In the summer of 2023, a team of researchers investigated the Herlaugshagen burial mound on Norway's central coast in order to establish its date and to confirm whether or not a ship had been concealed within it.

To the archaeologists' delight, the investigation uncovered metal rivets in the mound, confirming that a ship had indeed been buried there. Recent dating indicates that the mound was raised around the year 700 – before the Viking Age – which caused even greater excitement among the researchers, reports the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The date makes it the oldest known ship burial in Scandinavia (although Sweden has burials with smaller boats dating from the 7th century).

The Viking Age was the period from the late 8th century to the middle of the 11th century, when the Vikings – Scandinavian seafarers – raided, colonised and traded extensively across Europe. They travelled as far as North Africa, the Middle East and North America.

The Herlaugshagen mound, however, appears to belong to an even earlier era, known as the Merovingian period (roughly 550–800). This suggests that the custom of burying people in large ships began much earlier than had previously been thought, Geir Grønnesby (Geir Grønnesby), an archaeologist at the NTNU University Museum and head of the excavation project, told Newsweek. It also indicates that shipbuilding technology and seafaring knowledge in the region were at a sufficiently advanced level much earlier than previously assumed.

The dating is exciting, because it pushes the tradition of ship burial even further back into the past, Grønnesby said in a press release. Ships of this size are not built without a reason. It shows that the people in this region were skilled seafarers – they were able to build large ships much earlier than we previously thought.

https://www.newsweek.com/archaeologists-exciting-pre-viking-discovery-rewrite-history-1850146