Has Viking Age Been Pushed Back One Century?

Above: the ship's site, Herlaugshaugen mound, Leka. This burial mound was excavated notably because of its grand scale & a later legend, & plenty of others have of course been examined… Yet Norway alone holds over 2000 grave mounds large enough to have potentially entombed a small or large vessel, & most remain so far unexplored… Photo credit: Hanne Bryn/NTNU.

Summer 2023, on beautiful Leka island in Norway,¹ archeologists made an almost revolutionary discovery: The hitherto oldest ship burial in Scandinavia - dated c700AD, ie almost a century before the Viking Age's "official" birth in 793AD.²

Revolutionary because, though little physical material is generally left of buried ships from that period, extant remains were still sufficient to submit that this fairly large ship was:

1. Certainly sea-capable, including of shoreline journeys as far as France,
2. Possibly sea-crossing as well,
3. Likely had a mast.

This would push the generalised phasing-in of such advanced capability at least half a century backward in time, perhaps even more. Plus, if such ships already roamed then, it stands to reason that the phasing-in chronology for vessel types more rudimentary (but still highly notable!) might also need reconsideration.³

How far back can we ultimately push Nordic Europe’s later legendary amphibious/seafaring proficiency? Perhaps, at the end of our road, only little. But given the pace of technological acceleration in modern archeology - & its sheer exploratory activity these days - we could just as credibly be at the dawn of true serial breakthroughs.

1 A decent NYT writeup on the find: Lidz, Franz. "From 700 AD, a Pre-Viking Vessel Rises Into View". The New York Times, 31 May 2024.

2 Year of the infamous Viking raid on Lindisfarne monastery. Not Christendom’s first recorded violent encounter with Northmen but certainly the most sensational, & the one given most contemporary & ulterior notoriety. It remains the consensual Viking Age birthyear.

3 See my entry on this question, Dark Age Naval Power.