Norway couple find Viking grave under floor of their house

A Norwegian couple got quite the shock when renovating their old family house near Bodø in northern Norway this month.

After removing the floorboards and some sand with the intention to install insulation, the couple discovered several rocks. They continued digging and spotted something glittering in the light.

“It wasn’t until later that we realised what it could be,” Mariann Kristiansen from Seivåg near Bodø told Norway’s state broadcaster NRK of the find. “We first thought it was the wheel of a toy car.” 

Naturally, they were curious, and then they saw something round glinting in the light. They knew that it had to be old because the house had been built in 1914 and the floorboards had not been moved since. The house has been in the same family for over a century.

After some further digging, the couple found an iron axe head and some other metallic objects, that were all obviously old. ‘It wasn’t until later that we realized what it could be” Mariann Kristiansen, one of the owners of the house, told The Local .

The couple contacted the local authorities and experts from the local Nordland county government came to inspect the finds. Martinus Hauglid told the couple that they had most likely found a grave from the Iron Age in Norway. This was the era when the Vikings ruled in Scandinavia and terrified most of the known world.

The archaeologist told The Local that the couple had found an “ax dated between 950 and 1050 AD”. The bead of glass, which was revealed to be blue dates from the same period.

Viking Cairn

It is believed that the stones found underneath the flooring came from a burial.

The stones were likely part of a cairn. In this type of burial, a mound of stones and rocks are erected over the deceased which was a very common burial practice in the Iron Age.

A number of similar cairns were found in the Lendbreen Mountain Pass in Norway when a glacier melted. This was an important trade route in the Middle Ages .

Martinus congratulated the couple on their find and stated that they had done a good job, by reporting things so soon. The archaeologist said that it was the first instance of a Viking grave being found under a private dwelling in his 30 year career.

Archaeologists have begun an investigation of the grave. Forbes reports that under Norwegian Law any human artifacts or “activity before 1537 are automatically preserved”. The items found by the couple have been transported to a museum for conservation and safekeeping.

End of the Viking Age

Martinus is quoted by Forbes as stating that the finds under the floorboards date back to a time “when Norway transitioned to Christianity to become one kingdom”. This was the time when kings like Olaf Tryggvason , attempted to dominate the many chiefdoms and create a centralized state.

Some of these monarchs sought to impose Christianity on the pagan Norse as part of their efforts at state-building and this led to many civil wars. The grave could help researchers to better understand this crucial period in Norwegian history which saw the demise of the Viking Age.

It appears that the original builders of the house, over a century ago, were not aware that they were building a private residence on a grave. It is quite possible that they unearthed items and simply discarded them. This raises the possibility that some Viking-era grave goods were lost or destroyed during the construction of the family home.

For the First Time in a Century, Norway Will Excavate Viking Ship Burial

Smithsonian Mag reports that Sveinung Rotevatn, Norway’s Minister of Climate and Environment, announced that the 65-foot Gjellestad ship will be excavated in order to protect what is left of it from being destroyed by fungus.

Archaeologists are racing against the clock to save the remains of a buried Viking ship from a ruthless foe: fungus. 

If the project is successful, the 65-foot-long (20 meters) oak vessel — called the Gjellestad ship — will become the first Viking ship to be excavated in Norway in 115 years, said Sveinung Rotevatn, the Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment. 

“Norway has a very special responsibility safeguarding our Viking Age heritage,” Rotevatn told Live Science in an email. “Now, we are choosing to excavate in order to protect what remains of the find, and secure important knowledge about the Viking Age for future generations.”

The ship is buried at a well-known Viking archaeological site at Gjellestad, near Halden, a town in southeastern Norway. But scientists discovered the vessel only recently, in the fall of 2018, by using radar scans that can detect structures underground. The scans revealed not only the ship but also the Viking cemetery where it was ritually buried.

The team determined that the Gjellestad ship was built between the end of the eighth century and the beginning of the 10th century.

