Dagfinn Skre

• Baug, Irene; Skre, Dagfinn; Røhr, Torkil Sørlie; Heldal, Tom; Maixner, Birgit & Ljungkvist, John (2025). Viking Age economics: implications of industrial commodity production. Germania. ISSN 0016-8874. 102(1-2), p. 115–145. doi: 10.11588/GER.2024.113888. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper argues that from the start in the early AD 700s, the quarrying of whetstones in Mostadmarka, Trondelag, present-day Norway, was industrial, and distribution was regional, interregional, and long-distance. By collating evidence on whetstones and other non-luxury products, industrial production and multi-range distribution may be identified since the early 1st millennium AD. These findings question widespread notions of a transition from autarkic to industrial production and of the prevalence of prestige goods in long-distance trade. Instead, certain lines of rural production of non-luxury raw materials and utensils appear to have been industrial from the start, and since the AD 200s, such products were included in short- and long-distance freightages. This evidence challenges established theories of early medieval economic systems and the economic significance of urbanisation, calling for nuanced approaches that seek to identify coexisting disparate modes of production and exchange.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2023). Den romerske erfaring. Krigerfølger i Skandinavia 180–450 e.Kr. In Skre, Dagfinn & Stylegar, Frans-Arne Hedlund (Ed.), Herre og drott : konge og sjøkonge : Karmøyseminaret 2022. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISSN 9788202830977. p. 35–50. doi: 10.23865/noasp.211. Full text in Research Archive
• Baug, Irene; Skre, Dagfinn; Røhr, Torkil Sørlie & Heldal, Tom (2023). Whetstones and touchstones. In Sindbæk, Søren M. (Eds.), Northern Emporium, vol 2. The networks of Viking-age Ribe. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788793423824. p. 103–114. doi: 10.2307/jj.10518934.10. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2022). Scandinavian kingship AD 500-1000. Neue Studien zur Sachsenforschung. ISSN 2193-4185. 11, p. 117–131. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2020). Rulership and Ruler’s Sites in 1st–10th-century Scandinavia. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Rulership in 1st to 14th century Scandinavia. Royal graves and sites at Avaldsnes and beyond. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783110425796. p. 193–243. doi: 10.1515/9783110421101-003. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This chapter’s discussion of rulers and polities in 1st-millennium Scandinavia is based on evidence on the upper echelon of ‘central places’, those that may arguably be regarded as ruler’s sites, as well as on written evidence, primarily the Old English poem Beowulf and the Old Norse skaldic poem Ynglingatal. The Roman expansion into continental Europe amplified interaction between Germanic peoples as well as with the Roman Empire, mainly through military campaigns and trade. The intensified mobility triggered deep cultural and societal integration processes within 2nd to mid-6thcentury Germanic Europe. This interaction and integration is evident in martial proficiency and in the rise of a new type of leaders, the dróttinn (army commanders), among many Germanic peoples. Challenging the authority of tribal rulers, the kindins and þiudans, some of the dróttinn became de facto rulers. In southern and middle Scandinavia, where a southern and a northern economic zone overlap, some dróttinn of the 3rd century established economic and political centres that also served as ritual and communal assembly sites. Sites such as Uppåkra, Gudme, Helgö, Åker, and Avaldsnes appear to have constituted the nodes where the dróttinn’s networks into the two economic zones intersected. Commodities obtained through one network were conveyed into the other, and at the sites, raw materials were worked into commodities. At the core of each site was the residence and hall of the dróttinn; they were ruler’s sites. In the decades around AD 500, royal lineages were initiated in several Germanic polities, the Merovingians the most prominent among them. In contemporary Scandinavia, the Skjǫldungar, the Skilfingar, and other royal lineages were initiated. In the same period, the number of tribes was reduced from the plethora of the 1st–6th centuries to predominantly three: the Danir, the Svíar, and the Norðmenn. The 6th century also saw the downfall of several ruler’s sites and the emergence of new such sites. It is suggested that these three parallel developments were related to the introduction of kingship and the establishment of kingdoms. Following the downfall of southern long-distance networks and societal and climatic upheaval in late 6th to early 7th centuries, Scandinavia became less economically and culturally connected to the west and south. In the same period, most continental and British kingdoms were Christianised. No longer deeply integrated with the latter, Scandinavian kingship came to follow its own trajectory. Within the pagan universe, the heroic warrior ethos of the past was developed and refined, only to recur overseas in the 9th–10th centuries, embodied in sea-borne warrior bands. After a turbulent two centuries, Scandinavia was reintegrated among what was now the west-European normality: the Christian kingdoms.

• Baug, Irene; Heldal, Tom; Jansen, Øystein James & Skre, Dagfinn (2020). Brynesteiner i Ribe – fra fjerne utmarksområder til sentrale markeder. By, marsk og geest, Kulturhistorisk tidsskrift for Sydvestjylland. ISSN 0905-5649. 32, p. 44–59. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Brynesteiner var nødvendige redskaper for å vedlikeholde jernverktøy med skarpe egger og spisser, og de er en av de mest vanlige gjenstandstypene fra jernalder og middelalder. Geologiske analyser av materialet i Ribe viser at over halvparten av brynene kom fra steinbrudd i dagens Norge – fra Mostadmarka i Trøndelag og Eidsborg i Telemark. Importen av bryner fra Mostadmarka begynte allerede tidlig på 700-tallet, og vitner om en stabil og godt organisert tilførsel som varte i flere århundrer. På begynnelsen av 800-tallet skjer det likevel en endring i materialet, der bryner fra Eidsborg blir mer vanlig og etterhvert dominerer markedet. Bryner fra de norske steinbruddene er synlige eksempel på handel mellom Ribe og fjerne utmarksområder siden tidlig på 700-tallet. Dette var langvarige og stabile kontakter – der de samme steinbruddene forsynte byen med bryner i over 500 år.

• Sand-Eriksen, Anette; Skre, Dagfinn & Stamnes, Arne Anderson (2020). Hvordan har metallgjenstander funnet veien til pløyelaget?Resultater fra et metodisk prøveprosjekt på Storhov i Elverum. Primitive tider. ISSN 1501-0430. 22, p. 75–94. doi: 10.5617/pt.8395. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Due to increasing hobby metal detecting, archaeological museums receive thousands of finds each year. To improveour understanding of their depositing history and possible connection to structures beneath the plough-zone, theDirectorate for Cultural Heritage selected the find-rich field at Storhov in Elverum for a pilot study. This article presentsan outline of the results from the three-part methodological survey at Storhov; comparing and assessing metaldetecting finds, results from archaeological excavation, and interpretations from GPR survey on the site.In light of these results, the article discusses how the metal detecting finds ended up in the ploughsoil. Based on types,dates and distribution of finds and structures, we conclude that most of the finds – ornaments, tools, and small itemscarried in a belt or in a pouch – were distributed through manuring or lost while working in the field. Thus, whensystematic metal detecting on a site predominantly produces such finds, it is a suitable method to bring forth informationon cultivation in the Iron and Middle Ages. The results also suggest that in sites where such metal finds dominate, thereis potential for finding remains from settlements and graves, either on the site or nearby. However, such finds cannot beregarded as a reliable guidance to the precise location of such structures – if at all preserved. We regard our analysisand tentative conclusions as a step towards developing a methodological package and a set of assessment criteria forheritage management of the metal rich sites and research on the finds.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2020). Some reflections on Gotland. Slavery, slave-traders, and slave-takers. In Shepard, Jonathan; Gruszczynski, Jacek & Jankowiak, Marek (Ed.), Viking-Age Trade. Silver, Slaves and Gotland. Routledge. ISSN 9781138293946. p. 437–449. doi: 10.4324/9781315231808. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This chapter draws out the implications of two issues raised by contributions to the volume: the holding of slaves in Scandinavia; and the question of whether Gotlanders were involved in the slave trade in the ninth and tenth centuries. It suggests that slaveholding existed across most of the social spectrum and that it was more widespread in Iron- and Viking-Age Scandinavia than has been suggested, with Slavic slaves being held on Gotland and elsewhere in Sweden from the tenth century onwards. Slaves were an integral part of the honour culture which pervaded Vendel- and Viking-Age Scandinavia. The author suggests that the Gotlanders owed their ability to trade in slaves and other commodities, operating mainly between the Baltic and the Black and Caspian Seas, to networks developed through a longstanding culture of travel and trade. Hence Gotlanders appear to have been the first in Viking-Age Scandinavia to position themselves as merchants in a long-distance trading system.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2019). Yggdrasil by the Norðvegr. In Ljung, Cecilia; Sjögren, Anna Andreasson; Berg, Ingrid; Engström, Elin; Stenholm, Ann-Mari Hållans; Jonsson, Kristina; Klevnäs, Alison; Qviström, Linda & Zachrisson, Torun (Ed.), Tidens landskap. En vänbok til Anders Andrén. Nordic Academic Press. ISSN 9789188909121. p. 125–127. Full text in Research Archive
