Viking boat burial found in Norway

On one of the last days of the excavation in the market square, archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) became aware of a feature with a somewhat special shape.

The boat dates between the seventh and 10th centuries, around the time the Vikings began exploring and raiding Europe 
[Credit: Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU)]

The feature, which was dug into the natural deposits, had been disturbed in several places by later pits and postholes, but it was quite clearly boat-shaped.

"Careful excavation revealed that no wood remained intact, but lumps of rust and some poorly-preserved nails indicated that it was a boat that was buried here", says archaeologist Ian Reed.

The remains of the boat show that it was at least 4 meters long and oriented more or less north-south.

Skeletal remains

The boat contained two long bones, which, like the boat, were oriented north-south.

"This suggests that there was a human skeleton contained within the boat. Because of the poor state of preservation we will have to carry out DNA tests to be 100% certain that the bones are human", says Reed.

The boat is damaged several places by pits and post holes. Cautious excavation has reveiled that there is no wood left 
but clumps of rust and some poorly preserved nails that show that this is probably a boat grave 
[Credit: Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU)]

Sheet bronze and a key

Other finds included a small piece of sheet bronze, located up against one of the bones, as well as what are likely personal items from the grave.

"In a posthole dug through the middle of the boat we found a piece of a spoon and part of a key for a chest. If this is from the grave then it can probably be dated from the 7th to the 10th century", says Reed.

Could it be an Åfjord boat?

The location away from today’s harbor and the fjord suggests that the boat grave dates from the late Iron Age, or perhaps the early Viking Age.

"It is likely a boat that has been dug down into the ground and been used as a coffin for the dead. There has also probably been a burial mound over the boat and grave", says NIKU’s Knut Paasche, a specialist in early boats.

Sketcth of an Åfjord boat [Credit: Nordlandsbåten og Åfjordsbåten av G. Eldjarn og J. Godal, 1988.]

He believes that the boat type is similar to an Åfjord boat, which has historically been a common sight along the Trøndelag coast.

"This type of boat is relatively flat in the bottom midship. The boat can also be flat-bottomed as it is intended to go into shallow waters on the river Nidelven. Boat graves are common from the Iron Age and into the Viking Period, but this is the first time a ship burial from this period has been discovered in Trondheim city centre."

"This is another discovery by NIKU that refers to a Trondheim older than the medieval city. Other Viking settlements such as Birka, Gokstad or Kaupang, all have graves in close proximity to the trading centre", says Paasche.

Work on the boat has now been completed.

Source: Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research [September 21, 2017]

Read More

Fly away home? Ice Age may have clipped bird migration

The onset of the last ice age may have forced some bird species to abandon their northerly migrations for thousands of years, says new research led by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln ornithologist.

A study led by Nebraska's Robert Zink proposes that many bird species, such as the Canada warbler, may have 
completely stopped migrating during the last ice age [Credit: University of Nebraska-Lincoln]

Published in the journal Science Advances, the study challenges a long-held presumption that birds merely shortened their migratory flights when glaciers advanced south to cover much of North America and northern Europe about 21,000 years ago.

The study concluded that the emergence of glaciers in those regions instead acted as an "adaptive switch" that turned off migratory behavior, transforming the tropics from a cold-weather resort into a long-term residence for certain bird species.

Of the 29 long-distance migrant species examined in the study, 20 likely saw their northern breeding grounds become uninhabitable, according to models developed by the researchers. When the climate again warmed and glaciers retreated back to the Arctic, those species presumably resumed their seasonal migrations.

Lead author Robert Zink said the conclusions could alter how scientists reconstruct the history of bird migration.

"It fundamentally changes the way we study the evolution of migration and think about the migratory behavior of birds," said Zink, professor of natural resources and biological sciences at Nebraska.

Putting Migration On Ice

Researchers generally agree that, millions of years ago, many birds did not migrate from the tropics. But as the global climate began to warm, some species ventured beyond their native habitats to capitalize on better breeding and feeding opportunities afforded by the longer days and insect-rich environments of northern latitudes.

Those species eventually ventured farther and farther from their habitats, finally stopping when they reached environments that could not sustain them during the autumn and winter. They continued to migrate south when seasonal temperatures dropped and food sources waned.