The vessel was likely made for traveling long distances at sea, said Sigrid Mannsåker Gundersen, an archaeologist with the Viken County Council. 

At the time, archaeologists were hesitant to excavate the ship, because buried wet wood can be damaged when exposed to the open air, Live Science previously reported. After a test excavation in 2019, however, archaeologists learned that they would have to dig up the ship soon or lose it to decay.

The narrow trench they excavated showed that the ship was very decomposed. “Only the imprints of the planks — or ‘strakes’ — were left, together with the iron nails,” Mannsåker Gundersen told Live Science in an email. “The only part that was still solid wood was the keel.”

But even the keel is in bad shape; an analysis showed it is infected with fungus and very brittle, likely from periods of drought.

“To rescue whatever wood is left before it is too late, and to gain as much information about the ship and the grave as possible, it is important to excavate now,” Mannsåker Gundersen said.

Archaeologists hope to find some preserved wood, “but even if there are only smaller amounts of organic material left, the excavation will provide valuable information about the ship and the grave,” Mannsåker Gundersen said. “A lot can be made out of imprints, objects, and different analyses of the soils and materials left.”

The excavation is scheduled to start in June, barring any complications from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The process will begin with archaeologists stripping off the topsoil and then sieving that dirt, just in case it holds any archaeological treasures that were ploughed by farmers over the centuries.

Then, the team will set up a tent to protect the ship’s remains and begin removing the earth that filled the ship after its burial.

At the same time, the archaeologists will document every layer of the remaining wood and take 3D scans of it, said Christian Løchsen Rødsrud, an archaeologist at the Museum of Cultural History in Norway.

Some of the ship’s remains will be visible only as imprints in the ground; these will also be 3D-scanned, Løchsen Rødsrud told Live Science in an email.

“The wooden remains of the ship will have to be kept wet during excavation.” Later, the remaining wooden objects and ship parts will be preserved with polyethylene glycol — a substance that can give rotten wood solidity and strength, he added. 

It’s likely that the ship was made both for sailing and rowing, “although we still don’t know for certain if it had a mast,” Mannsåker Gundersen said. “This is one of the questions we hope will be answered during the excavation this year.”

Norway’s melting ice is revealing priceless ancient artifacts

“The moment these artifacts melt out of the ice, they’re immediately vulnerable to the elements,” says James H, in an interview with national geographic.

Ancient artifacts preserved in snow and ice over thousands of years in Norway’s mountains are emerging at an unprecedented rate, and archaeologists are scrambling to collect them all before it’s too late, according to national geographic

Because ice patches in the past have contracted and expanded due to temperature shifts, many of the objects recovered have likely one time or another been exposed and then buried by snow and ice.

The bronze arrowheads of 1500 years ago, the Tunic of the Iron Age, and even the remains of a wooden ski complete with leather binding left behind sometime in the year 700. Some of the oldest objects were dropped more than 6,000 years ago.

With low-winter precipitation and warmer summers the alpine ice dramatically reducing the alpine ice that acts as a time capsule for lost treasures.

“The ice is a time machine,” Lars Pilö, an archaeologist who works for the Oppland County council told Archaeology in 2013. “When you’re really lucky, the artifacts are exposed for the first time since they were lost.”

Unlike glaciers, which tend to crush and grind objects as they move down a mountain, the majority of artifacts coming out of Norway are being recovered from ice patches.

These isolated non-moving accumulations of ice and snow are significant to the archeological record because of their extreme stability, with many containing layers of seasonal snowpack dating back thousands of years.

Sections of ice in the Juvfonne snow patch in Jotunheimen, Norway, are an astounding 7,600 years old, according to a 2017 study.

Despite their remote setting and scarce visits from modern-day humans, ice patches for thousands of years were veritable hot spots for ancient hunters.

In the summer, reindeer herds often crowd together on the islands of snow and ice to escape pesky, biting botflies, which have a strong aversion to the cooler temperatures. In the past, hunters would follow, losing or forgetting precious equipment along the way that was later buried and preserved in the winter snows.

