Archeologists are taking to the high seas in Viking ships

Yahoo

22-05-2025

Greer Jarrett has spent the past three years sailing Scandinavia's waterways in historically accurate Viking ships. The voyages aren't part of some reenactment fantasy or preparation for an upcoming film role. Instead, the archeologist wants to show that exploration based on historical knowledge can help us better understand how an ancient culture lived, explored, and interacted with the world around them.
Last year, Jarrett contributed to research suggesting the Vikings participated in more complex trading routes with Indigenous Arctic tribes than previously believed. After his latest excursions along the eastern coasts of Norway, Jarrett now says his team believes that rather than solely relying on concentrated trading outposts, Norse sailors frequently utilized a decentralized network of ports on the region's numerous islands and peninsulas. Their argument is detailed in a study published earlier this month in the Journal of Archeological Method and Theory.
Since 2022, Jarrett and his intrepid crews have navigated multiple voyages aboard an open, square-rigged clinker boat built in the style of those used during the Viking Age (roughly 800–1050 CE). Their first trip traveled to and from the Arctic Circle from Trondheim, a common route for sailors after the Norwegian city's founding in 997 CE. The researchers have since sailed more than 3,100 miles along historic Viking trade routes, as well as into the Baltic Sea and the Kattegat waterway separating Sweden from Denmark. These expeditions, coupled with interdisciplinary analysis and evidence, has provided substantial evidence that the original Viking travelers journeyed further from land than historians long theorized.
However, these trips weren't undertaken with the aid of a compass, sextant, or even a map. Instead, the Norse relied on mental maps informed by cultural myths tied to coastal landmarks.
'Examples include Viking stories about the islands Torghatten, Hestmona and Skrova off the Norwegian coast,' Jarrett explained in a Lund University profile. 'The stories serve to remind sailors of the dangers surrounding these places, or of their importance as navigation marks.'
These tales were passed down through generations to help seafarers, or what Jarrett refers to as a 'Maritime Cultural Mindscape.' He also conducted interviews with present-day fishermen and sailors about various routes known to have been utilized in the 19th and early 20th century, before motorized boats were common.
After previously demonstrating that Viking vessels can handle open oceanic waters even in tough conditions, Jarrett was determined to explore their capabilities close to land and among the fjords. He and his team sailed two trips along Norway's western coast towards the Lofoten Islands, an archipelago in the Arctic Circle. While their rigging and ship were modeled after ancient technology, researchers also utilized digital geospatial reconstructions of the region to envision the surrounding landscapes as they would have existed at the time of the Vikings.
According to Jarrett, the daily challenges are 'just as great, but not as obvious' as ocean sailing. These included underwater currents and katabatic winds—the wind generated as a mountain's dense, cool, high-altitude air flows into a lower elevation. Weather proved an additional challenge, particularly the cold temperatures in the Lofoten Islands.
'Our hands really suffered. At that point I realized just how crucial it is to have a good crew,' Jarrett said.
Extensive socio-cultural knowledge also didn't keep the voyages free from danger, either. At one point, the boat's mainsail yard snapped, forcing Jarrett and his crew to improvise a solution using only Viking-era materials.
'We had to lash two oars together to hold the sail, and hope that it would hold,' he said.
After returning home, Jarrett and colleagues combined their data with historical documentation and cultural knowledge. It was clear to them that the numerous environmental and oceanographic variables made coastal journeys difficult in their own special set of ways.
'With this type of boat, it has to be easy to get in and out of the harbor in all possible wind conditions. There must be several routes in and out,' he said. 'Shallow bays are not an issue because of the shallow draft of the boats. Getting far up the narrow fjords, however, is tricky. They are difficult to sail upwind with a square rig, and the boats are sensitive to katabatic winds.'
His resulting study argues it is highly unlikely that Vikings only docked at well-established, populated towns and harbors. Instead, sailors probably relied on a decentralized network of smaller port hubs located farther out to sea that Jarrett refers to as 'havens.'
'A lot of the time, we only know about the starting and ending points of the trade that took place during the Viking Age. Major ports, such as Bergen and Trondheim in Norway, Ribe in Denmark, and Dublin in Ireland,' said Jarrett. 'The thing I am interested in is what happened on the journeys between these major trading centers.'
Jarrett has now identified four potential sites along the Norwegian coast that could have served as Viking havens. He hopes that archeological teams may soon investigate these areas to see what they might unearth. Evidence could include jetty and mooring post remnants, ballast stones, boatbuilding pits, temporary shelters, and artifacts indicating local commerce. At the same time, he acknowledges that these suggestions are starting points, not necessarily final destinations.'Due to the nature of the evidence, the methodology presented here can uncover potentials, but not realities,' Jarrett and the study's co-authors write. 'The list of possible Viking Age havens… is intended as a working document, which can shape and be shaped by future archaeological surveys and excavations.'