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The point of this essay is to analyze, and compare the numerous articles of the local newspaper Tønsbergs Blad during the building of The Oseberg Viking ship. This ship is the most famous ship from this era, and was built in full scale in 2012. My focus is the use of history in regards to the construction of the ship, which was done by hand, using the Vikings methods, and tools. This essay represents a selection of 16 news articles during and after the launch the building. Focus is the use of history in a Norwegian context during the latest 100-150 years, with examples on how the past is used to describe Norway today, in contrast to the Viking age from the 800-900. To achieve the aim four questions are formulated:  Why did The New Oseberg Ship Foundation decide to build the ship just like the Vikings did, a thousand years ago?  What were the motives behind the project? Did the public show any interest for the Viking ship?  What were the challenges that faced the engineers and carpenters? The study indicates that the construction of the Oseberg Viking ship is built on extensive research in regards to history, archaeology and the vintage Viking ship still in existence. The Oseberg Viking ship is built by the use of original tools and methods. The aim was for The New Oseberg Ship Foundation to see if they could succeed in the planning of the project – and ultimately end up with a full scale, fully authentic functional Viking ship. The New Oseberg Ship Foundation today continues the building of other Viking ships. The interest from the public was, and continues to be great. The Oseberg Viking ship was found in Tønsberg. In modern times, images of Viking ships have been used in a mixture of ways, but especially as symbols of national and cultural identity. Viking imagery has been used to evoke a sense of past glory. The Oseberg Viking ship is the most spectacular ship from the Viking Age.

Archaeological excavations were conducted by EASE Archaeology at the Knowe of Skea on the island of Westray between 2000 and 2009 and discovered a multi-phase site with evidence for activity dating from the Neolithic through to the Viking era. Excavations revealed that the site had been used as a burial ground for a prolonged period during the Iron Age. Human remains recovered during the first seasons of excavations were radiocarbon dated to the turn of the first millennium BC/AD. These dates highlighted the significance of this burial ground; burial evidence of Iron Age date is sparse in Atlantic Scotland and often overlooked due to the lack of a recognisable, dominant burial rite. Burials of individuals of all ages, including a very high number of infants, were recovered and represent the largest known collection of burials of this date from Scotland. Iron Age research in Atlantic Scotland has traditionally been dominated by study and discussion of the impressive stone-built architecture of domestic buildings and working places of a population about which very little is actually known. Examination of the burials from this site and comparisons with similar sites in the Orkney Islands is building a greater understanding of the treatment of the dead in this region during a period for which so little evidence exists. The burials had been placed in the rubble of earlier collapsed buildings which appears to be a common feature of many Iron Age burials in the Orkney Islands and north-eastern Scotland. Site records, photographs and views of excavators were consulted and combined with the results of the osteological analysis to determine burial patterns at the site according to age, sex or burial location. The large volume of infant remains recovered from the site created the possibility to investigate such high infant mortality and the general health of infants and children. High numbers of infant burials can often lead to suggestions of infanticide; the likelihood of this is also discussed. The results of basic stable isotope analysis (13C and 15N) were examined to interpret breastfeeding and weaning practice. The evidence provided in the results of isotopic analysis was also used to interpret the diet of this population and compared with archaeological evidence of diet from excavation of domestic sites across Atlantic Scotland. Of particular interest was the extent to which the population of the islands may have exploited marine and other wild resources when compared with similar dietary studies in the rest of Scotland and Britain. Results of osteoarchaeological analysis of the human skeletal remains from the Knowe of Skea allowed a deeper understanding of the lifestyle and health of a population for which there has been little evidence to date.

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My diploma thesis has focused on creating a proposal for a Viking center in Stockholm that meets the international interest. A building dedicated solely to the Viking heritage. My ambition has been to give the Viking center an architecture that can serve as scenography for its exhibitions and to give the visitors a feel for the Vikings that they have been craving.  A boat-shaped building in tribute to the Vikings boat building skills with curved stems of equal height that gives a familiar silhouette to the city.  A wood building constructed of curved beams and wood columns painted with tar. / Mitt examensarbete har fokuserat på att skapa ett förslag på ett vikingacenter i Stockholm som kan möta det ökande internationella intresset. Det ska bli en byggnad helt dedikerad till vårat vikingaarv. Min ambition har varit att ge vikingacentret en arkitektur som kan fungera som scenografi för dess utställningar och ge besökarna den vikingakänsla som de saknat. Resultatet är en båt-formad byggnad, en hyllning till vikingarnas båtbyggarkonst. Byggnadens böjda för och akter av samma höjd ger en välbekant siluett till staden.  Det är en träbyggnad av krökta balkar och träpelare målad med tjära.

