The Nordic Bronze Age, marked by its iconic imagery of ships carved into rocks and metal objects scattered throughout Scandinavia, has always left an unsolved enigma for archaeologists: where were these ships built?

Despite the abundance of ship representations in the region’s archaeology, direct evidence of prehistoric shipyards has been extremely scarce.

Now a new study suggests that the remains of these shipbuilding sites have always been “hidden in plain sight”. The researchers propose that many of the so-called “cooking pits” along the Scandinavian coast may have actually been “steam pits” used in the boat-building process.

Comparison between four Scandinavian Iron Age Boats (left) and (right) four ship-settings dated to the Bronze Age, demonstrating continuity in the shape and size of vessels from the Bronze Age to the Viking Age in Scandinavia
Comparison between four Scandinavian Iron Age Boats (left) and (right) four ship-settings dated to the Bronze Age, demonstrating continuity in the shape and size of vessels from the Bronze Age to the Viking Age in Scandinavia. Credit: Boel Bengtsson

The study, conducted by Johan Ling and other researchers, is based on ethnographic analogies and the analysis of three case studies from the Bronze Age on the west coast of Sweden and eastern Norway.

According to the authors, it is likely that these large pits, located near the sea and characterized by fire-cracked stones and charcoal, were used for steaming or heating processes in prehistoric shipbuilding.

Steaming was used to bend logs or wooden planks, which would have been essential for building the ships needed for navigation and trade during the Bronze Age.

Similarities in shape and building techniques between (top); rock art boat from Tanum dated to Early Bronze Age (1700–1500 BCE),  compared with (bottom) parts of the Hjortspring boat dated to 350 BCE. Note: the arrows shows the corresponding parts of two different vessles.
Similarities in shape and building techniques between (top); rock art boat from Tanum dated to Early Bronze Age (1700–1500 BCE), compared with (bottom) parts of the Hjortspring boat dated to 350 BCE. Note: the arrows shows the corresponding parts of two different vessles. Credit: J. Ling et al. / Bengtsson, B., et al.

The researchers use ethnographic data as a basis for their hypothesis, comparing boat-building practices in different regions of the world. Through these studies, they identify that the use of fire and steam in boat building has been common in multiple maritime cultures, from the canoes of the indigenous peoples of North America to the plank boats of Oceania.

In these contexts, steam pits were used to soften and shape the wood. By observing the characteristics of the coastal pits in Scandinavia—stones fractured by heat, charcoal, and strategic locations near water—the authors suggest that these could have served similar purposes in Nordic prehistory.

The study focuses on three cases from the Nordic Bronze Age: one on the west coast of Sweden and two in eastern Norway. In Bohuslän, a region on Sweden’s west coast, around 40 sites with steam pits have been identified.

Photo of excavated pit at the site Tanum 1835
Photo of excavated pit at the site Tanum 1835. Credit: Petersson 2009

One of the most interesting sites is Tanum, an area known for its extensive collection of Bronze Age rock art, depicting images of ships in various ceremonial and battle contexts. Here, the researchers found pits in a linear formation, along the ancient shoreline, which could have been used to build or repair ships.

The analysis of charcoal found in these pits showed that much of the material came from pine, a wood suitable both for shipbuilding and tar production.

In Norway, the Østfold area offers a similar example. Near the coast, archaeologists found pits with fire-cracked stones and charcoal, dating from the transition from the Early to Late Bronze Age. These pits contained no food remains, suggesting they were not used for cooking. Instead, their proximity to water and contents suggest they could have been used to bend wood in boat construction.

Photo of excavated steaming pits dated to the Late Bronze Age in Arlösa, Halland
Photo of excavated steaming pits dated to the Late Bronze Age in Arlösa, Halland. Credit: Krister Kam Tayani / Kulturmiljö Halland

The work also highlights the need for specific tools for shipbuilding, such as axes for cutting wood and fine carpentry tools. These artifacts have been found at coastal sites throughout Scandinavia, further reinforcing the idea that these pits were associated with shipbuilding.

According to the researchers, the enigmatic pits, containing charcoal remains and fire-cracked stones, have intermittently captured the attention of Scandinavian archaeologists over the last century. However, interpretations have often followed a familiar pattern, associating these structures with aspects of food-related practices, either as functional facilities or as representations of ritual feasts. By adopting a maritime perspective in our approach to these pits, we argue that at least some of them served as structures for steaming logs and building plank boats, and possibly also for producing tar during the Nordic Bronze Age.

The fact that these lost shipyards may have been hidden in plain sight highlights that the terrestrial paradigm still permeates all archaeological discourse. The identification of stone-lined pits connected to the shore as ‘cooking pits,’ despite any material evidence of cooking or domestic activity, is an excellent example of how this terrestrial bias can lead to murky and potentially false archaeological interpretations, they add.

And they conclude that breaking this terrestrial paradigm could lead to the identification of more unidentified maritime elements that, in turn, could reveal aspects of maritime migration, transport, and exchange, as well as alternative pathways to social complexity in our past.


SOURCES

Johan Ling, Michael Fauvelle, Knjut Austvoll, et al., Where are the missing boatyards? Steaming pits as boat building sites in the Nordic Bronze Age Praehistorische Zeitschrift, 2024. doi.org/10.1515/pz-2024-2005


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