In that context, Zink said his hypothesis suggests that the origin story of bird migration simply underwent multiple reboots, with the "migratory machinery" of birds halting for each of the 20 or so ice ages that have glazed Earth during the past 2.5 million years.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Robert Zink has authored a new study suggesting that the last ice age 
completely halted the northerly migrations of some bird species from about 21,000 to 12,000 years ago 
[Credit: Craig Chandler, University of Nebraska-Lincoln]

"Migrations are costly and risky," said Zink, curator of zoology at the University of Nebraska State Museum. "They're costly in terms of safety, energy -- anything you can think of."

Rather than paying those costs to reach breeding grounds that the encroaching glaciers had shrunk to tiny fractions of their former size, he said, birds instead resorted to their ancestral state: tropical homebodies.

"Some of them were forced so far south that it was no longer a fitness advantage to migrate, because the extra young they could produce south of the glacier wasn't enough to compensate for the cost of migration," Zink said, "and then coming back to the tropics and re-establishing their territory.

"To some people, that's so completely off the wall that they may have trouble wrapping their heads around it -- except that it's the way they would explain to their classes the evolution of migration in the first place. So, in a sense, what I'm proposing is nothing novel. What's novel about it is that (the advent of migration) probably occurred many times."

Redrawing the Map

Zink and his co-author, the University of Minnesota's Aubrey Gardner, conducted their study using a computer model that linked the modern-day distribution of bird species with climate variables -- temperature, precipitation, seasonality -- that characterize their habitats. By comparing those climates with conditions that existed during the last ice age, the model mapped the regions that likely could have supported each of those species from about 21,000 to 12,000 years ago.

In many cases, Zink said, the model either found no habitable regions beyond the tropics or located habitats so miniscule that they would have struggled to support sizable populations of the species.

"Some species were probably just forced (slightly) south of the glaciers, and their habitats were extensive enough that they would maybe maintain some migratory ability," he said. "But for others, I think there was so little predicted habitat that they just ceased migration all together.

"This evolution of migration is a very (variable) thing. Normally, when we think of evolution, we think of singular, unique events in evolutionary history. But in this case, the ability to migrate is entrenched in birds. They have the ability to navigate using the sun, the stars, the (Earth's) magnetic field. They have the ability to put on large amounts of fat and sustain trans-gulf migrations. Birds are (adaptive) enough in their behavior and physiology that this wasn't a reinvention of some incredible phenomenon."

And if some species did transition back and forth from sedentary to migratory states, researchers should consider pruning certain evolutionary trees accordingly, Zink said. Many evolutionary trees currently treat migration as an irreversible trait rather than a variable behavior, he said, and that assumption could be misinforming discussions of when and where it evolved.

"I wanted to point out that this was a real danger and fallacy that's being committed: mapping something onto an evolutionary tree where the feature -- migration or sedentariness -- changes faster than new species evolved," he said. "You would have constructed the history of migration totally differently."

Author: Scott Schrage | Source: University of Nebraska-Lincoln [September 20, 2017]

Read More

Norwegians find well-preserved Viking-era sword

A Norwegian archaeologist says a well-preserved, if rusty, iron sword dating to the Viking era has been found in southern Norway.

A sword found in the mountains of Norway belonged to a Viking who died more than 1,000 years ago 
[Credit: Espen Finstad, Secrets of the Ice/Oppland County Council]

Lars Holger Piloe says the nearly one-meter-long (3-foot) sword was found slid down between rocks with the blade sticking out, and may have been left by a person who got lost in a blizzard and died on the mountain from exposure.

Einar Åmbakk holding the sword, just moments after it was discovered 
[Credit: Espen Finstad, Secrets of the Ice/Oppland County Council]

Piloe said Thursday the sword, dating from about 850-950 A.D., was found in Lesja, some 275 kilometers (170 miles) north of Oslo.

Piloe said the sword's preservation was likely due to the quality of the iron, as well as the cold, dry conditions. It was found in late August by two men who were on a reindeer hunt some 1,640 meters (1 mile) above sea level.

Source: The Associated Press [September 14, 2017]

Read More

The enigma of early Norwegian iron production

Ancient Norwegians made top-quality iron. But where did the knowledge to make this iron come from? A professor emeritus from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology may have solved this riddle.