• Baug, Irene; Skre, Dagfinn; Heldal, Tom & Jansen, Øystein James (2018). The beginning of the Viking Age in the West. Journal of Maritime Archaeology. ISSN 1557-2285. doi: 10.1007/s11457-018-9221-3. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  During the Viking Age, Arctic Scandinavia was a source of exquisite furs, down, walrus ivory, and other commodities that met with high demand in England and on the Continent. Hitherto, the earliest firm evidence of this trade has been Ohthere’s account c. 890, but in light of this paper’s findings, its history may be pushed further back in time. Geological analyses of whetstones retrieved in eighth- to early ninth-century Ribe, south-western Jylland, in present-day western Denmark, demonstrate that the majority were quarried near the aristocratic manor Lade (‘loading/storing place’) in Trøndelag, present-day central Norway, some 1100 km by sea to the north. Because of their high numbers and durability, whetstones retrieved in Ribe and other urban sites may be regarded as a proxy for long-distance seaborne trade from the Arctic. The peak in this trade on the threshold of the Viking Age invites a reconsideration of the coinciding and conflicting interests of Scandinavian long-distance traders, kings, and Vikings. It is argued that coalitions and conflicts that arose from these interests, and new constraints and opportunities that emerged for these three types of agents, provide keys to understanding why and where Vikings raided overseas up to the mid-ninth century.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2017). Rethinking Avaldsnes and Kormt. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Avaldsnes - A Sea-Kings' Manor in First-Millennium Western Scandinavia. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783110421088. p. 3–9. doi: 10.1515/9783110421088-003. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Avaldsnes Royal Manor project explores early kingship in Northern Europe, spanning the period c. AD–1320 AD. The principal case is the Norwegian kingdom and the core site is Avaldsnes near Haugesund, Western Norway. 9th–10th century skaldic poems as well as 13th century sagas implies that Avaldsnes was the principal Viking Age royal manor. The site has produced numerous exquisite gravefinds from the Roman period onwards. Among them are the third century Flaghaug grave and two ship graves from the late 8th century. Also, the Oseberg ship, excavated near Oslo, is now proven to have been built c. 820 near Avaldsnes. The Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, excavated the Avaldsnes settlement in 2011–12. A team of 23 scholars from prominent academic institutions, including the University of Cambridge and University College London, participate in the research. This first of two volumes contains their results regarding the manor and its setting on the island of Kǫrmt by the Norðvegr, the sheltered sailing route along the West-Scandinavian coast. Together, the chapters produce a detailed 1000-years’ history of a complex central-place area, its monuments and buildings, its activities and functions, its blooming and fading, and eventually its downfall in the 14th century.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2017). Aristocratic Presence along the Karmsund Strait 2000 BC–AD 1368. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Avaldsnes - A Sea-Kings' Manor in First-Millennium Western Scandinavia. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783110421088. p. 749–764. doi: 10.1515/9783110421088-029. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Pursuing the ARM research strategy (Ch. 4), this chapter summarises, analyses, and contextualises the evidence on aristocratic presence at Avaldsnes and along the Karmsund Strait presented in previous chapters in this book. In SP I (2000–350 BC) aristocratic presence was introduced and long-distance overseas connections to southern Scandinavia were established. In SP II (350 BC–AD 200) these connections were maintained, warrior burials were introduced, and agrarian production increased,probably leading to population increase. In SP III (AD 200–600) major changes occurred.Princely graves were entombed in the ancient Flaghaug mound, a prominent stone monument was raised, a monumental hall building, a boathouse, and a longhouse were erected;most of these buildings and monuments are without parallel in western Scandinavia, while the stone monument and one of the graves are unique in the whole of Scandinavia. The evidence for aristocratic presence is strong in SP III’s first two centuries, somewhat weaker in its latter two centuries. Features are few from SP IV (AD 600–900), the most substantial of which are remains of a palisade, which indicates external threats and hostilities as well as local military capabilities. Near Avaldsnes, the Salhus mound from early SP IV and the Grønhaug and Storhaug shipgraves from late SP IV provide evidence for aristocratic presence in this period. In early SP V (AD 900–1250) food-processing activities in the farmyard increase, and around the turn of the millennium a building appears to have been raised on the location where the hall building stood in SP III. Doubts regarding the historicity of literary evidence for royal residence at Avaldsnes in the 10th–early 11th century are counterbalanced by the surprising consistency among the sources. The archaeological evidence contributes somewhat to this assessment.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2017). Exploring Avaldsnes 1540–2005. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Avaldsnes - A Sea-Kings' Manor in First-Millennium Western Scandinavia. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783110421088. p. 11–34. doi: 10.1515/9783110421088-004. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Avaldsnes, Kormt, and the Karmsund Strait are frequently mentioned in the Old Norse written sources, often referred to as the residence and burial site of kings. The site has attracted the attention of scholars since the 16th century, first by the humanists who began to study the Old Norse texts; subsequently by historians and antiquarians, from the mid-19th century academic historians, and from the early 20th century joined by archaeologists. In this chapter, the significant contributions from this range of scholars are summarised. The literature on Avaldsnes tends to adopt one of two perspectives: some scholars focus their analysis on evidence from the site itself, while others situate the site within discussions of broader societal or political issues. Summarising scholarship of the first type, this chapter traces how various types of evidence became available at different times and how scholars have shifted in their assessment of the evidence. Discussions of the second type of scholarship identify the continuities and changes regarding the contexts in which Avaldsnes has been situated. One thread in particular has been winding its way through these 450 years of Avaldsnes research: the problem of why kings preferred to reside on the modestly fertile and windblown island of Kormt, rather than the lush densely populated regions further inland and along the fjords. The most significant shift in the scholarship is seen in the integration of Avaldsnes within the research into the rikssamlingen (‘the unification of the realm’). The unification process has a long research history, but one that before the early 20th century did not consider Avaldsnes’ location on the outer coast. In the 1990s the scope of this research shifted from a national, narrowly 9th–10th-century perspective to a regionally North European, long-term perspective. This literature review of Avaldsnes scholarship forms the foundation for the research strategy employed by the current research project, detailed in Chapters 4 and 5.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2017). Monetary practices in early medieval western Scandinavia (5th–10th centuries AD). Medieval Archaeology. ISSN 0076-6097. 61(2), p. 277–299. doi: 10.1080/00766097.2017.1374096. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  A SOCIAL APPROACH TO MONETISATION shifts the attention from the classic money media — gold and silver — to the dissemination of two social practices: valuing and paying. When these two monetary practices first became widespread in western Scandinavia during the gold rich migration period (in the 5th to 6th centuries ad), they were not introduced in the sphere of trade, but instead were features of traditional or customary payments, such as weregeld (atonements for murder or offences against the person) or marriage dowries. By the Viking Age, in the late 8th to 10th centuries ad, despite flourishing commodity production, precious metals were used as payment in trade solely in towns. Even in towns, this commercial use seems to have been adopted late, and was employed only occasionally. This paper reviews the changing approaches to money and monetisation, and draws attention to the potential for regarding monetisation as the spread of a set of social practices.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2017). Viking-age Economic Transformations. The West-Scandinavian Case. In Glørstad, Ann Zanette Tsigaridas & Loftsgarden, Kjetil (Ed.), Viking-Age Transformations: Trade, Craft and Resources in Western Scandinavia. Routledge. ISSN 9781472470775. p. 1–27. doi: 10.4324/9781315548197-1. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2017). The Raised Stones. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Avaldsnes - A Sea-Kings' Manor in First-Millennium Western Scandinavia. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783110421088. p. 639–664. doi: 10.1515/9783110421088-025. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The spectacular raised stone north of the St Óláfr’s Church at Avaldsnes, the so called Jomfru Marias synål (Virgin Mary’s Sewing Needle), is the most prominent preserved prehistoric monument at the site. Before its height was reduced c. 1840 from approximately 8.3 metres to the present 7.2 metres, it was the tallest in Scandinavia – the others rarely surpass 5 metres. A similar stone, about 6.9 metres tall, is known to have stood on the southern side of the church until the early 19th century. A 12th–15th-century runic inscription on one of the two stones was described in 1639 but has not been identified since. The stones were mentioned by Snorri in Heimskringla, and have received copious scholarly attention from the 17th century onwards. In this chapter, the existing evidence is reassessed, and the original number of raised stones at Avaldsnes, their sizes, and the location of the runic inscription are discussed. With the aim of arriving at a probable date and original number of stones, the monument is compared to stone settings in the same region and elsewhere in Scandinavia. It is concluded that the runic inscription was likely incised on the southern stone, which was severely damaged in 1698 and finally was taken down in the early 19th century. Probably, the two existing stones were originally corners in a triangular stone setting – a monument of the 3rd–6th centuries AD. An assumed third stone would have stood in the southeast and would probably have been removed prior to the mid-17th century, possibly around 1300 when masonry buildings were erected there. The stones were raised in the period when a hall building was erected and prestigious graves were entombed in Flaghaug, one of the two Bronze Age mounds at Avaldsnes. All four monuments were situated along the eastern edge of the Avaldsnes settlement plateau, evidently to communicate the site’s past and present prominence to those who sailed the Norðvegr.