August 31, 2016 - 06
A new archaeological excavation in Denmark reveals the remains of graves and buildings that span the Stone Age, Bronze Age, the Vikings, and right up to the Middle Ages.
Archaeologists are busy unearthing the traces of three thousand years of activity at Silkeborg, west Denmark.
Excavations have already revealed pit-houses, which were typically used as workshops during the Viking era, and residential homes in the so-called Trelleborg style (see Fact Box), together with several graves.
At least two of the graves could have accommodated high-status Vikings.
“There’s been activity here at least since the Stone Age,” says one of the archaeologists involved in the dig, Maria Thiemke, from the Silkeborg Museum, Denmark.
“There’s at least 14 houses and five graves from the Stone Age, Bronze Age, right up until the Middle Ages,” says Thiemke.
Even though she expected the site to reveal lots of archaeological finds, both Thiemke and her colleague, archaeologist Rikke Isler from Silkeborg Museum, were both surprised by the richness of the finds.
“The graves are located close to a church from the Middle Ages and that’s often an indication that there’s been activity on the site for a long time. But what we’ve found is a jigsaw puzzle with lots of pieces and probably from six, seven, or eight different games,” says Isler.
See some of the finds in the gallery above.
Burial site for a high-status lady
Earlier in the year, Thiemke and Isler unearthed the remains of posts from several houses at a test-site. So they sought funding to investigate further. They are now excavating five hectares of the site.
As they began to dig, they discovered two red patches of rusty soil in a corner of one of the graves.
“We could hear one of our colleagues shout “It’s metal!” and coincidentally one of our metal detectors was on site. He also found metal in the opposite corner of the grave, so we dug and found a klinker nail--a special type of nail,” says Thiemke.
A klinker nail indicates that the grave could have contained a wagon. This type of grave was usually reserved for women of high social status, nobility or great wealth.
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