Archaeologists trust they might have stumbled across a Viking boat along with some skeletal stiff lie beneath a market place square in Norway .
The discovery was made this week in the coastal metropolis of Trondheim by researchers from theNorwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research(NIKU).While all of the structure ’s wood had biodegraded over the centuries , they came across a eat alloy human body and busted nail , indicating that a 4 - meter ( 13 - human foot ) gravy holder was buried here at some period during the Viking Age , over 1,000 years ago .
Two bones were found lying within the sauceboat . Although they are believed to be human , they are in such miserable condition the deoxyribonucleic acid trial run proved inconclusive . A report by the Norwegian everyday newspaperAdressasaid that the texture of the off-white was like Brunost , Norway ’s famous brown tall mallow .
They also discovered a handful of personal items , such as a spoonful and a keystone , scattered around the boat ’s shell .
“ It is likely a boat that has been poke down into the flat coat and been used as a casket for the dead,”saidNIKU ’s Knut Paasche , a specialist in early boats . " There has also probably been a burial knoll over the sauceboat and grave . "
Paasche bestow that he believes that the boat case is similar to a Åfjord boat , a intermediate - sized mat - bottomed seafaring vessel , a descendant of the old Norse Viking boats . It ’s likely to appointment from the Early Viking Period , between the seventh and tenth C CE , when the Vikings begin to expand alfresco of Scandinavia and head for Britain , Normandy , Iceland , and Greenland . In the following 100 , they even made it as far as North Africa and Russia .
Boat graves are n’t too uncommon around Norway and the wider Scandinavian area . However , this the first meter such an artefact has been find in Trondheim city centre , suggesting that the settlement is older than antecedently think .
“ This is another discovery by NIKU that refers to a Trondheim old than the medieval metropolis . Other Viking settlements such as Birka , Gokstad or Kaupang all have grave in near proximity to the trading sum , ” said Paasche .
