Unn Pedersen was a student, and the experienced archaeologist Dagfinn Skre was her supervisor.
Together with a group of other students, she was going to write about finds from earlier excavations in Kaupang, southern Norway.
Archaeologists' most exciting finds
We have asked archaeologists to share their most exciting finds.
Summer is peak season for archaeological excavations, and this is when many significant discoveries are made.
Sometimes, years of planning and digging are required before something spectacular is uncovered; other times, they stumble upon treasures by sheer chance. Both types of discoveries are invaluable for our understanding of the past.
There have been excavations here since the second half of the 1800s, including in the burial mounds.
Back in the 1950s and 60s, archaeologists uncovered structures believed to be houses.
"But none of them had fireplaces. It's hard to imagine people had houses without heating in winter," says Pedersen, who is now an archaeologist and expert on the Viking Age at the University of Oslo.
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For years, the prevailing theory was that Kaupang had been a seasonal trading post.
Then came the tractor
Skre brought his students to the site to help them get a feel for the area they were studying.
"We were sitting there eating lunch, looking out over what's called black soil," says Pedersen.
"It's a cultural layer from the Viking Age, full of material that has rotted away over the thousand-plus years since there was activity here," she says.
The students and Skre began to wonder: was this really just a marketplace, or could it have been a full-fledged Viking Age town – like others known in Scandinavia?
Then a farmer came to plough the field, as farmers do.
"We were sitting there discussing the site, when the tractor rolled in. Suddenly we heard the sound of something scraping against stone. And we thought: 'Oh no, are we watching a Viking town being destroyed right in front of us?'" she recalls.
The students asked for permission to search the ploughed field. They were allowed. The photo shows a field survey on the same site a year later. Unn Pedersen is one of the people in the photo.(Photo: Kaupang project / University of Oslo)
Kaupang had clearly been a lively place during the Viking Age. This photo, taken by Dagfinn Skre, shows the site where he led excavations from 2000 to 2002.(Photo: Dagfinn Skre)
A field full of things from the Viking Age
The students and their supervisor quickly finished their lunch and asked for permission to go out into the field and take a look.
"We conducted a somewhat random field survey. It's a method archaeologists use to check if anything has been turned up by ploughing," says Pedersen. "And pretty quickly, we started finding things."
They hadn't walked far before a spindle whorl appeared – a tool used to spin yarn and thread during the Viking Age.
Then they found a piece of a soapstone vessel.
And a whetstone, which the Vikings used to sharpen knives.
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And finally, pieces of pottery.
"These were artefacts from the Viking Age, and their context gave us pretty solid dating," says Pedersen. "That day marked the beginning of what later became a defining part of my career."
The spindle whorl that Unn Pedersen and the other students found that day.(Photo: Ulla Schildt / Museum of Cultural History CC BY-SA 4.0)
And the whetstone they found that day.(Photo: Ulla Schildt / Museum of Cultural History CC BY-SA 4.0)
Norway's first town
The following spring and autumn, Pedersen participated in several systematic field surveys at the site.
"That's how we mapped the full extent of the area. It became the starting point for the large-scale excavations that took place here between 2000 and 2002," she says.
Already that first summer, Pedersen helped uncover houses with fireplaces and a type of small urban dwelling that archaeologists had been hoping to find – similar to those discovered in other known Viking Age towns like Birka in Sweden, and Ribe and Hedeby in Viking Age Denmark.
"The excavation confirmed that this was the first town in what would later become Norway, and that it was established right at the start of the Viking Age," she says.
This very field, originally set to be ploughed, instead became the site of a major archaeological dig, revealing the remains of Norway’s first Viking town.(Photo: Wenche Hellum)
New excavations, new knowledge
Pedersen’s thesis was originally focused on the trade weights that had been uncovered at Kaupang during previous excavations.
These were used as units of measurement in trade, when the Vikings exchanged pieces of silver.
"The day I had my oral exam, they started the largest surface surveys out there," Pedersen recalls. "Even before I finished that day, they had found as many weights as I had included in my entire theses, so my project quickly became outdated."
A collection of trade weights from Kaupang.(Photo: Eirik Irgens Johnsen / Museum of Cultural History)
Responsible for thousands of artefacts
But Pedersen continued working with the finds from Kaupang and soon took on a major role in the ongoing excavations.
"Right after I graduated, I was put in charge of all the artefact finds during the excavation," she says.
Her job was to ensure every item unearthed was carefully collected and properly catalogued.
"There were thousands of finds, and managing them remained my job for quite a few years, even after the excavations ended," she says.
Pedersen eventually completed a PhD on the jewellery makers of Kaupang. Her conclusion: They crafted advanced Viking jewellery on par with their international peers.(Photo: Morten Holm / NTB)
Some of the discoveries left such a deep impression on her that she chose to continue researching them.
"I became deeply interested in everything we found related to the jewellery craftsmen. That eventually became the subject of my doctoral thesis, which I worked on while leading the artefact team," says Pedersen.
"It was an amazing way to begin a career – one that started with what seemed like a chance discovery," she adds.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t entirely by chance. Pedersen suspects that Dagfinn Skre had already considered the possibility of new excavations when he brought a group of students to the site that day.
"But I never imagined I would be part of an excavation at Kaupang itself," she says. "Being involved in that was incredible. And even now, it remains the only Viking Age town ever uncovered in Norway."