Where did the expertise to smelt iron ore come from? And how did it actually get to Norway to begin with? 
[Credit: Colourbox]

For centuries, people in Norway’s Trøndelag region, in the middle of the country, made large amounts of first-class iron out of bog ore for use in weapons and tools. Production peaked at about 40 tonnes a year at around 200 AD. With production levels this high, it is likely that they exported iron to the European continent as well.

But where did the expertise to smelt the ore come from? And how did it actually get to Norway to begin with?

Arne Wang Espelund, a professor emeritus at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU) Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has been interested in iron making since the 1970s.

He himself has helped to smelt iron with a method described in the 1700s by Ole Evenstad in Stor-Elvdal, just north of Lillehammer.

However, this method is different than techniques used in Norway for roughly 900 years until about 600 AD, when plague and an economic downturn in Europe caused everything to grind to a halt and the art of making iron was forgotten. At the moment, no one really knows how Iron-Age Norwegians learned to make iron.

Espelund, however, has found some clues. And they lead to the Roman Empire.

A furnace in Austria

Scientists in Austria have found a furnace with exactly the same measurements and design as furnaces in Norway. This part of Austria belonged to the Roman Empire.

Scientists in Austria have found a furnace with exactly the same measurements and design as furnaces in Norway 
[Credit: Brigitte Cech]

The archeologist Brigitte Cech found a furnace in Semlach, a village that during Roman times was in Noricum. The furnace dates from around 100 AD.

“It’s an exact copy of furnaces in Trøndelag. It has the same dimensions and a side opening,” says Espelund.

It’s true that the slag pit is built of clay, while those in Norway were made of stone. And this particular furnace in Austria is younger than the oldest Norwegian furnaces of the same design. But even older furnaces are found nearby, in Populonia in Italy and Burgenland in Austria.

Espelund believes it could be a very exciting project for a master’s student to investigate other aspects of the furnaces.

“I believe the technology for extracting iron must have originated outside of Norway,” he says.

His opinion is reinforced by the fact that no one has yet found any evidence of experimentation with making iron in Norway. That means ancient Norwegians would have mastered the art of making high-quality iron with as little as 0.2 per cent carbon contamination — without any evidence of trial and error. That is, unless they learned the art somewhere else.

The Romans’ forefathers

It was perhaps the Etruscans who were the first in Europe to learn to make iron. They lived in what is now Italy and Corsica from around 700 before our time bill. Etruscans dominated Rome at the empire’s the beginning. However, there is also evidence of iron production in Turkey from 4000 years ago.

Slag pit, Heglesvollen, Norway [Credit: Arne Espelund]

The Celts improved the metal by adding some carbon and thus making steel. The technique spread over the Roman Empire. And perhaps even to Norway.

In Norway iron was made from bog ore. The ore was gathered in the spring, while the smelting was done in the autumn. In sparsely populated Norway, where much is preserved, there are hundreds of places with evidence of this production, from areas where the ore was collected to places where the iron was extracted from the ore.

Solving the puzzle with chemistry

Today, the most common sign of ancient iron production is the slag heap. Chemical analyses of these slag heaps is a central part of understanding how the ore was smelted.

Furnaces, often four in a row, with the equally large slag piles indicating that all the furnaces were run as a unit
 simultaneously. Each furnace ran on a cyclical program, until the slag pit was full [Credit: Inkalill]

Espelund is actually a mining engineer, not an archaeologist. However, in this situation that may be something of an advantage. He’s quite used to chemical analyses and the natural sciences, which can help make an important contribution in a subject that Espelund believes is often somewhat descriptive.

Archaeologists often describe their finds in impressive details. Espelund would like to thank NTNU archaeologists for their trustworthy cooperation out in the field. He, however, has a different approach when he is faced with an archaeological site — he likes to draw on his natural sciences toolbox.

Iron ore contains different oxygen-rich compounds (FeOOH). The raw ore is first heated over an open fire to create Fe2O3.

When placed in a furnace, this raw material is then transformed into very pure iron because carbon monoxide in the furnace reacts with theFe2O3. However, a certain percentage of the iron remains in the slag, as FeO, which ensures the quality of the iron.

