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Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology

Georadar detects a Viking ship in Norway

Archaeologists armed with a motorized high resolution georadar have found a Viking ship and a large number of burial mounds and longhouses in Østfold County in Norway. The discoveries were made by archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) with technology developed by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (LBI ArchPro). The Viking ship find is just below the topsoil, at a depth of approximately 50 cm initially buried in a burial mound.

Archaeological prospection is celebrating one of its very first pioneers: Irwin Scollar turns 90 in November 2018. Since the early 1960s, the ingenuitive US-born engineer, archaeologist and early computing expert has fundamentally formed, defined, advanced and influenced archaeological prospection methods and technology in the fields of near-surface geophysics and aerial archaeology.

The Institute is dedicated to the development of new techniques and methodological concepts for landscape archaeology. It combines geophysics, computer science, geomatics and archaeology to develop efficient and universally applicable methods and techniques for the non-destructive detection, documentation, investigation, visualisation and integrative interpretation and spatial analysis of the cultural heritage of archaeological landscapes.