Some items, such as the 1,600-year-old knife shown in the video below, look as if they were lost only a few decades ago.

Because ice patches in the past have contracted and expanded due to temperature shifts, many of the objects recovered have likely one time or another been exposed and then reburied by snow and ice. They also have a tendency to be carried by meltwater. As explained on the Secrets of the Ice Facebook page, the 2,600-year-old arrows shown in the image below were washed downslope far from the place they were originally lost.

Some of the most exciting finds are those objects found emerging from the surface of the ice, a sign that they have previously been untouched by melting, according to researchers from the Oppland County Council. These artifacts are generally exceptionally preserved, with organic materials such as leather and fabric still present. It’s also an indication of the severity of anthropogenic global warming, with certain ice patches in Norway estimated to have retreated to levels last seen during the Stone Age.

“It’s very impressive when you can say this melting ice is 5,000 years old, and this is the only moment in the last 7,000 years that the ice has been retreating,” Albert Hafner, an archaeologist at the University of Bernsays Hafner, told Archaeology. “Ice is the most emotional way to show climate change.”

Unfortunately for archaeologists, the rate of ice loss coupled with the extremely small annual windows of opportunity to scour the alpine patches, means some newly exposed items will break down and disappear before anyone has a chance to study them.

“This material is like the library of Alexandria. It is incredibly valuable and it’s on fire now,” George Hambrecht, an anthropologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, told New Scientist.

Right now you might be thinking, “I want to help find and preserve these incredible artifacts!,” and we agree, it sounds like quite the adventure to take a romp into the Norwegian wilderness and possibly stumble upon a well-preserved Viking Sword (see below). The reality, however, is that field work can sometimes be laborious and uncomfortable, with every day at the mercy of Mother Nature’s fickle moods.

That said, the Oppland County Council did accept volunteers last spring and it’s possible, especially with so many finds emerging from the ice each year, that others may be called upon to assist.

“We may not find much (or we could strike the jackpot, who knows),” Lars Pilø wrote last April in the Secrets blog. “It all depends on the melting conditions, and they develop over the summer and during fieldwork. If we are unlucky, the scenery and the team spirit make up for the lack of finds.”

Melting Ice Reveals a “Lost” Viking-era Highway in Norway’s Mountains

As the glaciers of Scanadvia melt, the long-forgotten journeys of intrepid Vikings are revealed. 

Reported in the journal Antiquity today, a retreating Lendbreen glacier in the mountains of Norway has recently revealed a mountain pass used by Vikings over 1,000 years ago, along with a treasure trove of rare artifacts, weapons, and ancient horse poop.

The mountain pass was brought to light in 2011 when the receding Lendbreen ice patch revealed a stunningly well-preserved wool tunic from around 1,600 years ago.

While other archaeological digs have headed to these hills in the years following, a huge increase in melting on the glacier in 2019 revealed even more long-lost possessions that were carelessly dropped by Vikings centuries ago. 

Archaeologists from the University of Cambridge in the UK and NTNU University Museum in Norway used radiocarbon dating on at least 60 artifacts from the site, suggesting the mountain pass was used by humans for over millennia, between 300 CE and 1500 CE.

This also indicated that the mountain pass was most widely used around 1000 CE during the Viking Age, a time in Scandinavian history when Norsemen expanded their influence across Europe and beyond through trade and a hefty dose of violence.

Among the glacier’s hidden loot the team discovered a knife with a preserved wooden handle, the remains of a shoe, a fur mitten, and a distaff used to spin natural fibers.

Many of the objects actually detail the journey of Vikings through the pass, including objects such as horseshoes, bones of horses, horse dung, remain of sleds, and a walking stick with a runic inscription. 

“My favorite find from Lendbreen is a small wooden bit with pointed ends [pictured below]. When we found it, we could not understand what it was used for,” Lars Pilø, co-director Department of Cultural Heritage at Innlandet County Council, told IFLScience.