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The Viking Age cemetery of Tuna in Alsike from the 9th - 11th century AD is located in the eastern part of middle Sweden and contains inhumation boat graves. Here analysis of Strontium isotopes, using laser ablation method on the tooth enamel of the canine and first molar of two individuals buried in boat-graves XI and XIII have been performed. Comparing Strontium isotope evidence with local strontium ratios and variations indicated that at least one individual, the one in boat-grave XIII, were non-local.

This thesis reviews archaeological material, medieval literature, place-names and palaeoenvironmental data cited in explorations of the early Viking Age North Atlantic area, and proposes a reassessment of chronology for the earliest settlement of Iceland. After analysing previous scholarship and discussing the problems inherent in study of early North Atlantic settlement, it is suggested that a multi-disciplinary approach is needed and can be articulated (by drawing upon Karl Popper’s ideas) to foster a fruitful conversation between disciplines. This methodology for engaging with multi-disciplinary materials is then presented. Three sections follow, tackling in turn three areas of Viking Age scholarship that have caused difficulty and frustration in the past: the toponymy of Hebridean Pap-islands (Chapter Three); the chronology of carve construction, occupation and human-environmental interactions at Seljaland in southern Iceland (Chapters Four, Five, Six, and Seven); and the İrland et mikla tradition of medieval literature, including discussion of the views of the largely forgotten nineteenth-century scholar Eugène Beauvois (Chapter Eight). Couched in a Popperian methodology, the new archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research that forms the bulk of the thesis is integrated with small-scale studies of place-names and medieval literature. Tephronchronology plays a large part in the Seljaland section. Chapter Six, for instance, introduces the tephra contours technique for study of past environments. The thesis concludes with a new proposal for the first settlement of Iceland and its connections to Atlantic Scotland, arrived at by considering the archaeological and tephra deposits at Seljaland, in conjunction with art-historical, toponymic and literary material. The thesis proposes that southern Iceland’s Seljaland caves were built c. AD 800 – earlier than the traditional Norse foundation of settlement on the island – and that cross sculpture in these caves suggests a connection with Gaelic monasticism found across the Scottish islands in this period.

Building offerings, artefacts or bones that had been placed under or within house features, are considered evidence of rites associated with house construction, remodelling or abandonment, and are an archaeological phenomenon that was common throughout European prehistory. This dissertation focuses on interpreting building offerings dating to the Viking Age in Iceland and Scotland. Each find of this type is unique, which poses a challenge for archaeological investigations that often lack the interpretive framework needed to make comparisons between sites. This dissertation critically refines the frameworks of previous studies of similar types of deposits in AngloSaxon Britain and Scandinavia in order to fill this gap in research and discuss the purpose of houserites. The frameworks of behavioural and cognitive archaeology indicate that the performance of house-rites played a role in the construction of the house as the centre of the world-view of Vikingage people. House-rites are situated as prescriptive behaviours that negotiated perspectives of space throughout the residential life-cycle by adding to house materiality. This refined interpretive paradigm is then applied to a comparative survey of Viking-age houses and farmsteads from Iceland and Scotland. In the North Atlantic region, house-rites appear to have been performed in order for Norse people to reimagine their place in the world. The practical elements of the tradition were altered based on the relevant cultural frameworks and specific geo-political contexts to which Norse people were migrating in the Viking Age. In Iceland, people utilised displays of generosity and skills as providers during house-rites to construct an association between social relationships and residential space. The house itself had agency in situating people both within the landscape and the community. In Norse settlements in Scotland, Scandinavian people were relating themselves directly to the symbols used by native peoples through the use of personal objects in the performance of houserites, integrating their new environment into their mentalities. In Scandinavia, house-rites were a long-standing tradition, leading to a well-established, carefully negotiated sense of identity within the landscape. The Norse people who migrated into the North Atlantic region during the Viking Age were leaving this well-established sense of place. This intensified the climate of uncertainty regarding their place in the world, leading to the negotiation of mentalities through the discursive dynamics of house-rites in altered contexts.