Week 32

The excavation at Fröjel is now completed. It took some time, because it was several constructions found in the end of the excavation period. But now when the excavation is completed it is time for us to give you a brief summary of the results from the summer-season 1998. It goes without saying, that we are far from having all the material analysed at this time, so I will just give you a preliminary analyse and interpretation. During the autumn I will give you regular reports from the latest results of the examined material.

But before I go into the results, I would like to say some words about the carry out of the excavation. It is a fact that the money for this kind of research don't grow on trees and there is a fierce competition to get the foundation resources that exist. Much of today's research is therefore based on other resources and not at least on idealistic work. The archaeological excavation of the Viking Age harbour and tradingplace at Fröjel is to a great extent based on summer-courses of archaeology, where the public is a resource necessary to accomplish this kind of project.

This summer's six week long excavation was consequently carried out in the form of courses of archaeology. From midsummer and the following three weeks the excavation was carried out with help from the residential college for adult education in Hemse, located on the southern part of Gotland, in collaboration with Gotland University College and the undersigned. During the second period of three weeks, starting the 13th of July, a new course in archaeology was working at Fröjel. Responsible for this course was Viking Heritage in collaboration with Stockholm, Cultural Capital of Europe ´98, Gotland County Administrative Board and Gotland Municipality. A contributory factor was means from the EU 5b-programme.

The excavation of the Viking Age harbour in Fröjel, situated below the present church, was carryied out in form of courses in archaeology, open for the public. Photo D. Carlsson.

The main part of all the participants of the excavation got information about the project and took contact via Internet. I must say that it was a bit strange, while almost all contacts between me and the participants was made via e-mail and Internet. It was by this way we got the contact with interested excavators from France as well as from Australia and Brazil.

Thanks to this archaeology courses we were at the most about 35 persons participating in the excavation at the same time. It is a fact that I could not have handle this kind of project by my self. In other words I got several archaeologist as assistants and they got experience of working with an archaeological excavation by this project. At most we were about 50 people working at the same time at Fröjel.

In connection with the excavation there was an exhibition about the Viking Age harbour and tradingplace at Fröjel open for the public. Guided tours took the visitors down to the excavation field. A perspicuous summary shows us that there has been about 3000-4000 visitors at Fröjel during this first summer season.
Another example of how we did act as intermediary in the spreading of knowledge of our pre-history was by offering the public to try themselves to be an archaeologist for a day. It was very appreciated among those who tested it, but scientifically it involved extra work for the archaeologist in charge. So, at this point it is not settled whether we will continue with this part of our intermediary programme next summer or not.

It is a fact that we would never have been able to accomplish this sort of project without the enthusiasm and interest that all participants showed during the excavation. I would like to say many THANKS to all of You, no one mentioned, no one forgotten. In one way or another, you made it possible to pursue this kind of research and I hope to see you again next summer!

It would be impossible to carry out a project like Fröjel Discovery Programme without help of so-called amateur-archaeologists (some of them have a very high skill in both excavation knowledge and of artefacts). Here you can see the group that were excavating between the 13th of July and about 2 or 3 weeks after that. Thank you for a brilliant contribution! Photo D. Carlsson.

Among the participants at the excavation there were visitors from far away, as Jean-Christophe Guillon from Paris, France and Juliana Diaz from Recife in Brazil. Photo D. Carlsson.

Preliminary results from the excavation summer-98

Here follows a short summery of this summer's excavation. As already has been described, one of the aims of Fröjel Discovery Programme is to shed light on the structure, the extension and the age of the harbour. We had by test investigations during the end of the 1980th found out by phosphate samples that there was evidence of settlements as well in the southern part of the Fröjel area as in the northern part. The excavations at that time had also shown us that the settlement was indicating a regular pattern, that means that the houses seemed to be located pointing to the same direction. That also means that there had to be an organised planning of the location of the houses in the area, just like it has been in Visby, Trondheim, Sigtuna, Birka and other Viking Age tradingplaces. We also found out that in the northern part of the settlement area, there was a gravefield located. It was partly destroyed by later buildings.

Most of the earlier excavations took place in the upper end of the field to the north and the lower end to the south. We did not know anything about what was located in the area in-between. One of the aims of this summer excavation was to get a grip of what could be located in this central part of the settlement area. To find out some answers I choose to place several shafts in a north-south direction in the central part of the area. Later on, we placed a larger shaft further north just to make a connection to earlier excavated areas. A third and smaller excavation shaft was opened in the eastern part of the area, 4 x 4 metres large.

The total examined area during this season was about 300 square metres, which is proportionately a large area. All of the artefacts found during the summer is now registered in a database and are thereby available for further working. From this summer's excavation, we have registered about 4000 posts of objects, which means approximately about 6000 separate artefacts.

The graves in the north.