“It was exhibited at a local museum, and an elderly woman who visited the exhibition immediately identified it. It is a bit for goat kids and lambs to prevent them from suckling their mother, as the milk was used to produce dairy products on the summer farms,” Pilø explained. 

“The women had herself seen such bits in use in the 1930s. They were made in Juniper then, and so is ours, but the bit from Lendbreen is radiocarbon-dated to the 11th century CE!”

Judging from the artifacts left here, it’s believed this passway was used to access high-elevation farms in the warm summer months and as a major trade route, whether for local use or even to transport rare pelts and antlers to the rest of Europe. 

At some time around the 11th century CE, however, the journeys along this busy road dried up. In the centuries following 1000 CE, northern Europe was hit with a number of big social, economic, and climatic changes of fortune that saw the passageway become used less and less.

One of these big changes was the Black Death, which first struck Norway in 1348 or 1349, and caused more than its fair share of human misery and economic turmoil. 

“It seems likely that the amount of mountain travel here declined and ultimately stopped as the Little Ice Age and then, in the middle of the 1300s, the Black Death, took their toll,” said Dr. James H Barrett, Reader in Medieval Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.

“The decline in population reduced demand for mountain products, and there were simply fewer travellers on the road. When population and the economy recovered, the pass had been forgotten and new routes were created.”

Reburied Medieval Remains Unearthed in Norway

In summer, a somewhat unexpected traces of a large cemetery from the Middle Ages appeared in archaeological excavations in Kjøpmannsgata Norway.

Excavation work in connection with new building schemes took place in Kjøpmannsgata in 2019. As with all new builds in Norway, an archaeological examination of the site in central Trondheim has taken place.

The most highlighted work so far is the unelected cemetery. It’s surprising not only for its location but for its size. To date, 15 individual graves and three pit graves have been found.

Heads were turned last summer when one of these pits was uncovered. It contained the human remains of an estimated 200 people. It is believed these remains were excavated from other cemeteries and reburied here during development work sometime in the 17th century. Two more pit graves have since been found.

As it doesn’t appear on any maps, it is not yet known when this cemetery was built or for how long it has been in use. These are some of the questions archaeologists are hoping to answer during the investigation.

A team from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) is currently working on the site of the former Kjøpmannsgata cemetery under a heated tent.

Archaeologists are closely studying a 12-square-meter area of the cemetery. Although 15 graves have been found so far, they expect the final count to be up to 30. Of those found far, seven were adults, five were children, with three yet to be excavated.

“There are probably even more graves further down. All of these individual graves are in situ, i.e. located in the same place as when they were buried, but several have been partially destroyed. In many cases, only the upper body has been preserved.

The lower half can be cut by, for example, other graves being laid over or by later excavation work.” Those were the words of NIKU project manager Silje Rullestad.

The cemetery has been clearly impacted by several stages of building work, but the team can nevertheless see a clear structure. The northern boundary of the area appears to be marked by a ditch, while four post holes suggest a clear boundary mark.

“This collection and reburial of bones must have been an extensive job,” says archaeologist Monica Svendsen. She is responsible for the digital mapping and documentation of the excavation.

She explains that all three pits consist of deep wooden boxes filled with human bones. They Replaced parallel to the trench that archaeologists assume marks the medieval demarcation of the cemetery.

At the same time as the cemetery excavation is underway, a survey will also be conducted. In collaboration with COWI, NIKU will systematically take samples of soil and human bones to survey soil and biochemical conditions in the cemetery soil.

“From the archaeological excavation of the St. Clement’s Church churchyard, large variations in the degree of conservation of the skeletons were observed. We also see the same here in Kjøpmannsgata. Using the study, we will try to map out why the differences in conservation conditions vary within small distances,” says Rullestad.

The survey could provide a better understanding of the conditions that affect the preservation of human remains.

