Thread by @CatJarman

Exciting new boat discovery in Norway! This time, an almost perfectly preserved LOG BOAT. Why is this exciting? And does it relate to the Vikings? Repton? And the Silk Roads? Maybe.... bear with me: #riverkings /1

Photos: Leon Arne Kleiva via Facebook/Arkeologi i Norge

This boat was found a few days ago on a farm in southern Norway, at the edge of a lake. We don't know the age yet, could be ~2000 to 500 years old, maybe older. BUT the farmer's great-grandad found two log boats there in 1932, both dated to the Viking Age or just before /2

A few other logboats dating to the Viking Age have been found elsewhere in lakes and bogs, and very occasionally, in graves.

Some more info by Frans-Arne H. Stylegar in Norwegian on log boats here:
arkeologi.blogspot.com/2007/09/datert… /3

E.g. in 2004, grave was found in what was probably a log boat at Gulli, Vestfold, along with weapons. We have no idea how common these boats were. They rarely survive. And they are small and of little use for the Vikings, right? #vikings #norway /4

duo.uio.no/bitstream/hand…

...unless you travel on small & difficult rivers. Then they're super useful. Like rivers in eastern Europe, for example! There, you had to navigate rapids & overland stretches. We 'know' the Rus/Vikings used logboats there because Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus tells us so: /5

In De Administrando Imperio, he says the Rus bought monoxyla - log boats - from the Slavs as "bottoms only". They then fit them out with oars + tackle & travel down the Dnieper. The Rus were instrumental in bringing goods between Silk road markets and the north/west. #Rus /6

What about in England? We have no evidence of Early Medieval / Viking Age log boats but surely, they could have been used here too. Maybe even by the Vikings? In 2017, we found this intriguing boat-shaped setting in Repton: #Repton #Vikings /7

It was long and thin and very much like ship graves elsewhere. But no boat. And probably no burial (though a skeleton might not have been preserved). I've been wondering if it could have covered a log boat?? #GreatHeathenHunt /8

See 👇 for more:
archaeology.co.uk/articles/resol…

As we find more of these boats AND more links between Vikings/Rus in east and west, we have to reassess the way they operated, ESPECIALLY along the rivers. Consider pre-ordering my book for more! 😜 #RiverKings #Vikings /end

waterstones.com/book/river-kin…

PS (Some more info about the new logboat behind a firewall, in Norwegian, here: agderposten.no/nyheter/plutse…)

Photos as before by Leon Arne Kleiva via Facebook/Arkeologi i Norge

Woops, forgot source: 10th century dugout boat found in the Oder river in Poland via Wikimedia commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dlub…