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2017). The Avaldsnes Royal Manor Project’s Research Plan and Excavation Objectives. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Avaldsnes - A Sea-Kings' Manor in First-Millennium Western Scandinavia. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783110421088. p. 53–61. doi: 10.1515/9783110421088-006. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This chapter provides an outline of the scholarly problems that the Avaldsnes Royal Manor Project was designed to address, the central theme explored being the political institutions and processes in the first millennium AD. The research plan was developed during the 2007–9 pilot project phase, and was adjusted and supplemented during the 2011–12 excavations and the research and publication phase in the subsequent years. The first of the research plan’s two sections, the results of which are presented in the present volume, deals with Avaldsnes, Kormt, and the Karmsund Strait. The research plan included a series of selected themes, taking as a point of departure the rich and varied research strand on so-called central places. The central-place approach informed the choice of objectives for the 2011–12 excavations at Avaldsnes alongside a corresponding excavation and sampling strategy. Relevant specialists were invited to join the project. The second section of the research plan addresses the first-millennium history of political institutions and processes in the south-western coast of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The first results from this research are presented in this volume’s final chapter, which discusses Avaldsnes in a western Scandinavian context. The preliminary results presented in that chapter will be further developed in the next volume from this project.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2017). Scandinavian monetisation in the first millennium AD – practices and institutions. In Moreland, John; Mitchell, John & Leal, Bea (Ed.), Encounters, Excavations and Argosies. Essays for Richard Hodges. Archaeopress. ISSN 9781784916817. p. 291–299. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The post-Roman rise in trade, urbanisation, monetisation, and kingship are prominent fields of research in early medieval archaeology and history (e.g. Henning 2007; Hodges 2000; McCormick 2001; Sindbæk 2007; Wickham 2009; regarding western Scandinavia, see Skre 2017). Are these processes dependent on each other, and if so – how? While Richard Hodges in his seminal book, Dark Age Economics (1982), mainly explored the first two themes, this essay will address monetisation. ‘Type A emporia’ as Hodges called Scandinavian 8th– 10th-century urban communities, or ‘towns’ as I have chosen to designate them (Skre 2007, 2008), played a significant role in his book, and are the starting point of my discussion here.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2017). The Warrior Manor. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Avaldsnes - A Sea-Kings' Manor in First-Millennium Western Scandinavia. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783110421088. p. 765–779. doi: 10.1515/9783110421088-030. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  During many of the 3,400 years prior to the royal manor’s waning following the fire in AD 1368, aristocratic presence is evident at Avaldsnes and along the Karmsund Strait (Ch. 27). What was the nature and context of that presence, and did it change from c. AD 200 and into the 11th–12th centuries AD? Focusing on this period, this chapter, as indicated in the ARM research plan (Ch. 4), explores these issues from a central-place perspective. Centrality may be perceived from two perspectives, either from the centre or from outside. From an outside perspective a site is identified as a centre if it serves certain communal functions. Regarding Avaldsnes’ centrality from the perspective of a local aristocracy, the following questions need to be addressed: what use did aristocrats make of the Avaldsnes manor and its surroundings, and what type of authority did they exert over the adjacent land and waters? The main result from these discussions is that there is little or no evidence to indicate that Avaldsnes had communal functions of the types found in the south- and east-Scandinavian central places. Given that such functions are the basis for identifying a central place, Avaldsnes does not appear to have been a site of that type. Regarding centrality from an aristocratic perspective, late Viking Age Avaldsnes appears to have been the manor of a vast estate comprising about 70 farms in northern Kormt and across the Karmsund Strait. Some 3–4 centuries later, the land rent from the farms in the estate will have sustained 120–170 men, probably not much fewer in the 10th–11th centuries. Through most of the period, Avaldsnes residents deliberately built up the manor’s monumental appearance facing the sailing route. The land along the narrowest section of the Karmsund Strait has been used for similar purpose: two monuments in particular, one on either side of the strait, may have connected the site with Þórr, the god that protected society from destructive beings, and the world tree Yggdrasil. Supplied by yield from the estate and bolstered by myth and monuments, military dominance of the sailing route appears to be the primary rationale for aristocratic presence at Avaldsnes and along the Karmsund Strait in the first millennium AD. Thus, Odd Nordland’s characterisation in 1950 of Avaldsnes as ‘the warrior manor’ (krigargarden) seems appropriate.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2017). Sea Kings on the Norðvegr. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Avaldsnes - A Sea-Kings' Manor in First-Millennium Western Scandinavia. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783110421088. p. 781–799. doi: 10.1515/9783110421088-031. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this chapter, Avaldsnes and the land along the Karmsund Strait are considered in a west-Scandinavian context. Was the manor one of a kind? Why did aristocrats reside there, and what may be inferred about their activities? Topographic, archaeologic, and Old Norse literary evidence is analysed to discuss these questions. In western Scandinavia, Iron Age settlement is found in the rather small patches of rich soil, primarily along the sea, especially where valleys meet the fjord. Only two larger areas of continuous fertile soil exist: Jæren and Trøndelag. However, through the whole 1st millennium AD, settlement also thrived in less fertile areas in highland valleys and in islands on the outer coasts. Unsurprisingly, 33 aristocratic manors are found in the lush inland regions between Rogaland and Møre; less obvious is the existence of 13 Iron Age manors on the outer coast. The latter are found in two zones, one in Rogaland and Hordaland, the other in Møre and Romsdal. Lying in the former zone, Avaldsnes is the site with the richest finds, most numerous monumental mounds, and the longest continuity. The mountainous landscape presents travellers, especially those with cargo, with few alternatives to sailing along the coast by the sea route known as the Norðvegr, which is protected from the open ocean by thousands of islands and skerries. The need to secure traffic along this sea route, vital to travellers from the whole of western Scandinavia, is identified as the reason why aristocrats settled on the islands. Emerging in the 3rd century AD, the martial character of these island communities is testified in literary evidence regarding the Viking Age. Indeed, Haraldr hárfagri appears to have emerged from this sea-king milieu, probably in Rogaland and Hordaland.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2016). Norðvegr – Norway: From Sea Kings to Land Kings. In Jackson, Tatjana N. (Eds.), Ancient Rus’ and Medieval Europe: the emergence of states. Древняя Русь и средневековая Европа: возникновение государств. Dmitriy Pozharskiy University. ISSN 9785912441479. p. 179–192. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2016). De friville detektoristene - våre gode allierte. In Martens, Jes & Ravn, Mads (Ed.), Pløyejord som kontekst. Nye utfordringer for forskning, forvaltning og formidling. Portal forlag. ISSN 9788283140736. p. 107–110. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2016). Money and Commodities in Viking Age Scandinavia. In Turner, Val E.; Owen, Olwyn A. & Waugh, Doreen J. (Ed.), Shetland and the Viking World. Papers from the Seventeenth Viking Congress, Lerwick. Shetland Heritage Publications. ISSN 9780993274039. p. 287–292. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2015). From Kaupang and Avaldsnes to the Irish Sea. In Purcell, Emer (Eds.), Clerics, kings and Vikings. Essays on medieval Ireland in honour of Donnchadh Ó Corráin. Four Courts Press. ISSN 9781846822797. p. 237–246. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2015). Post-substantivist production and trade. Specialized sites for trade and craft production in Scandinavia c. 600-1000 AD. In Barrett, James H. & Gibson, Sarah Jane (Ed.), Maritime Societies of the Viking and Medieval World. Maney Publishing. ISSN 9781909662797. p. 156–170. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2014). Norðvegr - Norway: From sailing route to kingdom. European Review. ISSN 1062-7987. 22(1), p. 34–44. doi: 10.1017/S1062798713000604. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2014). Fri er den "som fri kommer til verden". Om friheten i vikingtiden. In Gullbekk, Svein Harald (Eds.), Ja, vi elsker frihet. Dreyer Forlag A/S. ISSN 9788282650939. p. 172–179. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Money and trade in Viking-Age Scandinavia. In Bogucki, Mateusz & Rębkowski, Marian (Ed.), Economies, Monetisation and Society in West Slavic Lands 800-1200 AD. Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences,. ISSN 9788363760168. p. 75–88. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2012). Markets, towns and currencies in Scandinavia c. 200–1000 AD. In Gelichi, Sauro & Hodges, Richard (Ed.), From one sea to another. Trading places in the European and Mediterranean Early Middle Ages. Brepols. ISSN 9782503545271. p. 47–63. doi: 10.1484/m.scisam-eb.1.101087. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn & Pilø, Lars Holger (2011). Introduction to the Site. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Things from the Town. Artefacts and Inhabitants in Viking-age Kaupang. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788779343092. p. 17–26. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The third volume covering the excavations of 1998–2003 in the Viking-period town of Kaupang examines a range of artefacts and discusses the inhabitants of the town: their origins, activities and trading connexions. Certain key threads from both this and the two previous volumes in the series are drawn together. The main categories of artefact are metal jewellery and ornaments, gemstones, vessel glass, pottery, finds of soapstone, whetstones and textile-production equipment. The artefacts are described and dated, and in some cases their areas of origin are discussed. An exceptional wealth and diversity of artefacts distinguishes sites such as Kaupang from all other types of site in the Viking world. This reflects the fact that a large population of some 400–600 people, engaged in a comprehensive range of production and trade, lived closely together in the town c. ad 800–930. The finds and structural remains make it possible to identify the activities that took place within the six buildings excavated. The earliest buildings were in use only periodically, but those erected in the 820s were occupied permanently. The earlier structures were used for limited periods by a variety of craftsmen, but those in permanent occupation were primarily houses and only secondarily workshops. Throughout the life of the town, trade links with southern Scandinavia, the Baltic and the Irish Sea appear to have been strong. In the earliest phases of the town there was considerable trade with the Frisian zone, probably with Dorestad, but this link faded in the second half of the 9th century, probably because Dorestad had been abandoned. Kaupang seems to have been supplied with goods from the interior of eastern Norway, while goods from the western coastland of Norway are all but absent. Finds of personal equipment show that many of the inhabitants were from southern and western Scandinavia. One house can be identified as that of a Frisian household engaged in trade. There were also Slavs in Kaupang, although it is not clear if they too were long-term residents. Kaupang was located in a border zone between southern and northern Scandinavia as well as between the East and the West. The trading potential of such border zones is probably why Kaupang, unlike Ribe, survived the demise of the Frisian trade in the mid-late 9th century.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2011). The Inhabitants: Origins and Trading Connexions. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Things from the Town. Artefacts and Inhabitants in Viking-age Kaupang. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788779343092. p. 417–441. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In order to try to identify the areas of origin of the inhabitants of Kaupang and the trading contacts of the town, the imported goods in Kaupang are divided into personal possessions and traded goods. Personal possessions may reveal where the inhabitants had come from when they settled in Kaupang, and the traded goods can show which regions the town had regular trading connexions with. In the first half of the 9th century, it appears that visitors and settlers came from southern and western Scandinavia, as well as from western Slavonic and Frankish/Frisian regions. The settlers from Frankish regions came mostly from the area between the Seine and the Rhine, and from Frisia, while the Slavonic seem to have come from the coastal lands around Rügen. Many of the Frisians, perhaps also the Slavs, appear to have been craftsmen and traders. In one of the six buildings excavated there was a permanent household of Frankish/Frisian merchants, in another, probably, a Danish household. Western Slavs were present from the beginning through to the end of the 9th century. However, permanent settlement of western Slavs cannot be demonstrated, and it is possible that they were only present for limited periods. No certain traded goods from western Slavonic regions have been identified. The trade links with the Frankish/Frisian regions remained comprehensive until the middle of the 9th century. After that date, trading connexions came to an almost complete halt, and there were no further settlers from there. The trading contacts with the lands bordering the Irish Sea, possibly also Nothern Brittain, seem to have continued throughout Kaupang’s history. There is no secure evidence of people originating in these regions having visited or settled in Kaupang, and the finds do not have the same ethnic implications as the Frankish material. It is probable, therefore, that Scandinavians were responsible for the trading contacts with these areas. Both grave finds and settlement finds show that most of the population of Kaupang was from Scandinavia. Personal equipment shows that in the earlier period these were primarily from the South although there were some from the West too. After c. AD 850 there is an increased ratio of types of jewellery that are common in western Scandinavia, implying that settlers from that quarter were more common amongst the population of the town. Iron may have been one of the trade goods that attracted non-Scandinavian merchants to Kaupang as early as the beginning of the 9th century, but they could also have been after goods that are not represented in the surviving archaeological finds, such as slaves or furs. All of the identifiable trade goods from western Scandinavia may have come from the Opplands – i.e. the interior of eastern Norway – but it is not impossible that goods came from western and northern Norway that we are unable to trace archaeologically.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2011). The Inhabitants: Activities. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Things from the Town. Artefacts and Inhabitants in Viking-age Kaupang. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788779343092. p. 397–415. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  By analysing the artefactual finds and building evidence, together with the composition of the occupation deposits from the MRE of 2000–2002, the early 9th-century activities both within buildings and on open plots can be mapped. Most evidence reflects domestic activities and a range of crafts, but also possibly trade. In the earliest phase (SP I) activity was concentrated on Plots 1A and 3A/B. There is evidence that people prepared and consumed food on these plots, and were occupied in metalcasting, making glass beads, blacksmithing and polishing amber. Evidence of all of these activities has been found on Plot 1A, and it would appear that a different group of craftsmen took over the plot each year. The six buildings of SP II can, on the basis of structural features, be divided into two groups of three, one group earlier than the other. Both the finds and the style of construction indicate that the earlier group of buildings were for seasonal use, although year-round occupation cannot be ruled out. In two of these buildings there was evidence of a range of crafts. In the three later buildings there is much less evidence of craft-activity than in the earlier group, and no building housed more than one craft. Combined with the structural arrangement of the buildings, and much more prominent evidence of domestic activity, this shows that these buildings had the same occupants for an extended period: possibly their entire life-time, which must have been two or three decades. Textile production for domestic use shows that there were women resident in all three cases, and each building was probably home to a family. There is very little continuity in the crafts practised on particular plots from SP I to SP II, and no such continuity between the earlier buildings and the later. There would thus appear to have been substantial changes in the people who used any one plot until the later houses were constructed and settlement became permanent, which was probably in the 820s. It is not certain whether this development in the types of activity and settlement applies only to the area excavated or to the town more widely. Evidence from other parts of the town hints at the latter.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2011). Introduction. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Things from the Town. Artefacts and Inhabitants in Viking-age Kaupang. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788779343092. p. 13–15. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The third volume covering the excavations of 1998–2003 in the Viking-period town of Kaupang examines a range of artefacts and discusses the inhabitants of the town: their origins, activities and trading connexions. Certain key threads from both this and the two previous volumes in the series are drawn together. The main categories of artefact are metal jewellery and ornaments, gemstones, vessel glass, pottery, finds of soapstone, whetstones and textile-production equipment. The artefacts are described and dated, and in some cases their areas of origin are discussed. An exceptional wealth and diversity of artefacts distinguishes sites such as Kaupang from all other types of site in the Viking world. This reflects the fact that a large population of some 400–600 people, engaged in a comprehensive range of production and trade, lived closely together in the town c. ad 800–930. The finds and structural remains make it possible to identify the activities that took place within the six buildings excavated. The earliest buildings were in use only periodically, but those erected in the 820s were occupied permanently. The earlier structures were used for limited periods by a variety of craftsmen, but those in permanent occupation were primarily houses and only secondarily workshops. Throughout the life of the town, trade links with southern Scandinavia, the Baltic and the Irish Sea appear to have been strong. In the earliest phases of the town there was considerable trade with the Frisian zone, probably with Dorestad, but this link faded in the second half of the 9th century, probably because Dorestad had been abandoned. Kaupang seems to have been supplied with goods from the interior of eastern Norway, while goods from the western coastland of Norway are all but absent. Finds of personal equipment show that many of the inhabitants were from southern and western Scandinavia. One house can be identified as that of a Frisian household engaged in trade. There were also Slavs in Kaupang, although it is not clear if they too were long-term residents. Kaupang was located in a border zone between southern and northern Scandinavia as well as between the East and the West. The trading potential of such border zones is probably why Kaupang, unlike Ribe, survived the demise of the Frisian trade in the mid-late 9th century.