Between Sutton Hoo and Oseberg – dendrochronology and the origins of the ship burial tradition

ABSTRACT New dendrochronological dates from Western Norway prompt an old question to be posed in a new way. They show that two ship burials on the island of Karmøy date from AD 780 and 790, that is, the very beginning of the Viking Age, and are therefore the very earliest known ship graves – with one exception: Sutton Hoo. So where did the ship burial tradition originate? Sutton Hoo’s early seventh century ship burials, in large, ocean-going vessels, are often compared with the boat graves of Vendel, Valsgärde and other sites in the Lake Mälar region of Sweden, while Oseberg and the other ship burials in the Oslofjord area have traditionally been interpreted as the precursors of, and models for, the Karmøy ship graves. In this paper, we aim to demonstrate that the use of ships and boats in burials was common practise around the North Sea and in the Western Baltic during the Late Migration period and was introduced to Eastern England with the same ‘wave’ of cultural influences that took new forms of brooches and a new dress code from Western Norway to Anglia in the late fifth century AD. And, furthermore, that the East Anglian ship graves of the early seventh century (Sutton Hoo 1 and 2) represent an elaboration of this common practice, related to political centralisation and Christianisation in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. We also suggest that this high-status, indeed royal, form of burial, that is, actual ship graves as opposed to the much more widespread practice of burial in relative small boats, was introduced to Scandinavia from Eastern England via Western Norway in the eighth century, culminating in the well-known Viking Age ship graves at Oseberg, Gokstad, Tune and Ladby.