Archaeologists Discovered A Buried Ship in Norway That's 'Older Than The Vikings'

The practice of burying old ships in monumental "burial mounds" in Norway was long believed to be started by the Vikings. New research suggests this isn't the case, as archeologists have found evidence that it was going on 100 years before the Vikings even existed.

In a study published in Antiquity, scholars confirmed that the infamous Herlaugshaugen mound in Leka, Norway, contains iron rivets and wooden remains that date back to 700 C.E. Previous research suggests that Vikings didn't take control of the island until 800 C.E.

The team used metal detectors and carbon dating technologies to make the discovery, taking samples from a 65-foot-long ship that has been sitting in the Earth for the better part of 1,200 years. Not only does this prove that the burials in Herlaufshaugen are older than the Vikings, but also that many things we previously thought we knew about the practice are false.

Herlaugshaugen takes its name from the pre-Viking King Herlaug, who was previously understood to be buried in the ancient cite. Scholars long suspected this was a myth, but evidence that he was reportedly exhumed in the 18th century put this hypothesis into question.

If this new evidence is to be believed, the ship resting at Herlaugshaugen was buried at least 80 years before Herlaug died. This means he can't have been buried there, putting the foundation of the formative myth into question.

While ship burials are typcially considered to be a Viking practice, the oldest known burial sites date back to 600 C.E. in East Anglia, England. And yet, Viking burials weren't reported until at least 800 C.E—because that's when they first arrived in Norway.

The new discoveries at Herlaugshaugen fills the gap between these two dates, elucidating how the ritualistic practice kept itself alive between the East Anglians and the Vikings.

“New excavation at Herlaugshaugen reveals that the phenomenon of monumental ship graves was not restricted to southern Scandinavia, the northern Norwegian coast was also integrated into networks established in the seventh and eight centuries,” the authors of the resarch conclude. “The monumental ship mound at Leka represents another piece of the puzzle for understanding the social development of northern Europe in the seventh to 10th centuries.”