Archaeologists from Norway’s Museum of Cultural History have confirmed that the Gjellestad Viking ship grave discovery in southeast Norway is almost certainly from the early days of the Viking age.
The 2018 discovery by the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) made headlines around the world. Several longhouses and at least one ship burial were discovered by new ground-penetrating radar (GPR) technology. While the site was known to be of importance during the Viking era, the dating of the ship had been an educated guess, until now.
Dating a Viking ship grave
“The investigations happily confirm our hypothesis from 2018, when we found the ship by ground-penetrating radar (GPR),” said Knut Paasche, head of Digital Archaeology at NIKU.
“In the context of other, earlier ship discoveries near the Oslofjord, both the shape of the ship and its placement indicate the Viking Age. It is a pleasure to have this confirmed through dendrochronological dating,” he added. Dendrochronology is the study of data from tree ring growth.