Slag

Slag from three places in Norway, and from Iceland, Catalonia and Austria all have a remarkably similar composition.

Places with traces of iron production in Trøndelag, mid-Norway [Credit: NTNU]

The slag consists of about 65 per cent of a mixture of iron oxide (FeO) and manganese oxide (MnO). About 20 percent is silicon oxide (SiO2). This mix is called fayalite and is usually written as (Fe, Mn) 2SiO4.

Espelund has introduced the fayalite fraction (% FeO +% MnO) /% SiO2 (in molar mass) to characterize the slag. This in turn can tell us something about the quality of the ore and provide comparable values between slag from different places.

A high content of SiO2 in the ore makes it impossible to produce iron. The ore in Norway, on the other hand, seems to have maintained good quality.
High production

Heglesvollen in Levanger municipality in Trøndelag in central Norway is one of the most important sites for iron production. Since 1982, four furnaces and 96 tonnes of slag have been found in the area.

This suggests there was a great amount of iron production here that took place over a number of years. The furnaces had been patched and repaired several times.

Archaeologists have found remains of something that could have been an air intake for a furnace that would have been powered by the chimney effect in Vårhussetra in Hessdalen. But this is the only place where this kind of air intake has been found.

“Could it be that parts of the production process were kept secret and that these air intakes were destroyed?” Espelund wonders.

We do not know. But Espelund says that one possible approach could involve five air intakes that would cause a kind of chimney fire that in turn would create high temperatures.

Pine wood

Carbon dating and other analyses of wood suggest that people in Trøndelag relied almost exclusively on pine wood for iron production — or at least they preferred it.

An iron bloom weighing 17 kilograms, typical for iron production in inner Trøndelag around the year 200 CE 
[Credit: Arne Espelund]

“That’s because pine will burn twice,” Espelund says.

First, the wood burns with a high flame. This wood then becomes charcoal that sinks down in the furnace, which can then be burned again and help with the smelting.

Adding wood creates a chimney effect in the furnace, something that combined with air intakes in the correct spots could eliminate the need to use a bellows, which could be exhausting.

Curiosity

Espelund continues to attend conferences to learn more and to contribute to the debate. The 87-year-old will give a talk at the CPSA conference in Prague, in honour of the great archaeologist Radomér Pleiner.

Espelund can’t say enough good things about how he has been treated lately. His travels are financed by a non-fiction fund. He continues to make academic contributions with new publications in this area and in others, some of which he finances himself.

Unfortunately he is no longer very mobile and can no longer go out in the field. He hopes that someone will take up his quest to understand iron production in Norway. Many questions still remain, and he is not sure he will find all the answers.

“You have to be curious,” he said.

Source: The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) [September 11, 2016]

Read More

Archaeologists uncover medieval village in mid-Jutland

Archaeologists attached to the Moesgaard Museum have discovered the remnants of a small village that disappeared nearly 400 years ago near modern-day Odder in mid-Jutland.

Photo courtesy of Moesgaard Museum

Records of Hovedstrup stretch back as far as 1300, though it’s speculated the village could be even older.

The remains of a stone paved road and three modest homes were uncovered through the discovery of their post holes in the earth – structural elements typifying the late Middle Ages.

According to the excavators, the remains are of a small agricultural village.

Photo courtesy of Moesgaard Museum

The land had changed hands numerous times throughout its history, from private farmland to royal ownership to once being the backyard of Admiral Jens Rodsteen.

The abandonment of the village in the late 1600s wasn’t uncommon for the time, according to the excavators, as landlords would often rearrange their land to accommodate new farmland or hunting grounds.

The dig persists for another week, so further discoveries are anticipated by archaeologists and excited locals alike.

Author: Nash Meeker | Source: The Copenhagen Post [September 08, 2017]

Read More

A woman warrior from the Viking army in Birka

War was not an activity exclusive to males in the Viking world. A new study conducted by researchers at Stockholm and Uppsala Universities shows that women could be found in the higher ranks at the battlefield.

Illustration by Evald Hansen based on the original plan of the grave by excavator Hjalmar Stolpe, 
published in 1889 [Credit: Uppsala University]

Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, who led the study, explains: "What we have studied was not a Valkyrie from the sagas but a real life military leader, that happens to be a woman".

