As the Iron Age progressed, Scandinavia changed from being a separate region in Europe to becoming a border area, initially to the Roman Empire and then to the Merovingian and Carolingian kingdoms. Many Scandinavian resources were important for the major kingdoms of Europe and political leaders in the Scandinavian centres knew how to take advantage of long-distance trade with such commodities. At the onset of the early Iron Age it appears that a more egalitarian tribal society with few traces of social stratification had come into being. Early Iron Age hamlets and villages consisted of a number of small, individual farming units. The best investigated village is situated near Grøntoft in western Jylland. Existence of helmets, ring swords, and other ornamented status objects found in richly furnished warrior graves from France and southern England to Finland seem to confirm that the petty Scandinavian and Finnish kingdoms aspired to the ideology and political organisation that was characteristic of the Franks.