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2011). Kaupang: between East and West; between North and South. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Things from the Town. Artefacts and Inhabitants in Viking-age Kaupang. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788779343092. p. 443–449. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this final chapter, certain key threads from the concluding chapters of both the present and the previous two volumes in the Kaupang series are drawn together. From Volume 1 comes the political perspective: Kaupang was founded by the king of the Danes, close to the northern border of his realm and in Skiringssal, the central place of a dynasty of petty kings, the Ynglings. From Volume 2 comes the economic perspective: the economy of Scandinavia expanded in the 8th century. Through greater craft production, the establishment of market sites, and both the plundering of and trade with areas outside of Scandinavia, many trade goods became available to a wide population, not just the elite as hitherto. These two threads are plied together with those that have been spun out in chapters 15 and 16, which deal with activities and identities amongst the visitors to Kaupang and the settlers of the town, and with their trading links. The two political motives that the Danish king had for founding Kaupang were probably to consolidate his kingdom against growing Frankish pressure and to protect it against pirates from the coasts of western Scandinavia. His economic motives are also considered to have been two: access to goods from western Scandinavia and control of navigation to the British Isles, especially to Ireland. Objects from the Irish Sea zone found at Kaupang show contact from the earliest phase of the town onwards, and it must have been Scandinavians who were responsible for these contacts. The fact that Kaupang belonged politically to southern Scandinavia is very clearly shown by the trade routes and the origins of the inhabitants in the first half of the 9th century. Goods and people from Frisian and Slavic lands must have arrived via the Danish waters and territories, and the presence of southern Scandinavian settlers, including craftsmen, can be traced. There were, however, visitors and inhabitants from western Scandinavia too. In the second half of the 9th century the Frisian trade came to an end, probably because Dorestad had been abandoned, and Slavs gradually stopped coming to Kaupang too. However contact with the Irish Sea zone not only continued but strengthened, a phenomenon that agrees nicely with the fact that at the end of the 9th century Kaupang became part of the westerly-oriented Norwegian kingdom. Kaupang also maintained and intensified its participation in the Baltic trade, which was flourishing in this period. The currency that was used in that zone, silver and specific types of weight, occur in great quantities at Kaupang, but are much less frequent elsewhere in western Scandinavia. In the second half of its functioning life, down to c. AD 930, Kaupang thus lay in a border region between a western Scandinavian economy lacking market sites and a silver currency and a southern and eastern Scandinavian economy that involved silver, markets and towns. The economic and social differences between these two zones probably had roots right back to the beginning of the 1st millennium AD, and can be traced onwards as far as the Late Middle Ages.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2011). Commodity Money, Silver and Coinage in Viking-Age Scandinavia. In Graham-Campbell, James; Sindbæk, Søren Michael & Williams, Gareth (Ed.), Silver Economies, Monetisation and Society in Scandinavia AD 800-1100. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788779345850. p. 67–91. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2011). Centrality, Landholding and Trade in Scandinavia c. AD 700-900, Settlement and Lordship in Viking and Early medieval Scandinavia. Brepols. ISSN 9782503531311. p. 197–212. doi: 10.1484/m.tmc-eb.4.1011. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2010). Comment on Lars Jørgensen: Gudme and Tissø. Two magnates’ complexes in Denmark from the 3rd to the 11th century AD. Studien zur Sachsenforschung. ISSN 0933-4734. 1, p. 287–288. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2010). Centrality and places. The central place at Skiringssal in Vestfold, Norway. Studien zur Sachsenforschung. ISSN 0933-4734. 1, p. 220–231. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2010). From Dorestad to Kaupang. Frankish Traders and Settlers in a 9th-century Scandinavian Town, Dorestad in an international Framework. New Research on Centres of Trade and Coinage in Carolingian Times. Brepols. ISSN 9782503534015. p. 137–141. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2008). Dark Age Towns: The Kaupang Case. Reply to Przemysław Urbanczyk. Norwegian Archaeological Review. ISSN 0029-3652. 41, p. 194–212. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this reply to Przemysław Urban´czyk’s review article on the first Kaupang volume, the main themes in his critique are commented on. Several discussions in the book, like that of centrality, are deepened, and some of the main conclusions and their basis are summarized. A perspective on urbanism is suggested that avoids the evolutionistic rigour built into Urban´czyk’s understanding of towns. When high medieval or Roman towns are given status as ideal types, Dark Age towns are inevitably deemed essentially lacking. This prevents a true understanding of them and their surrounding societies. Dark Age towns should rather be understood as woven into the political, economical, cultural and social environments in which they existed. Various issues concerning Kaupang and Skiringssal are considered, agreeing with Urban´czyk that several of the book’s conclusions are not definitive, although arguing that they are the most plausible. The choice of the historical narrative in the book’s concluding chapters is discussed in the context of the nature of the Kaupang/Skiringssal evidence and of a specific view of the archaeological endeavour. The understanding of Dark Age urban sites necessitates an interdisciplinary approach, recognizing the potential of source material outside a strictly archaeological horizon.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2008). The development of urbanism in Scandinavia. In Brink, Stefan & Price, Neil (Ed.), The Viking World. Routledge. ISSN 9780415333153. p. 83–93. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2008). Kaupang – ‘Skíringssalr’. In Brink, Stefan & Price, Neil (Ed.), The Viking World. Routledge. ISSN 9780415333153. p. 112–120. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2008). Introduction. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Means of Exchange. Dealing with Silver in the Viking Age. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788779343085. p. 9–12. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This second volume concerning the excavations in the Viking-period town Kaupang in 1998–2003 examines types of find used in economic transactions: coins, silver ingots, hacksilver, balances and weights. Changes in the type and volume of economic transactions at Kaupang and in Scandinavia are discussed, and the economic thought-world of Viking-age craftsmen and traders explored. The study of Viking silver currency has previously been based mainly on hoards. In this volume, the integrated study of the types of finds noted, in light of the detailed chronology of settlement finds from sites such as Kaupang, sheds completely new light upon economy and exchange. In the early 9th century, long-distance trade goods seem to have come to Kaupang mainly from the Carolingian world. In the earliest phase, transactions were made using commodities as payment within a commodity-money system. From c. 825 silver weighed using locally produced lead weights, and possibly also Western coins, was used as currency on a limited scale. The old øre weight-unit was easily convertible into Carolingian measures. After the mid-9th century, trade with Carolingian regions declined and Kaupang was more heavily involved in trade with the Baltic. The greater supply of silver resulting from the importation, via eastern Scandinavia, of Islamic coins, as well as the introduction in most of Scandinavia of standardized weights of probably Islamic origin, paved the way for an increasing use of silver in payment from then on. These studies demonstrate that sites like Kaupang led the way in the development of means of payment and types of trade in Viking-age Scandinavia. In earlier times and in rural areas, trade took place within tight social networks where economic agency was socially sanctioned and prices were fixed by tradition. Urban long-distance trade was less dependent of such networks and therefore provided space for traders and craftsmen openly to display their economic agency. This development was encouraged by the urban environment, which housed a non-food-producing population dependent on numerous daily transactions to survive. By easing the traditional constraints on the economy and so allowing for economic expansion, the Viking towns contributed significantly to the fundamental transformation of Scandinavian culture and society around the turn of the millennium.

