After the conclusion of the coring campaign in October, Rebecca Cannell has been analysing the construction of the mound and pinpointed the cores and layers that have the largest potential to reveal information about its history and the Viking Age landscape surrounding it.
The first examination of the magnetometric and georadar data from the Gokstad area has demonstrated a varied pattern of use of the landscape surrounding the mound.
On May 13 a systematic metal detector survey was carried out at the Heimdal site, the location 500 m S of the Gokstad mound where geophysical surveys earlier has demonstrated the presence of a dense "settlement" area with associated burial mounds.
This summer's fieldwork has now been commencing for two weeks, and the number of small mounds of freshly dug plough soil scattered over the Heimdal site is slowly being reduced in number.
After completed conservation, about a third of the dirhams found during the metal detector survey at Heimdal in May have now been dated.
30th July 2012
Monday 23rd July this year's excavations at the Heimdal site started.