The study was conducted on one of the most iconic graves from the Viking Age. It holds the remains of a warrior surrounded by weapons, including a sword, armour-piercing arrows, and two horses. There were also a full set of gaming pieces and a gaming board. "The gaming set indicates that she was an officer", says Charlotte, "someone who worked with tactics and strategy and could lead troops in battle". The warrior was buried in the Viking town of Birka during the mid-10th century. Isotope analyses confirm an itinerant life style, well in tune with the martial society that dominated 8th to 10th century northern Europe.

Anna Kjellstrom, who also participated in the study, has taken an interest in the burial previously. "The morphology of some skeletal traits strongly suggests that she was a woman, but this has been the type specimen for a Viking warrior for over a century why we needed to confirm the sex in any way we could."

The drawing is a reconstruction of how the grave with the woman originally may have looked. 
The illustration is made by Þórhallur Þráinsson [Credit: © Neil Price]

And this is why the archaeologists turned to genetics, to retrieve a molecular sex identification based on X and Y chromosomes. Such analyses can be quite useful according to Maja Krezwinska: "Using ancient DNA for sex identification is useful when working with children for example, but can also help to resolve controversial cases such as this one". Maja was thus able to confirm the morphological sex identification with the presence of X chromosomes but the lack of a Y chromosome.

Jan Stora, who holds the senior position on this study, reflects over the history of the material: "This burial was excavated in the 1880ies and has served as a model of a professional Viking warrior ever since. Especially, the grave-goods cemented an interpretation for over a century". It was just assumed she was a man through all these years. "The utilization of new techniques, methods, but also renewed critical perspectives, again, shows the research potential and scientific value of our museum collections".

The findings are published in American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Source: Stockholm University [September 08, 2017]

Read More

17th century royal flagship found in central Stockholm

Swedish archaeologists believe they have identified a shipwreck discovered in the capital as the more than 400-year-old warship 'Scepter', built in 1615 as one of the flagships in King Gustav II Adolf's fleet.

Harbour side view of the shipwreck [Credit: Jim Hansson, Stockholm Maritime Museum]

It was found in the summer during the renovation of the quayside on the Skeppsholmen islet which Stockholm Maritime Museum experts had been called out to oversee, marine archaeologist Jim Hansson told The Local.

"We were really surprised, because we have some old maps that show some wrecks from the early 1800s, and it seems like the older wrecks don't show up on the map. There were no indications of this wreck on the maps," he said, adding the remains uncovered include a section of the ship two metres up from the keel and parts of the transom.

"It was really well preserved. It is only to the first deck level, but you can still see the cut marks from the axes on the timber, for example. It's been really nice to excavate the parts."

"We took some chronological samples in the summer and we received the results which showed that wood is oak from Sweden, and it was cut in the winter between 1612 and 1613, which is a really good, precise measure. We then looked at the lists of the warships made at that time, and we found there were four big ships that were built then," he said, adding that the process of elimination suggests it is Scepter.

The remains of the ship [Credit: Johan Runer]

Scepter was built by Dutch shipbuilder Isbrand Johansson, weighing 800 tonnes and carrying 36 guns. She had an eventful life, including a journey in 1621 when she was part of a 148-ship fleet attempting to conquer Riga, with the King on board, but only made it to Pärnu, Estonia, after getting caught up in a storm.

In 1639 she was retired and was deliberately sunk at Skeppsholmen to form part of the foundation of a new shipyard being constructed at the islet in central Stockholm at the time – 17th-century recycling methods.

Historic vessels are a fascinating, but not unusual, discovery in the Swedish capital's shipwreck graveyard.

"It is really strange, almost like a mystery that a lot of these warships have just been forgotten, and here they are. When they don't have this dramatic story about how they sank, they are just forgotten. There are probably many more around the waters here, but they have just been forgotten. Which is very unusual for other countries, I think," said Hansson.

Stefan Płużański's painting of the Battle of Oliwa in 1627, in which Scepter may have participated
[Credit: WikiCommons]

"It's a really important find because the ship is from the generation before Vasa, so we can see the technical building methods that were used, and it can help us understand what went wrong with the Vasa as well," said Hansson, referring to Sweden's most famous warship, which sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. It was later salvaged, found to be largely intact and has since become one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions.