• Skre, Dagfinn & Pilø, Lars Holger (2008). Introduction to the Site. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Means of Exchange. Dealing with Silver in the Viking Age. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788779343085. p. 13–25. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This second volume concerning the excavations in the Viking-period town Kaupang in 1998–2003 examines types of find used in economic transactions: coins, silver ingots, hacksilver, balances and weights. Changes in the type and volume of economic transactions at Kaupang and in Scandinavia are discussed, and the economic thought-world of Viking-age craftsmen and traders explored. The study of Viking silver currency has previously been based mainly on hoards. In this volume, the integrated study of the types of finds noted, in light of the detailed chronology of settlement finds from sites such as Kaupang, sheds completely new light upon economy and exchange. In the early 9th century, long-distance trade goods seem to have come to Kaupang mainly from the Carolingian world. In the earliest phase, transactions were made using commodities as payment within a commodity-money system. From c. 825 silver weighed using locally produced lead weights, and possibly also Western coins, was used as currency on a limited scale. The old øre weight-unit was easily convertible into Carolingian measures. After the mid-9th century, trade with Carolingian regions declined and Kaupang was more heavily involved in trade with the Baltic. The greater supply of silver resulting from the importation, via eastern Scandinavia, of Islamic coins, as well as the introduction in most of Scandinavia of standardized weights of probably Islamic origin, paved the way for an increasing use of silver in payment from then on. These studies demonstrate that sites like Kaupang led the way in the development of means of payment and types of trade in Viking-age Scandinavia. In earlier times and in rural areas, trade took place within tight social networks where economic agency was socially sanctioned and prices were fixed by tradition. Urban long-distance trade was less dependent of such networks and therefore provided space for traders and craftsmen openly to display their economic agency. This development was encouraged by the urban environment, which housed a non-food-producing population dependent on numerous daily transactions to survive. By easing the traditional constraints on the economy and so allowing for economic expansion, the Viking towns contributed significantly to the fundamental transformation of Scandinavian culture and society around the turn of the millennium.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2008). Dealing with Silver. Economic Agency in South-Western Scandinavia AD 600–1000. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Means of Exchange. Dealing with Silver in the Viking Age. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788779343085. p. 343–355. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This second volume concerning the excavations in the Viking-period town Kaupang in 1998–2003 examines types of find used in economic transactions: coins, silver ingots, hacksilver, balances and weights. Changes in the type and volume of economic transactions at Kaupang and in Scandinavia are discussed, and the economic thought-world of Viking-age craftsmen and traders explored. The study of Viking silver currency has previously been based mainly on hoards. In this volume, the integrated study of the types of finds noted, in light of the detailed chronology of settlement finds from sites such as Kaupang, sheds completely new light upon economy and exchange. In the early 9th century, long-distance trade goods seem to have come to Kaupang mainly from the Carolingian world. In the earliest phase, transactions were made using commodities as payment within a commodity-money system. From c. 825 silver weighed using locally produced lead weights, and possibly also Western coins, was used as currency on a limited scale. The old øre weight-unit was easily convertible into Carolingian measures. After the mid-9th century, trade with Carolingian regions declined and Kaupang was more heavily involved in trade with the Baltic. The greater supply of silver resulting from the importation, via eastern Scandinavia, of Islamic coins, as well as the introduction in most of Scandinavia of standardized weights of probably Islamic origin, paved the way for an increasing use of silver in payment from then on. These studies demonstrate that sites like Kaupang led the way in the development of means of payment and types of trade in Viking-age Scandinavia. In earlier times and in rural areas, trade took place within tight social networks where economic agency was socially sanctioned and prices were fixed by tradition. Urban long-distance trade was less dependent of such networks and therefore provided space for traders and craftsmen openly to display their economic agency. This development was encouraged by the urban environment, which housed a non-food-producing population dependent on numerous daily transactions to survive. By easing the traditional constraints on the economy and so allowing for economic expansion, the Viking towns contributed significantly to the fundamental transformation of Scandinavian culture and society around the turn of the millennium.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2008). Post-substantivist Towns and Trade AD 600–1000. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Means of Exchange. Dealing with Silver in the Viking Age. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788779343085. p. 327–342. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This second volume concerning the excavations in the Viking-period town Kaupang in 1998–2003 examines types of find used in economic transactions: coins, silver ingots, hacksilver, balances and weights. Changes in the type and volume of economic transactions at Kaupang and in Scandinavia are discussed, and the economic thought-world of Viking-age craftsmen and traders explored. The study of Viking silver currency has previously been based mainly on hoards. In this volume, the integrated study of the types of finds noted, in light of the detailed chronology of settlement finds from sites such as Kaupang, sheds completely new light upon economy and exchange. In the early 9th century, long-distance trade goods seem to have come to Kaupang mainly from the Carolingian world. In the earliest phase, transactions were made using commodities as payment within a commodity-money system. From c. 825 silver weighed using locally produced lead weights, and possibly also Western coins, was used as currency on a limited scale. The old øre weight-unit was easily convertible into Carolingian measures. After the mid-9th century, trade with Carolingian regions declined and Kaupang was more heavily involved in trade with the Baltic. The greater supply of silver resulting from the importation, via eastern Scandinavia, of Islamic coins, as well as the introduction in most of Scandinavia of standardized weights of probably Islamic origin, paved the way for an increasing use of silver in payment from then on. These studies demonstrate that sites like Kaupang led the way in the development of means of payment and types of trade in Viking-age Scandinavia. In earlier times and in rural areas, trade took place within tight social networks where economic agency was socially sanctioned and prices were fixed by tradition. Urban long-distance trade was less dependent of such networks and therefore provided space for traders and craftsmen openly to display their economic agency. This development was encouraged by the urban environment, which housed a non-food-producing population dependent on numerous daily transactions to survive. By easing the traditional constraints on the economy and so allowing for economic expansion, the Viking towns contributed significantly to the fundamental transformation of Scandinavian culture and society around the turn of the millennium.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). The Sciringes healh of Ohthere's time. In Bately, Janet & Englert, Anton (Ed.), Ohthere's Voyages. A late 9th-century account of voyages along the coasts of Norway and Denmark and its cultural context. Vikingeskibsmuseet. ISSN 9788785180476. p. 150–156. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Introduction. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Kaupang in Skiringssal. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788779342590. p. 13–24. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this, the first of six volumes, the main results of the excavations which the University of Oslo carried out at Kaupang 1998–2003 are presented. A completely new picture is put forward of the port that Ohthere (Óttarr) visited in c. 890 AD. It is argued that Kaupang was one of three towns that were founded in south-west Scandinavia around the year 800. Kaupang was founded in the power centre Skiringssal, which for decades had been ruled by the Ynglings – the legendary Norwegian royal lineage. The founding was probably initiated by the King of the Danes – the dominant political actor in south-west Scandinavia at the time. Kaupang is shown to have had several of the features revealed in Birka, Hedeby and Ribe – i.e., a compact permanent settlement, divided into small plots, each with a dwelling. The town could have had 400-800 inhabitants. Substantial traces of trade and craftwork are proof of the main areas of occupation. Advanced geo- and environmental-archaeological analyses, published here, have played an important role in interpreting the finds. Documentary sources indicate that Skiringssal was an important royal seat in the 700s and 800s. These sources are put together with the archaeological and toponymical sources which, united, show a centre of power with a clear likeness to similar places in Denmark and Sweden, so called “central places”. A hall or sal building, presumably the Skirings-sal itself, has been excavated at Huseby, near Kaupang. Nearby, a thing site was situated by a holy lake. In this, the Yngling kings’ centre of power, to which many people came to attend thing meetings and sacrificial feasts, the town Kaupang was founded. The transition to Christian religious practices in Viken in the middle of the 10th century and the consequent demise of pagan cult activities in Skiringssal was probably a key factor in the abandonment of Kaupang at that time. In nine of the book’s 20 chapters, the excavations’ finds, analyses and results are presented. In three chapters, 200 years of research on Kaupang and Skiringssal are summarised, while in the remaining eight chapters an endeavour is made to re-establish the holistic approach to Skiringssal which dominated research in the 19th and early 20th century.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Exploring Skiringssal 1771-1999. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Kaupang in Skiringssal. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISSN 9788779342590. p. 27–42. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this, the first of six volumes, the main results of the excavations which the University of Oslo carried out at Kaupang 1998–2003 are presented. A completely new picture is put forward of the port that Ohthere (Óttarr) visited in c. 890 AD. It is argued that Kaupang was one of three towns that were founded in south-west Scandinavia around the year 800. Kaupang was founded in the power centre Skiringssal, which for decades had been ruled by the Ynglings – the legendary Norwegian royal lineage. The founding was probably initiated by the King of the Danes – the dominant political actor in south-west Scandinavia at the time. Kaupang is shown to have had several of the features revealed in Birka, Hedeby and Ribe – i.e., a compact permanent settlement, divided into small plots, each with a dwelling. The town could have had 400-800 inhabitants. Substantial traces of trade and craftwork are proof of the main areas of occupation. Advanced geo- and environmental-archaeological analyses, published here, have played an important role in interpreting the finds. Documentary sources indicate that Skiringssal was an important royal seat in the 700s and 800s. These sources are put together with the archaeological and toponymical sources which, united, show a centre of power with a clear likeness to similar places in Denmark and Sweden, so called “central places”. A hall or sal building, presumably the Skirings-sal itself, has been excavated at Huseby, near Kaupang. Nearby, a thing site was situated by a holy lake. In this, the Yngling kings’ centre of power, to which many people came to attend thing meetings and sacrificial feasts, the town Kaupang was founded. The transition to Christian religious practices in Viken in the middle of the 10th century and the consequent demise of pagan cult activities in Skiringssal was probably a key factor in the abandonment of Kaupang at that time. In nine of the book’s 20 chapters, the excavations’ finds, analyses and results are presented. In three chapters, 200 years of research on Kaupang and Skiringssal are summarised, while in the remaining eight chapters an endeavour is made to re-establish the holistic approach to Skiringssal which dominated research in the 19th and early 20th century.

