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This hypothesis is supported by the association that runes have always had with the god Odin, who, in the Proto-Germanic period, under his original name *Woðanaz, was the divine model of the human warband leader and the invisible patron of the warband’s activities. The transmission of writing from southern Europe to northern Europe likely took place via Germanic warbands, the dominant northern European military institution of the period, who would have encountered Italic writing firsthand during campaigns amongst their southerly neighbors. The earliest known carving of the entire futhark (alphabet), in order, is that on the Kylver stone from Gotland, Sweden, which dates to roughly 400 CE.

The earliest unambiguous runic inscriptions are found on the Vimose comb from Vimose, Denmark and the Øvre Stabu spearhead from southern Norway, both of which date to approximately 160 CE. The inscription is highly ambiguous, however, and scholars are divided over whether its letters are runic or Roman. The earliest possibly runic inscription that we know of is found on the Meldorf brooch, which was manufactured in the north of modern-day Germany around 50 CE. Earlier Germanic sacred symbols, such as those preserved in northern European rock carvings, were also likely influential in the development of the script. The runes are presumed to have been derived from one of the many Old Italic alphabets in use among the Mediterranean peoples of the first century CE, who lived to the south of the Germanic tribes. While runologists argue over many of the details of the historical origins of runic writing, there is widespread agreement on a general outline. This page is the second part of a five-part article on the runes. Book Review: Neil Price’s The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia.Who Were the Indo-Europeans and Why Do They Matter?.