Between Sutton Hoo and Oseberg – dendrochronology and the origins of the ship burial tradition

Abstract

ABSTRACTNew dendrochronological dates from Western Norway prompt an old question to be posed in a new way. They show that two ship burials on the island of Karmoy date from AD 780 and 790, that is, the very beginning of the Viking Age, and are therefore the very earliest known ship graves – with one exception: Sutton Hoo. So where did the ship burial tradition originate?Sutton Hoo’s early seventh century ship burials, in large, ocean-going vessels, are often compared with the boat graves of Vendel, Valsgarde and other sites in the Lake Malar region of Sweden, while Oseberg and the other ship burials in the Oslofjord area have traditionally been interpreted as the precursors of, and models for, the Karmoy ship graves. In this paper, we aim to demonstrate that the use of ships and boats in burials was common practise around the North Sea and in the Western Baltic during the Late Migration period and was introduced to Eastern England with the same ‘wave’ of cultural influences that took new forms of brooches...