But he emphasized Scepter will not be turned into another attraction in the style of the Vasa Museum.

"Definitely not. It is so expensive to preserve the Vasa, so we would need to find a really spectacular ship down here if we're going to build something like that. We've done some 3D photographs of the wreck, and documented it properly. And with the history, we are able to show so much about this ship already," he said.

The wreck has for now been left in approximately the same place as where it was found, and archaeologists will be on site as the renovation work continues, to be able to salvage any other marine treasures unearthed.

Authors: Emma Löfgren and Eugenia Tanaka | Source: The Local [September 07, 2017]

Read More

Did Vikings really fight behind a shield wall?

The Viking shield wall is popular among enthusiasts and widely featured in TV shows and films. But the close formation of overlapping Viking shields probably never existed in the way that many imagine.

We often imagine Vikings lined up behind a wall of shields. But their shields were too weak 
and would have been smashed by the enemy [Credit: Shutterstock]

“It’s a widespread misunderstanding that the Vikings stood shield by shield and created a close formation in battle with their round shields,” says archaeologist Rolf Warming, director of the Society for Combat Archaeology. As part of his master’s thesis in prehistoric archaeology at the University of Copenhagen, Warming has criticised the popular theory that the Vikings fought behind a shield wall.

He bases his conclusion, among other things, on his own experiments with Viking swords and shields, which indicated that the shields were too weak to resist the repeated blows that a shield wall would sustain.

The best defence is a good offence

Adorned in armour and helmet, Warming undertook an archaeological experiment with an authentic reconstruction of a Viking Age round shield. By letting a combat assistant attack him with a sharp replica of a Viking sword in simulated combat scenarios, Warming was able to test the effectiveness of different shield uses in terms of shield construction and durability.

The results were not in favour of the shield wall.

“It showed that there must have been many more disadvantages than advantages since shield-wall conditions do not allow the defender to deflect incoming attacks,” says Warming.

His shield sustained more damage in the passive wall stance when compared to a strategy of using the shield actively to fend off the opponent’s sword.

Warming also reviewed the historical sources to find references to or descriptions of Viking shield walls. However, while the shield wall is mentioned in a few cases, the sources do not provide any description of the formation. Rather than being a special tactic, it seems to be a more of a poetic term simply used to describe a large array of warriors, says Warming.

He believes it more likely that the Vikings were much more individual fighters, who fought against their enemies in loose formation, using shields to intercept incoming blows or to deliver blows with the edge of the shield.

“The fabled shield wall –- at least as the close quarter tactic is currently understood -- has no basis in the literature nor in practical application,” says Warming.

Viking fighting style should be revisited

Warming cannot say exactly where this misunderstanding originated, but his supervisor, Henriette Lyngstrøm, who is an associate professor in archaeology at the University of Copenhagen, is convinced by his research.

“The notion that Vikings fought shoulder to shoulder and waited for incoming blows seems unsound to me. Warming’s conclusions make much more sense,” says Lyngstrøm.

“When this becomes recognised in academic circles it will definitely change the notion of how the Vikings fought,” she says.

Next up: large scale re-enactment

The new research spells trouble for Viking reenactors fond of the shield wall formation.

At Trelleborg Viking fortress, lead curator Anne-Christine Larsen is not completely convinced by Warming’s results, but says it will be relevant and exciting to test on a larger scale.

Every year, an army of reenactors gather to fight as Vikings – often using tactics such as the shield wall. Larsen says it will probably stay that way.

“Warming’s experiments were based on single combat, so we’re still missing knowledge on how the shield wall worked on a larger scale, with an entire army,” she says.

But Larsen emphasises the importance of following the newest results in the area, so she and her colleagues have followed Warming’s research closely.

“Here at Trelleborg we try to recreate the Viking Age in the most authentic way possible. So if an experiment with an entire army shows that the shield wall didn’t actually work in reality, then the warriors will definitely be open to changes,” says Larsen.

Author: Johanne Uhrenholt Kusnitzoff | Source: ScienceNordic [September 07, 2017]

Read More