From the massive and rich ship burials found in Scandinavia, to the small rowing boats used in boat burials on Scottish isles, the distinctive Viking burial rite making use of a boat to carry the dead into the next life has always fascinated.
Two academics from the University of the Highlands and Islands were part of an international team of researchers involved in a project hailed as “the world’s largest DNA sequencing of Viking skeletons”.
A large Norse hall has been discovered during excavations at the Skaill farmstead, on the island of Rousay, Orkney. The hall probably dates to the 10th to 12th centuries AD and was discovered below more recent structures.
Next week, commencing July 8, 2019, a team from the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute will return to dig at the fascinating Skaill Farmstead site on the Orkney island of Rousay.
We invited Andrea Freund PhD student currently studying at the University of the Highlands and Islands to write a guest blog on her research and exhibition into Viking runes.
The University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute invites you to be an archaeologist for a day. Join the team uncovering the story of this exciting site at our Open Day at Skaill Farm on the island of Rousay, Orkney.
Rousay Heritage Trust has received a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) Stories, Stones and Bones grant for the Rousay, Egilsay and Wyre Land and Sea – Exploring Island Heritage, Past and Present, in Rousay, Orkney.
A key goal for archaeozoology is to define and characterise pastoral farming strategies – how did people in the Middle Iron Age / Viking Late Norse period organise their farming?
