Evrim Yazgin
Cosmos science journalist
One archaeologist has gone to extra lengths to show that Vikings were capable of sailing further than previously thought possible.
Greer Jarrett is a doctoral student at Sweden’s Lund University. He and his team have authored a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory which details evidence of a network of Viking-era ports on islands and peninsulas around Scandinavia.
But it’s the way Jarrett’s team made their findings which is most interesting.
Ancient Scandinavian sea travel can be studied in several ways, including chemical evidence from ancient remains and simulations which model how ancient boats would have fared on the open seas.
Jarrett and co went a step further. In 2022, they built a replica sailing boat similar to those used during the Viking Age (800–1050 CE). Since then, they have clocked more than 5,000km in the boat, traversing old Viking trade routes.
The hands-on research shows that the likely routes would have taking the Viking traders further from land than previously thought.
“I can show that this type of boat sails well on open water, in tough conditions,” Jarrett says. “But navigating close to land and in the fjords sometimes presents challenges that are just as great, but not as obvious. Underwater currents and katabatic winds blowing down from mountain slopes, for example.”
The crew battled through freezing conditions and even perils such as a snapped mainsail yard.
Jarrett’s team also interviewed modern sailors and fishermen about routes traditionally used in the 19th and 20th centuries to gain insight.
“I used the experience of my own journeys and the sailors’ traditional knowledge to reconstruct possible Viking Age sailing routes,” he says.
Jarrett explains that Vikings navigated with “mental maps”, rather than tools like maps, sextants and compasses. Through shared memories and myths, the Vikings were able to identify landmarks and plot less treacherous routes.
“Examples include Viking stories about the islands Torghatten, Hestmona and Skrova off the Norwegian coast,” Jarrett explains. “The stories serve to remind sailors of the dangers surrounding these places, or of their importance as navigation marks.”
The team identified 4 possible Viking harbours along the Norwegian coast using the experience of sailing the boat, as well as reconstructions of the landscape during the Viking Age.
These “havens”, as Jarrett calls them, are farther out to sea than the major ports and hubs previously discovered.
Jarrett’s believes that small, easily accessible havens were common during the Viking Age as places where sailors could pause, rest, and meet other seafarers.
“A lot of the time, we only know about the starting and ending points of the trade that took place during the Viking Age,” he says. “Major ports, such as Bergen and Trondheim in Norway, Ribe in Denmark, and Dublin in Ireland.
“The thing I am interested in is what happened on the journeys between these major trading centres. My hypothesis is that this decentralised network of ports, located on small islands and peninsulas, was central to making trade efficient during the Viking Age.”
