The data are taken from modern reference books, where the area of the historical region Upland was 12 676 sq. Km, Södermanland - 8 388 sq. Km, Westmanland - 8 923 sq. Km.
Even if we consider that the Upland area in the XI century. was smaller due to the fact that part of the coastal strip in this region "grew" over time due to the raising of the bottom of the Baltic Sea, all the same, the area of the Melaren region consisted of thousands of square kilometers. The historical regions of Sweden during the Wendel-Viking period were not homogeneous in their internal structure. Hienstrand identified 12 sub-regions in the Malaren region, each with just over 3,000 people. population.
If many of these sub-regions, as the Swedish researchers point out, were separated from their neighbors by rugged wastelands, then we get a natural explanation for the slow nature of sociopolitical evolution in Sweden. Accordingly, if there is no environmental limitation, then there are no or are weakened incentives for political integration above the community level.
The second is that, according to the general opinion of Swedish archaeologists, the socio-political development of some regions of Sweden, in particular, the Malaren region, was greatly influenced by such a geophysical phenomenon as the rise of the Baltic Sea bottom during the entire post-glacial period and due to this, it is permanent. increase in the coastal strip of Upland. The opportunity to settle new areas of the coast caused the emergence of new peasant households due to the resettlement of some families to new areas.
This process has been distributed over many centuries. According to research by Swedish scientists, the sea level in the area where Roslagen (Ruden / Roden) is now located was at least 6-7 m higher than the current one at the turn of the XI-XII centuries. The fact that the Ruden / Rodin area was only at the end of the 13th century. began to represent a territory with conditions suitable for regular human activity, is confirmed by both modern geophysical research and data from sources. Scientific literature has repeatedly indicated that the name Ruden was first mentioned in Sweden in 1296 in the Upland regional laws, in which one of the decrees of King Birger Magnusson commanded that everyone who lives in North Ruden must follow these laws. In the form of Roslagen (Rodzlagen), this name, also in the texts of laws, appears only in 1493, and then in 1511, 1526 and 1528. As a common name, it was fixed even later, since even under Gustav Vasa this area was still commonly called Ruden.
Goran Dahlbeck, who studied the Ruden area, in his article "Land uplift and development of the northernmost regions of Upland" noted that many Swedish researchers were engaged in the problem of land uplift in the coastal part of Upland, and that it is necessary to state that for various parts of the coastal strip, the rise of the bottom of Botnia played significant role.
When studying North Ruden, Dahlbeck emphasized, it becomes obvious that changes in the relationship between water and land should have played a very large role in the history of the development of the Upland coastal strip, since the main part of the geographical area that he explored rose rather late from the seabed. and thus the age of its settlements is much younger than the inland settlements of Upland.
This circumstance naturally influenced the development of the economic, political and administrative life of this region. In other words, the development of "free" land in the early medieval period occupied the small population of Svei society to such an extent that it made any dubious military campaigns to distant countries completely irrelevant.
So, the first item in the list of "merits" of the Sweys in Russian history crumbles to dust: the level of sociopolitical evolution they had was such that representatives of the Sweys' society in the 9th century had no experience in the processes of political integration. did not possess and close.
