The area has been inhabited since the end of the ice age. In T�nsvika, just outside the city limits, traces of a settlement from late stone age (4000-1800 BCE) have been found.
The Middle Ages: a fortress on the frontier
The area's rich Norse and S�mi heritage is well documented. The Norse chieftain Ohthere, who lived during the 890s, is assumed to have inhabited the southernmost reaches of today's Troms� municipality. He described himself as living "furthest to the North of all Norwegians" with areas north of this being populated by S�mi. An Icelandic source (Rimbegla) from the 1100s also describes the fjord Malangen in the south of today's Troms� municipality as a border between the Norse and S�mi coast settlements during that part of the Middle Ages. There has also been extensive S�mi settlement on the coast south of this 'border' as well as scattered Norse settlements north of Malangen - for example, both S�mi and Norse Iron Age (0 - 1050 CE) have been found on southern Kval�ya.
The first church on the island of Troms�ya was erected in 1252. Ecclesia Sanctae Mariae de Trums juxta paganos ("The Church of Saint Mary in Troms near the Heathens" � the nominal "heathens" being the S�mi), was built during the reign of King H�kon H�konarson. At the time, it was the northernmost church in the world. Around the same time a turframpart was built to protect the area against raids from Karelia and Russia.
Troms� was not just a Norwegian outpost in an area mainly populated by the S�mi but also a frontier city towards Russia; the Novgorod state had the right to tax the S�mi on the coast to Lyngstuva and on the inland to Skibotn River or M�lselv River whereas Norway was allowed to tax areas east to - and including - the Kola Peninsula. During the next five hundred years Norway's border to Russia and the limits of Norwegian settlement would be pushed eastwards to S�r-Varanger, making Troms� lose its character as a "frontier town"
