Identifying decayed Viking longship remains in Norwegian burial mounds; the Gokstad, Gjellestad and Myklebust sites

Late Iron Age and Viking boat- and ship-burials are numerous in Norway, but relatively well-preserved ships are almost unique (e.g., the iconic Gokstad Longship), in comparison with the large number found as highly degraded remains in soil mounds. This article selects two examples of very poorly preserved longships (at Gjellestad and Myklebust) in order to compare their soil micromorphological characteristics with the Gokstad example. At the Gokstad mound, construction involved a layer of marine intertidal silty clay loam, below turves, which produced an anaerobic environment protecting the wooden ship from oxidation and microbiological attack. The ship burial at Gjellestad, had probably been turf- and sediment-buried; the poorly sealed ship became strongly affected by oxidising conditions leading to attack by soft rot bacteria and fungi. Soil results from UK experimental earthworks show how quickly changes can occur in buried soils. A very limited study shows that oxidation and probable attack by rot and fungi also affected the poorly sealed ship at Myklebust, which in the 19th century had been described as being burnt because of its dark remains and the presence of cremation residues. Unlike the Gokstad example, the differently constructed mounds at Gjellestad and Myklebust seem to have allowed drying-out, and only vestigial traces of the original wooden ships survive. The dissimilar soil micromorphological features of these three sites are illustrated alongside some detailed geochemistry from Gjellestad, where Principal Components Analysis had been applied; S and LOI are very strongly correlated alongside evidence of reducing conditions (MS550lf and MSQ).