Turfs and timbers

Abstract

Viking Age ring fortresses were some of the largest construction projects in Danish prehistory. In this article we reconstruct the amount of turf and timber used in the construction of the Borgring ring fortress and estimate the resource area needed to supply the building materials. Using REVEALS pollen data modelling, we quantify the regional oak land cover and estimate the resource area. The results show that even though Borgring was built in an open cultural landscape, sufficient supply of oak for the construction would have been accessible within a few kilometres from the fortress.

The lost landscape of Borgring

“…The recent identification of Borgring (Figure 1) has allowed an extensive excavation and survey of the site and its surroundings Goodchild, Holm and Sindbaek 2017;Ljung kvist et al 2021;Mortensen et al 2021;Ulriksen, Schultz and Mortensen 2020). This has provided the unique opportunity to address some of the long-established questions around the navigability of Danish streams during the Viking Age and contribute to the wider debate regarding the relationship between ring fortresses and seafaring.…”