Summer 2017, we will take a brake in our field courses, to have time to make final reports and books about earlier excavation projects. We are planning to start a new research project summer 2018, dealing with Viking history on the island of Gotland. In due time, we will put up information about the project and the field courses. To give you an idea about our field courses, the information about earlier courses below could be seen as a reference. Until 2018, have a nice 2017, and see you in 2018! Dan
The field course is RPA certified, and includes extensive field work, mixed with lab work on artefacts, phosphate mapping, landscape analyses and GIS mapping, as a part of the research project. The participants will also be directly involved in making a scientific report of some of the results from the excavation, connected to the aim of the project. For further information about assessment components, please read this document.
Working days are from Monday to Friday, with time for excursion to Gotland's rich heritage, or just relaxing, at weekends. There will be lectures of various subjects, from practical work in the field or laborative matters, to theoretical discussions of different topics, not at least connected to the main aim of the project. A visit to the regional museum of Gotland, with its rich Viking Heritage, is included in the programme.
Accommodation with full board will be in a beautifully situated old school house in the southern part of the island, in the municipality Hemse, some 45 minutes from Visby and 20 minutes from the coast. Visby is a World Heritage site, with well preserved medieval houses, a town wall and streets etc. Travel to the excavation site will be arranged by the school. One can also choose to have own arrangement when it comes to accommodations and local transports.
The school buildings at Hemse
We collaborate with universities both in Sweden and from abroad, and students can write their BA or MA papers on material from the excavations. Facilities include well appointed work areas, full connection to the Internet and the possibilities to work on material from resent excavations, mainly from the time period Viking Age- Early Middle Ages.
For further information about the Curriculum, as well as application form, please see the Resources section. Taking part in the course will give you an excellent view of the history of Gotland, and be a part of an ongoing important research project, as well as having a chance to experience one of the most fascinating summer destinations in the Baltic Sea area.
Excavation site 2018 and research programme
The excavation in summer 2018 will be decided shortly, either we will once again open up a new research project about a Viking Age harbour site, or a Viking Age farmstead.
Last year we finished an excavation project dealing with one of the most important and fascinating Viking Age harbour sites on Gotland, situated in Västergarn parish in the western part of Gotland (click on the picture to the right). It is called Paviken, named after the bay close by. There have been excavavations at the site earlier, and our excavation was concentrated on a complementary excavation of the settlement area and also some graves from the Viking Age.
The site is well preserved, nicely situated in grazing land, close to the Paviken bay. In the area, there are both house remains, graves, abandoned fields, stone fences as well as old roads. The harbour site, as far as we know today, has been continuously used between around AD 700 to about AD 1000.
Doppskon
A well preserved ferrule from the excavation in 2014
The harbour settlement is situated close to a small river, where it enters the bay. In the area, there are several graves and gravefields, but also some strange house foundations further away from the harbour site. Some of the graves connected to the harbour site, have been excavated with a rich material, mainly in the form of cremation graves, dated to Viking Age.
For a full rewiev of the research project, please download the project paper here.