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• Skre, Dagfinn (2025). The Northern Routes to Kingship. A History of Scandinavia AD 180−550. Routledge. ISBN 9781138831384. 694 p. doi: 10.4324/9781003543053. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This book argues that tribal Scandinavia was set on the route to kingship by the arrival in the AD 180s–90s of warrior groups that were dismissed from the Roman army after defeating the Marcomanni by the Danube. Using a range of evidence, this book details how well-equipped and battle-seasoned warriors, familiar with Roman institutions and practices, seized land and established lordly centres. It shows how these new lords acquired wealth by stimulating the production of commodities for trade with peers and Continental associates, Romans included, to reward retainers and bestow on partners. In these transcultural circumstances, lords and their retainers nurtured artisanal production of exquisite quality and developed a heroic ethos and refined hall etiquette. The topic of warfare, created by the volatile politics of lordly cooperation and competition, is also explored. Venturing substantially beyond the usual scope of syntheses of this period, this book looks at how the break-up of the Western Roman Empire and the rise of 'Great tribes' such as the Franks and Goths influenced lords and tribal leaders across Scandinavia to form kingdoms, emulating what they for centuries had considered the superior polity, the Roman Empire. This book’s fresh take on disputed research topics will inspire scholars, students, and interested readers to delve further into this pivotal period of European history.

• Skre, Dagfinn & Stylegar, Frans-Arne Hedlund (2023). Herre og drott : konge og sjøkonge : Karmøyseminaret 2022. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISBN 9788202830977. 220 p. doi: 10.23865/noasp.211. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2020). Rulership in 1st to 14th century Scandinavia. Royal graves and sites at Avaldsnes and beyond. De Gruyter Brill. ISBN 9783110425796. 545 p. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This book discusses the 1st-11th century developments that led to the formation of the three Scandinavian kingdoms in the Viking Age. Wide-ranging studies of communication routes, regional identities, judicial territories, and royal sites and graves trace a complex trajectory of rulership in these pagan Germanic societies. In the fi nal section, new light is shed on the pinnacle and demise of the Norwegian kingdom in the 13th-14th centuries. The book seeks to revitalise the somewhat stagnant scholarly debate on Germanic rulership in the first millennium AD. A series of comprehensive chapters combines literary evidence on Scandinavia’s polities, kings, and other rulers with archaeological, documentary, toponymical, and linguistic evidence. The picture that emerges is one of surprisingly stable rulership institutions, sites, and myths, while control of them was contested between individuals, dynasties, and polities. While in the early centuries, Scandinavia was integrated in Germanic Europe, profound societal and cultural changes in 6th-century Scandinavia and the Christianisation of Continental and English kingdoms set northern kingship on a different path. The pagan heroic warrior ethos, essential to kingship, was developed and refined; only to recur overseas embodied in 9th–10th-century Vikings. Three chapters on a hitherto unknown masonry royal manor at Avaldsnes in western Norway, excavated 2017, concludes this volume with discussions of the late-medieval peak of Norwegian kingship and it’s eventual downfall in the late 14th century. This book’s discussions and results are relevant to all scholars and students of 1st-millenium Germanic kingship, polities, and societies.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2017). Avaldsnes - A Sea-Kings' Manor in First-Millennium Western Scandinavia. De Gruyter Brill. ISBN 9783110421088. 897 p. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Avaldsnes Royal Manor project explores early kingship in Northern Europe, spanning the period c. AD–1320 AD. The principal case is the Norwegian kingdom and the core site is Avaldsnes near Haugesund, Western Norway. 9th–10th century skaldic poems as well as 13th century sagas implies that Avaldsnes was the principal Viking Age royal manor. The site has produced numerous exquisite gravefinds from the Roman period onwards. Among them are the third century Flaghaug grave and two ship graves from the late 8th century. Also, the Oseberg ship, excavated near Oslo, is now proven to have been built c. 820 near Avaldsnes. The Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, excavated the Avaldsnes settlement in 2011–12. A team of 23 scholars from prominent academic institutions, including the University of Cambridge and University College London, participate in the research. This first of two volumes contains their results regarding the manor and its setting on the island of Kǫrmt by the Norðvegr, the sheltered sailing route along the West-Scandinavian coast. Together, the chapters produce a detailed 1000-years’ history of a complex central-place area, its monuments and buildings, its activities and functions, its blooming and fading, and eventually its downfall in the 14th century.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2011). Things from the Town. Artefacts and Inhabitants in Viking-age Kaupang. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISBN 9788779343092. 483 p. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The third volume covering the excavations of 1998–2003 in the Viking-period town of Kaupang examines a range of artefacts and discusses the inhabitants of the town: their origins, activities and trading connexions. Certain key threads from both this and the two previous volumes in the series are drawn together. The main categories of artefact are metal jewellery and ornaments, gemstones, vessel glass, pottery, finds of soapstone, whetstones and textile-production equipment. The artefacts are described and dated, and in some cases their areas of origin are discussed. An exceptional wealth and diversity of artefacts distinguishes sites such as Kaupang from all other types of site in the Viking world. This reflects the fact that a large population of some 400–600 people, engaged in a comprehensive range of production and trade, lived closely together in the town c. ad 800–930. The finds and structural remains make it possible to identify the activities that took place within the six buildings excavated. The earliest buildings were in use only periodically, but those erected in the 820s were occupied permanently. The earlier structures were used for limited periods by a variety of craftsmen, but those in permanent occupation were primarily houses and only secondarily workshops. Throughout the life of the town, trade links with southern Scandinavia, the Baltic and the Irish Sea appear to have been strong. In the earliest phases of the town there was considerable trade with the Frisian zone, probably with Dorestad, but this link faded in the second half of the 9th century, probably because Dorestad had been abandoned. Kaupang seems to have been supplied with goods from the interior of eastern Norway, while goods from the western coastland of Norway are all but absent. Finds of personal equipment show that many of the inhabitants were from southern and western Scandinavia. One house can be identified as that of a Frisian household engaged in trade. There were also Slavs in Kaupang, although it is not clear if they too were long-term residents. Kaupang was located in a border zone between southern and northern Scandinavia as well as between the East and the West. The trading potential of such border zones is probably why Kaupang, unlike Ribe, survived the demise of the Frisian trade in the mid-late 9th century.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2008). Means of Exchange. Dealing with Silver in the Viking Age. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISBN 9788779343085. 378 p. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This second volume concerning the excavations in the Viking-period town Kaupang in 1998–2003 examines types of find used in economic transactions: coins, silver ingots, hacksilver, balances and weights. Changes in the type and volume of economic transactions at Kaupang and in Scandinavia are discussed, and the economic thought-world of Viking-age craftsmen and traders explored. The study of Viking silver currency has previously been based mainly on hoards. In this volume, the integrated study of the types of finds noted, in light of the detailed chronology of settlement finds from sites such as Kaupang, sheds completely new light upon economy and exchange. In the early 9th century, long-distance trade goods seem to have come to Kaupang mainly from the Carolingian world. In the earliest phase, transactions were made using commodities as payment within a commodity-money system. From c. 825 silver weighed using locally produced lead weights, and possibly also Western coins, was used as currency on a limited scale. The old øre weight-unit was easily convertible into Carolingian measures. After the mid-9th century, trade with Carolingian regions declined and Kaupang was more heavily involved in trade with the Baltic. The greater supply of silver resulting from the importation, via eastern Scandinavia, of Islamic coins, as well as the introduction in most of Scandinavia of standardized weights of probably Islamic origin, paved the way for an increasing use of silver in payment from then on. These studies demonstrate that sites like Kaupang led the way in the development of means of payment and types of trade in Viking-age Scandinavia. In earlier times and in rural areas, trade took place within tight social networks where economic agency was socially sanctioned and prices were fixed by tradition. Urban long-distance trade was less dependent of such networks and therefore provided space for traders and craftsmen openly to display their economic agency. This development was encouraged by the urban environment, which housed a non-food-producing population dependent on numerous daily transactions to survive. By easing the traditional constraints on the economy and so allowing for economic expansion, the Viking towns contributed significantly to the fundamental transformation of Scandinavian culture and society around the turn of the millennium.