Ancient Viking ship discovered buried next to the church using breakthrough Geo Radar Technology in Norway

A 1000-year old submerged Viking ship has been uncovered by archeologists in Norway. Archeologists were able to discover the millennium-old ship on Edoya Island, in western Norway, using high-tech geo radar.

The discovery was made by experts from the Norwegian Institute for Research on Cultural Heritage (NIKU).

On the top floor near the church of Edoy, the remains of the 17 m longship were buried.

The archeological team said the actual date of the ship is very difficult to indicate but it is more than 1,000 years old. Archaeologists have suggested that parts of the ship may have been damaged by ploughing. 

Dr. Knut Paasche, the head of digital archaeology at NIKU said, there are three well-preserved Viking ship burials in Norway and the new discovery will only add to their knowledge as it can be investigated with the modern technology of archaeology.

Dr. Paasche credited the discovery to technology and said it is because of modern means that humans are learning more and more about our past. 

Viking era

Viking ships were marine vessels of unique structure, built by Vikings during the Viking age. Vikings were Scandinavians who raided and traded during the time of Viking age.

The Viking age from 798 AD to 1066 AD was a period of the Nordic military, mercantile and demographic expansion facilitated by advance sailing and navigational skills. 

The modern-day Scandinavian countries are Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland.

The Viking settlements, communities, and governments were also established in diverse areas of north-western Europe, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, the North Atlantic island and as far as North America. 

The Viking age ended with Christianity taking over the Scandinavian islands. The men and women travelled to many parts of Europe and the diaspora returned with new influences to their homelands.

By the late 11th century, the Catholic Church was asserting their power with increasing authority and ambition and the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden had taken shape. 

Mysterious Viking boat graves unearthed in central Norway

In Norway, archeologists discovered a particularly strange thing. They have found two Viking boats in one grave. 

Some 100 years after the first burial of the ship, the second burial was put into the tomb. A large number of grave goods were also recovered, and they are helping experts gain a greater understanding of the early years of the Viking Age.

The two people died apart for a century, raising questions as to why the couple was buried together. Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) recently discovered the twin boat burial during road construction near the village of Vinjeøra. 

The younger body belongs to a woman who died in the second half of the 9th century.

She was laid to rest in a dress with two shell-shaped brooches of gilded bronze and an Irish crucifix-shaped brooch and placed in a 7- to 8-meter-long (23-26-foot) boat. Along with her skeleton, the team found a trove of possessions, including a pearl necklace, scissors, a spindle whorl, and a cow skull. 

Just below her remains lies a larger boat grave belonging to an 8th-century man buried with a spear, a shield, and a single-edged sword.

Although double boat graves have been discovered before, this situation is unique given the 100 years that separate the two people. 

The researchers can’t yet be certain, but they believe it’s a fairly safe bet that these two were from the same family. It’s hoped that further DNA and isotope analysis could prove this theory in the near future. 

“Family was very important in Viking Age society, both to mark status and power and to consolidate property rights.

The first legislation on allodial rights in the Middle Ages said you had to prove that your family had owned the land for five generations,” explained Raymond Sauvage, an archaeologist at the NTNU University Museum and project manager for the excavation.

“Against this backdrop, it’s reasonable to think that the two were buried together to mark the family’s ownership to the farm, in a society that for the most part didn’t write things down,” he added.

Along with this unusual setup, the boat graves hold a bunch of fascinating attributes.

The crucifix-shaped brooch in the woman’s grave is believed to have been made out of a harness fitting from Ireland, based on its design. 

Vikings were prolific travelers who wreaked havoc on regions as far as Iceland, Greenland, North Africa, Asia, and even North America. In all likelihood, the brooch was worn by the woman after being brought back from a raid in Ireland.

She perhaps helped to organize the voyage or even took part in the raid. After all, it’s relatively well established that women were warriors in Viking culture.

“The Viking voyages – whether for raids, trading or other expeditions – were central in Norse society.

That meant it was important to participate in this activity, not only for the material goods but also to raise both your own and your family’s status,” said Aina Heen Pettersen at NTNU’s Department of Historical Studies.

