With a length of 60 meters it is one of the largest longhouses ever found in Scandinavia.

Vikings are known to build so-called longhouses; long ‘farms’ where they often lived with several people. In the meantime, quite a few remains of longhouses from the time of the Vikings have already been found. But now, with the help of soil radar, researchers have tracked down a very exceptional specimen: a longhouse up to 60 meters long!

Viking ship

Researchers found the giant longhouse near a Viking ship discovered in 2018 in the Norwegian town of Gjellestad. After this twenty-meter-long ship was excavated, the research team decided to comb the nearby area in search of several ‘treasures’. Equipped with a bottom radar, they subjected 40 hectares to the south, east and north of the Viking ship to a thorough inspection.

Longhouses

And with success. “We found several buildings north of the ship,” said researcher Lars Gustavsen. “All typical Iron Age longhouses.” These are four remains of buildings that are approximately between 15 and 30 meters long and up to 13 meters wide. “But the most striking find is a 60 meters long and 15 meters wide longhouse,” Gustavsen continues. “With these dimensions, it is one of the largest longhouses ever found in Scandinavia.”

The 60-meter long house, discovered just north of the previously excavated Viking ship. Image: Norsk institutt for kulturminneforskning

But the area turns out to harbor even more secrets. The researchers also found several plowed burial mounds in the fields to the north of the farm.

burial mounds

“We’re not surprised we found these burial mounds,” said Gustavsen. “We already knew about the existence of several others. Archaeologists have studied the area before and made finds that pointed to more burial mounds. Yet these are very important to get a more complete picture of Gjellestad and its surroundings.”

Follow-up research

Research continues. Because at the moment it is still unknown, for example, how old the newly discovered longhouses are. The researchers also do not know exactly what function they had. “Archaeological excavations and dating will help us answer this,” said researcher Sigrid Mannsåker Gundersen.

In any case, there is now no doubt that Gjellestad was a central place in the late Norse Iron Age. “The fact that we have now come across new longhouses confirms that,” says Gustavsen. In the coming years, the researchers also hope to find an answer to the question of how and why Gjellestad became such an important place. “We hope that we will understand much better the relationship between the ship, the buildings and the emergence of central places,” concludes Gustavsen.