Viking-Age Shack Discovered on Norway’s Hardanger Plateau

 

According to a Science Norway report, archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a shack on Norway's Hardanger Plateau, a site identified with the help of clues from an early nineteenth-century travel journal. The shack, located along a key trade route across the plateau, would have served as a shelter for travelers crossing the mountains.

Inside the shack’s first small room, archaeologists found two arrowheads, likely left by a Viking Age hunter, and a Viking Age metal fire striker used to start fires. In the main room, they discovered a large hearth, approximately three feet by four feet, containing a 15-inch layer of soot. "It's packed with animal bones—reindeer, sheep, birds, fish, and other things they've eaten," said archaeologist Marianne Vedeler from the Museum of Cultural History. Unlike typical Viking settlements where waste was discarded in designated pits, it appears the people using this shack threw their refuse directly into the fire.

Samples of soot from the hearth will be dated in hopes of determining how long the shack remained in use.