700 AD Discovery in Norway Reveals Ship Burials Predate the Viking Age

Herlaugshaugen (in the centre foreground) from the west. Credit: Geir Grønnesby / CC BY-ND 4.0

A burial mound connected the tiny Norwegian land of Leka has revealed 1 of the oldest vessel burials successful Scandinavia, a uncovering that challenges long-held assumptions astir erstwhile monumental maritime burial practices began successful Norway.

Researchers published the find successful the journal Antiquity, concluding that the mound, known arsenic Herlaugshaugen, dates to astir AD 700, astir a period earlier the Viking Age traditionally begins.

Lead writer Geir Grønnesby and his squad from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology excavated the tract successful 2023. They recovered 29 ample robust clinker nails on with wood fragments wrong the mound, which stretches 62 meters (203 feet) successful diameter.

Radiocarbon dating of the wood and charcoal samples showed the vessel was built aft AD 670, with the mound raised successful the precocious seventh oregon aboriginal eighth century. The vas measured implicit 20 meters (66 feet) successful length, comparable successful size to the celebrated Gokstad and Oseberg ships discovered further southbound successful Norway.

Norway’s vessel burial contented predates the Viking Age by a century

The find fills a captious spread successful the humanities record. Previously, the oldest known vessel mounds successful Scandinavia dated to the precocious eighth century, recovered connected the land of Karmøy successful occidental Norway.

Herlaugshaugen present connects the aboriginal seventh-century Anglo-Saxon vessel burial astatine Sutton Hoo successful England to Norway’s aboriginal Viking Age vessel burials, pointing to a continuous burial contented stretching crossed the North Sea.

Clinker nails from trench A. Credit: Geir Grønnesby / CC BY-ND 4.0

The mound carries a agelong past of attention. A 13th-century Norse saga recorded by Snorri Sturluson identified it arsenic the burial spot of King Herlaug, a pre-Viking ruler of Namdalen who, according to legend, sealed himself wrong the mound alternatively than taxable to King Harald Fairhair.

Excavations carried retired successful 1755, 1775, and 1780 uncovered a skeleton, a sword, carnal bones, and woody beams with robust nails. Those finds were interpreted astatine the clip arsenic confirming the saga.

The sword and skeleton were taken to Trondheim but mislaid astatine the commencement of the 20th century. It was not until 1917 that researcher Theodor Petersen archetypal projected that the mound was a vessel burial. The 2023 excavation confirms that mentation with technological evidence.

Leka’s harbour emerges arsenic an past hub of determination power

The mound sits by the harbour connected Leka, facing the mainland crossed a constrictive strait. Grønnesby’s squad notes that arriving seafarers would person seen it immediately, making it a deliberate show of powerfulness and territorial claim.

Local spot names constituent to markets, communal games, and governing assemblies erstwhile taking spot connected the island, suggesting Leka served arsenic a determination center. The researchers reason it functioned arsenic a node successful a broader web connecting the Norwegian seashore to continental Europe done the commercialized of goods, including fish, furs, iron, and whetstones.

Two charcoal layers successful the precocious conception of the mound whitethorn bespeak cremation burials added aft the archetypal vessel burial, though this remains uncertain.

The vessel burial adds coagulated grounds that governmental hierarchisation and territorial power successful bluish Scandinavia were good established successful Norway acold earlier than antecedently recognized.