“Using artifacts from Viking raids as jewellery signalled a clear difference between you and the rest of the community because you were part of the group that took part in the voyages.”

6,000-Year-Old Pre-Viking Artifacts Discovered in Norway as Climate Change Melts Glaciers

Over thousands of years, ancient objects hidden in snow and ice in the Norwegian mountains appear at an unprecedented rate, with archeologists trying to gather them all before it is too late.

The research results were remarkable: iron arrowheads from 1,500 years old, tunics from the Iron Age and even the remains of the wooden ski with leather binding left somewhere behind sometime in the year 700.

The cause behind the rapid emergence of these old relics is climate change, which dramatically reduces the alpine ice, which is a time capsule for lost treasures, by low natural snow and hotter summers.

Lars Pilö, an archeologist who works for the county council of Oppland, told Archaeology in 2013 that “ice is a time machine.” “When you’re really lucky, the artifacts are exposed for the first time since they were lost.”

Unlike glaciers, which tend to crush and grind objects as they move down a mountain, the majority of artifacts coming out of Norway are being recovered from ice patches.

These isolated non-moving accumulations of ice and snow are significant to the archeological record because of their extreme stability, with many containing layers of seasonal snowpack dating back thousands of years.

Sections of ice in the Juvfonne snow patch in Jotunheimen, Norway, are an astounding 7,600 years old, according to a 2017 study.

Despite their remote setting and scarce visits from modern-day humans, ice patches for thousands of years were veritable hot spots for ancient hunters.

In the summer, reindeer herds often crowd together on the islands of snow and ice to escape pesky, biting botflies, which have a strong aversion to the cooler temperatures. In the past, hunters would follow, losing or forgetting precious equipment along the way that was later buried and preserved in the winter snows.

Some items, such as the 1,600-year-old knife shown in the video below, look as if they were lost only a few decades ago.

Because ice patches in the past have contracted and expanded due to temperature shifts, many of the objects recovered have likely one time or another been exposed and then reburied by snow and ice. They also have a tendency to be carried by meltwater.

As explained on the Secrets of the Ice Facebook page, the 2,600-year-old arrows shown in the image below were washed downslope far from the place they were originally lost.

Some of the most exciting finds are those objects found emerging from the surface of the ice, a sign that they have previously been untouched by melting, according to researchers from the Oppland County Council.

These artifacts are generally exceptionally preserved, with organic materials such as leather and fabric still present. It’s also an indication of the severity of anthropogenic global warming, with certain ice patches in Norway estimated to have retreated to levels last seen during the Stone Age.

“It’s very impressive when you can say this melting ice is 5,000 years old, and this is the only moment in the last 7,000 years that the ice has been retreating,” Albert Hafner, an archaeologist at the University of Bernsays Hafner, told Archaeology. “Ice is the most emotional way to show climate change.”

Unfortunately for archaeologists, the rate of ice loss coupled with the extremely small annual windows of opportunity to scour the alpine patches means some newly exposed items will break down and disappear before anyone has a chance to study them.

“This material is like the library of Alexandria. It is incredibly valuable and it’s on fire now,” George Hambrecht, an anthropologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, told New Scientist.

Right now you might be thinking, “I want to help find and preserve these incredible artifacts!,” and we agree, it sounds like quite the adventure to take a romp into the Norwegian wilderness and possibly stumble upon a well-preserved Viking Sword (see below). The reality, however, is that fieldwork can sometimes be laborious and uncomfortable, with every day at the mercy of Mother Nature’s fickle moods.

That said, the Oppland County Council did accept volunteers last spring and it’s possible, especially with so many finds emerging from the ice each year, that others may be called upon to assist.

“We may not find much (or we could strike the jackpot, who knows),” Lars Pilø wrote last April in the Secrets blog. “It all depends on the melting conditions, and they develop over the summer and during fieldwork. If we are unlucky, the scenery and the team spirit make up for the lack of finds.”