Last autumn, archaeologists using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) discovered traces of previously unknown graves and settlement activity at several locations along Trondheim Fjord. They hope that these discoveries can shed light on state formation, national unification and religious change in Norway a thousand years ago.
A new international project is to explore how cultural heritage, monuments and the professionals involved in their safeguarding, can be better protected during times of war.
Marius Warg Næss from NIKU’s High North Departement at The Fram Centre has received funding from the European research council as one of nine Norwegian researchers. The next five years, he will study how political complexity can evolve from small-scale cooperative groups in nomadic pastoral societies.
At Gjellestad in Norway, archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) have found a 60 metre longhouse. There is no longer a doubt that Gjellestad, where the same team discovered a Viking ship in 2018, has been a central place in the late Nordic Iron Age. In the next few years, researchers will hopefully find the answer to how Gjellestad became such an important place.
