1. Introduction

The new Kaupang excavations began in 2000 after three years of planning and two years of preparatory fieldwork. As this is our first annual report, we will include a brief summary of important events that took place in the preceding years.

Background

Kaupang is probably the most important monument from the Viking Age in Norway, and one of very few urban sites from this period in Scandinavia. It is crucial to maintain research activity focused on this monument, for both the development of Viking Age Archaeology in Norway and for international research on the Viking Age. The University of Oslo has assumed that responsibility, and since 1950 Associate Professor Charlotte Blindheim at the University Museum of Antiquities (Universitetets Oldsaksamling) has been the leader of the Kaupang excavation project. Her excavations began in 1950 and lasted until 1967, and the last in a series of publications from her and her collaborators was published in 1999.

During the winter of 1996/97 Blindheim, who at that time was at the end of her nearly 50 years of research at Kaupang, and Dagfinn Skre, who had recently assumed teaching responsibilities for Viking Age Archaeology at the University of Oslo, on several occasions discussed the future of Kaupang research. It was Blindheim's wish that he should succeed her as leader of the Kaupang Excavation Project, and this was supported by the Director of the University Museum of Antiquities, Professor Egil Mikkelsen and by the Institute Director, Professor Einar Østmo.

Skre set two main tasks for this new project, first to finish the publication of archaeological material from Blindheim's excavations. Of the five manuscripts that were in preparation in 1997, three have now been published. The two that remain will hopefully be published within the year. In addition, one masters thesis was finished last year and two more will be completed within the year. The remaining material will be analysed and published within the new research project.

The second ambition for the new project was to bring the understanding of Kaupang up to the same level as that of the other large Viking Age urban communities in Scandinavia, that is Birka, Ribe and Hedeby, by conducting new excavations at the site. The excavation would also serve other purposes, of which the most important are to provide research opportunities for a new generation of Viking Age archaeologists, to take part in the development of archaeological field methods involving IT, and to present archaeological research and methods to the public and thereby contribute to increased public awareness of the cultural value of this site and of archaeological sites and research in general.

Research orientation

The new excavation project is intended to answer fundamental questions concerning the character of the urban community at Kaupang:

1. Seasonal or permanent settlement? This is of course a very important issue - was there a stable population of 'townfolk', or was Kaupang only visited at market times? The earlier excavations did not answer this question. The five buildings identified during the earlier excavations had no hearths and seemed to have a rather provisional construction, which would have been unsuitable for winter habitation. But were they representative for all parts of the settlement? Would we find other types of buildings in more central areas? Would we find other indications of winter settlement among the artefacts, or from faunal and dendrochronological analysis, or in the analysis of the remains of seeds and insects?
2. The structure of the settlement. From the earlier excavations it appeared that the buildings at Kaupang were placed irregularly, with their axis more or less parallel to the shoreline. Since then, excavations in other urban settlements from the same period have demonstrated a stable structure of buildings with their gable towards the shore or street, located on well defined plots. An interesting question is whether Kaupang is the exception to this rule - and in that case why - or whether it was more strictly organised in more central parts of the settlement, than in the peripheral areas excavated earlier. It is a fair assumption that a stable and well defined organisation in plots would have been established by some authority - a king, or maybe a chieftain. The lack of such a structure would indicate that the location has more or less grown by accumulation. Either of these two alternatives - accumulation or founded by authority - would be extremely interesting to establish.
3. The density of the settlement. This question is connected to the preceding question - what proportions of the settlement was covered with buildings, and how did this density vary within the settlement? The answer to this question will help us calculate the size of Kaupang's population.
4. The distribution of activities in the settlement. The artefacts demonstrate clearly that not only import, export and trade took place in the settlement, but also different crafts, including smithing, bronze/lead/silver/gold casting, glass bead production and weaving. We want to find out whether these activities were permanently located in specific areas or plots in the settlement, or whether they were conducted at more varied locations.
5. The size of the settlement area. From the earlier excavations, the estimated size of the settlement area was thought to be about 40.000 m2. From preliminary surveys in the archives, we think that this figure is probably low, and we want to dig further into this problem. A related problem is that of the height of the sea level during the Viking Age. We know that is was somewhere between 2,5 and 3,5 meters higher than today, but we would like to pinpoint it more precisely.
6. The dating of the site. Through Blindheim's excavations and her analysis of earlier finds, the cemeteries surrounding the settlement have been dated to the period between the late 8^th century to mid 10^th century. The settlement has the same beginning date, but seems to have been abandoned around 900, that is half a century earlier than the cemeteries. We want to find out whether this discrepancy is real, or whether the part of the settlement which Blindheim excavated - the northern periphery - was abandoned earlier than the rest of the settlement.
7. The houses. The buildings reconstructed from the remains found in Blindheim's excavation differ considerably from building remains found in the other towns and in rural areas during the Viking Age in Scandinavia. The question is whether Kaupang really differs in this respect, or whether the building remains can be interpreted differently.

To answer these questions, we have planned a project consisting of three years of excavations (2000-2002) and four years of research and publishing (2003-2006). This is of course a most ambitious program, and the answers to the different questions will eventually be delivered with different levels of accuracy and certainty. These answers will in the next phase, together with analysis of artefacts, buildings, soil samples and so on, form the basis for research into cultural, political, economic and social development in southern Scandinavia in the first half of the Viking Age. The urban sites which emerge in Scandinavia in this period played a central role in all of these arenas, and their abundance and enormous variety of finds gives us access to all these aspects of Viking Age society and culture.

The answer to several of these questions will eventually lead to an answer as to whether Kaupang was a town or a seasonal marketplace. A permanent and structured settlement of this size with a stable population who mostly lived from trade and crafts - that is perhaps the most common definition of a town. And if these criteria are fulfilled at Kaupang, it was the first town in Norway.

Preparatory investigations 1998-1999

The main investigation 2000-2002 was preceded by introductory fieldwork in the settlement area in 1998-99. The goal of this fieldwork was to provide information as to which locations held the greatest potential for new excavations, in addition to collecting general information about the distribution of artefacts in the settlement area. The fieldwork consisted of surveys of the tilled fields, test-screenings of the plough layer and mapping of the depth of the preserved cultural deposits using augers.

The location for the new excavations at Kaupang had to fulfil three important criterion:

• It had to be in the central settlement area, but at some distance from the excavation unit from 1956-67, to allow for a collection of information from a different area.
• It had to contain cultural deposits below the plough zone, allowing for stratigraphical information, especially in regards to establishing the possibility of continuity of plot divisions.
• It had to be in an area with interesting surface finds especially those connected to workshops, to allow for collection of information regarding craft production.

On the basis of information collected during the pilot project the main excavation area was located in a shallow depression just south of the small plateau in central settlement area. Excavations started here this year, and we plan to excavate a total of about 2000 m2 during the next two years.

Førsteamanuensis dr. philos. Dagfinn Skre, Leder for Kaupang-undersøkelsen Dagfinn Skre