[pipio21]

Vikings, who “were brilliant” despite popular perception of them as brutes.

Well, you can be smart and brutal at the same time. Vikings had a brutal culture because they needed it for survival, as they did starve over some periods of the year without it.

Even in Spain, with a much mild climate, Romans reported local people in the mountains pillaging the valleys in Winter as they got short of food. Romans forced those people to live in the valleys and gave them land to work.

[ramzyo]

Definitely agree with your primary point. I think the author is using a less-used definition of the word brute here..."one who lacks intelligence, sensitivity, or compassion : a brutal person"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brute