The oldest remains and constructions in the area consists of graves, found in the northern shaft. The graves are connected to other graves discovered earlier and they form all together what looks like a very huge gravefield. The graves from the excavation this year can be separated in two groups. One part consists of two cremation graves. One of them showed up as a thin layer of charcoal and burnt bones, about 1 metre in diameter and only about 10 cm thick. Mixed with the burnt bones was a fibula (brooch) of a type that can be dated to about AD 500-600. Besides the fibula, there were also two bronze pins of a type that is common in the early Vendel period (AD 550-600). To judge from the artefacts, it is obviously a woman.

An essential part of the mediate of the Viking Age harbour and history in Fröjel was the exhibition in the old school in Fröjel. With several illustrative "pictures" the visitor got a glimse of living at the tradingplace. The exhibition was produced by Hanna Moback with help and assistance from Therese Lindström, Liza Hermansson and Therese Schroeder. Photo D. Carlsson.

During the excavation it was possible to join a guided tour to the site. It started with a visit to the exhibition and after that a walk about 500 metres down to the excavation area. Photo D. Carlsson.

The second cremation grave was found under a house dated to the 11th century. In this case, it was a construction of stones, formed as a large posthole, about 0,7 metres in external diameter. The soil was very dark coloured and contained an abundance of burnt bones. The man, in this case it was obviously a man, had been buried with his one-edged sword of iron and two fragmented game pieces of bone. The sword was bent, which was a normal habit during the Vendel period (AD 550-800).

All the other graves in the area, all together about 10, were inhumation graves. About half of them were placed under a well laid stone packing, while the others were buried directly in the gravel. All of them were women, and all, except one, were oriented in a north-south direction, with their heads in the south. By the occurrence of typical Viking Age artefacts in the graves, we can date the graves to the 9th century and maybe the earliest part of the 10th century.

The Viking Age settlement

On to of the graves, we could see a rather considerable cultural layer, above all in the western part of the northern shaft. The main part of the artefacts has a dating to the 11th century. The dating of the 11 silvercoins we found confirms that dating, even if three coins were from the 15th and the 17th century. In some parts of the shaft, we also found a large amount of animal bones, remains from the cooking. But we did not find as much ceramics as we usually do. Coming month, I will give you more details about the artefacts we found.

The aim of this summer's excavation was to get an idea of the settlement pattern in the central part of the area, but also to make a correlation with the earlier areas excavated in the north part of the area.

The finds from the north can above all be connected to the remains of two houses. Hearths and sills of stones clearly shows the dimension of one of the buildings. Non of the houses were entirely located within our excavation area. Several postholes in different dimensions gave us indication of further remains of buildings, for instance two postholes, about 30-40 centimetres in diameter, were of larger dimensions than the others. These two postholes could not be connected to any building in the excavation area.

In the southern shaft there was a larger amount of postholes found as well as in the smaller shaft in the east of the examined area. If we put all the traces of buildings from this year's excavation together and combine them with those found earlier, we can see a distinct pattern of a regularity in the settlements orientation. This makes the picture of a planned settlement in a regular pattern even clearer.

The north shaft seen from the east. In the forefront there are several graves located with skeletons directly placed in the shore-gravel, but also several below neat packings of stones. In the upper end of the picture you can see the area with traces of buildings and the stone-bank that appeared to be a marking of a field from the 17th century. Photo D. Carlsson.

Very typical, in the last and tremble minute of the excavation we found a cultur layer in the small shaft to the east. This layer was unusual thick and in some places as thick as 0,8 metre, which is a lot compering to what we usually find. This proportionately small shaft showed to include a large amount of constructions, for instance hearths, garbage pits and postholes. The last mentioned had different dimensions and were probably traces of houses, but also constructions like "net-stands".

In this shaft, relative few artefacts were found and, unfortunately, there is nothing that can help us to get a clearer dating of this cultur layer. Some of the potsherds were made of coarse and mixed material but with a rather simple ornamentation that gives an impression of being "old", that means from an older period than the Viking Age. The excavation resulted in an impression that points to that the lower cultur layer is from the period before the Viking Age. We also found remains of wood in several constructions, that, with the help of C14-dating, might give us a more precise dating.

Continuous work

As I have already said, this year's excavation is now completed and from now on we will start analysing the material. Until the middle of December Cornelia Fischer will devote her time making an excavation report. During the autumn I will return regular to this homepage with shorter articles of what turns up during this ongoing work. Some of the questions and problems that will appear during the work I will put on the Internet to get some point of view and train of thoughts from you readers. There might be someone out there that have the answers to our questions and problems.

Isn't this Internet thing fascinating? In one of my earlier weekly reports I asked if anyone on the Net recognised a round stone with a small depression in the middle. I got an answer from Denmark that there is a stone that look like the one we have found at L´Anse aux Meadows, New Foundland in Canada (a Viking age settlement on the island) and it has been interpreted to be an oil-lamp.

An essential part of the work this autumn will be to make an osteological analysis of the skeletons. To make that possible we need, except for money, an osteologist. Carola Liebe-Harkort is the person that will be responsible for the analysis (if we get the means for it!). She has also been participating during the whole excavation season and been a great help at the accomplishment of the excavation. Photo D. Carlsson.