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Kaupang in Skiringssal. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISBN 9788779342590. 502 p. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this, the first of six volumes, the main results of the excavations which the University of Oslo carried out at Kaupang 1998–2003 are presented. A completely new picture is put forward of the port that Ohthere (Óttarr) visited in c. 890 AD. It is argued that Kaupang was one of three towns that were founded in south-west Scandinavia around the year 800. Kaupang was founded in the power centre Skiringssal, which for decades had been ruled by the Ynglings – the legendary Norwegian royal lineage. The founding was probably initiated by the King of the Danes – the dominant political actor in south-west Scandinavia at the time. Kaupang is shown to have had several of the features revealed in Birka, Hedeby and Ribe – i.e., a compact permanent settlement, divided into small plots, each with a dwelling. The town could have had 400-800 inhabitants. Substantial traces of trade and craftwork are proof of the main areas of occupation. Advanced geo- and environmental-archaeological analyses, published here, have played an important role in interpreting the finds. Documentary sources indicate that Skiringssal was an important royal seat in the 700s and 800s. These sources are put together with the archaeological and toponymical sources which, united, show a centre of power with a clear likeness to similar places in Denmark and Sweden, so called “central places”. A hall or sal building, presumably the Skirings-sal itself, has been excavated at Huseby, near Kaupang. Nearby, a thing site was situated by a holy lake. In this, the Yngling kings’ centre of power, to which many people came to attend thing meetings and sacrificial feasts, the town Kaupang was founded. The transition to Christian religious practices in Viken in the middle of the 10th century and the consequent demise of pagan cult activities in Skiringssal was probably a key factor in the abandonment of Kaupang at that time. In nine of the book’s 20 chapters, the excavations’ finds, analyses and results are presented. In three chapters, 200 years of research on Kaupang and Skiringssal are summarised, while in the remaining eight chapters an endeavour is made to re-establish the holistic approach to Skiringssal which dominated research in the 19th and early 20th century.

• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Kaupang in Skiringssal. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISBN 9788779342590. 502 p. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The main aim of this chapter is to provide as much environmental background information as possible for the new archaeological excavation projects at the Viking-age settlement at Kaupang. The geological history, based on previous publications and a new mapping of the site and the surroundings, is described in detail. Emphasis has been placed on the distribution and characteristics of the soils. The anthropogenic soil material (cultural deposits) deposited during the occupation of the settlement is described, and the erosion history after the settlement was abandoned is quantified. Pollen analysis of a nearby peat-bog describes natural and man-made vegetation changes before, during, and after the occupation of the settlement. Pollen and diatom analyses of the present embayment sediments give supplementary information on the local vegetation development, as well as circulation-pattern changes in the fjord system. Emphasis has been placed on changes in the agricultural activities at and around the settlement. Previous and new data on sea-level changes, adjusted to the Kaupang area and supplemented with sediment studies at the settlement, indicate a slightly higher Viking-age sea-level than earlier reported. It also gives information on changes in Viking-age maritime communication during the occupation of the settlement. Instrumental and historical data on tidal variation indicate that occasional extreme spring tides, up to c. 1.5 m above mean sea-level, might have had some impact on the shore constructions and the lower areas of the Viking-age settlement.

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• Skre, Dagfinn (2025). [Review of:] Towns and Commerce in Viking-Age Scandinavia by Sven Kalmring. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. Business History Review. ISSN 0007-6805. 99(2), p. 299–301. doi: 10.1017/S0007680525101098. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2024). Comments on Robert M. Rosenswig: Money, Currency, and Heterodox Macroeconomics for Archaeology. Current Anthropology. ISSN 0011-3204. 65(2), p. 255–256. doi: 10.1086/729096. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2017). Preface. In Skre, Dagfinn (Eds.), Avaldsnes - A Sea-Kings' Manor in First-Millennium Western Scandinavia. De Gruyter Brill. ISSN 9783110421088. p. V–VII. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Avaldsnes Royal Manor project explores early kingship in Northern Europe, spanning the period c. AD–1320 AD. The principal case is the Norwegian kingdom and the core site is Avaldsnes near Haugesund, Western Norway. 9th–10th century skaldic poems as well as 13th century sagas implies that Avaldsnes was the principal Viking Age royal manor. The site has produced numerous exquisite gravefinds from the Roman period onwards. Among them are the third century Flaghaug grave and two ship graves from the late 8th century. Also, the Oseberg ship, excavated near Oslo, is now proven to have been built c. 820 near Avaldsnes. The Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, excavated the Avaldsnes settlement in 2011–12. A team of 23 scholars from prominent academic institutions, including the University of Cambridge and University College London, participate in the research. This first of two volumes contains their results regarding the manor and its setting on the island of Kǫrmt by the Norðvegr, the sheltered sailing route along the West-Scandinavian coast. Together, the chapters produce a detailed 1000-years’ history of a complex central-place area, its monuments and buildings, its activities and functions, its blooming and fading, and eventually its downfall in the 14th century.

• Fuglestvedt, Ingrid; Gansum, Terje; Lillehammer, Grete Kirsten Grimsrud; Skre, Dagfinn; Øye, Ingvild & Iversen, Frode [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2016). Bjørn Myhre 1938–2015, minneord. Viking - Norsk arkeologisk årbok. ISSN 0332-608X. p. 7–12. doi: 10.5617/viking.3901. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Universalism and particularism in urban studies. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Avaldsnes ved Norðvegr. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Kaupang, according to the Kaupang Excavation Project 2000-2011. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Avaldsnes – Kongssete ved Nordvegen. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Statement regarding Karin Rosberg: Terminology for houses and house remains. Journal of Archaeology and Ancient History. 8, p. 2–3. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Money in Viking-Age Scandinavia: silver, coinage and commodities. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Avaldsnes ved Norðvegr. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Utgravningene på Avaldsnes. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Utgravningene på Avaldsnes. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Konger og haller ved Avaldsnes og Kaupang. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Avaldsnes, a sea-kings’ seat by the Norðvegr. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Universalisme og partikularisme i studiet av urbanisering. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2013). Money and trade in Viking-Age Scandinavia. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2012). Utgravningene på Avaldsnes avsluttet! Frá haug ok heiðni. ISSN 0015-9255. p. 3–9. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2011). Noen resultater fra utgravningene på Avaldsnes 2011. Frá haug ok heiðni. ISSN 0015-9255. p. 3–7. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2008). Fanget av fortiden (Portrettintervju). [Journal]. Haugesunds Avis. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2008). Historisk sannhet. Den lille arkeologiskolen. Levende Historie. ISSN 1503-4208. p. 44–45. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2008). Arkeologien og livet. Den lille arkeologiskolen. Levende Historie. ISSN 1503-4208. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2008). Bloms kampfly (intervju om terrengscanning Avaldsnes). [Journal]. Finansavisen. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). En moderne arkeologi. Den lille arkeologiskolen. Levende Historie. ISSN 1503-4208. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Samfunnet - en organisme. Den lille arkeologiskolen. Levende Historie. ISSN 1503-4208. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Topografiske villfarelser. Den lille arkeologiskolen. Levende Historie. ISSN 1503-4208. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Arkeologi i 1984. Den lille arkeologiskolen. Levende Historie. ISSN 1503-4208. p. 30–31. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Intervju om boken "Kaupang in Skiringssal". [Radio]. NRK P2 Kulturnytt. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Intervju om boken "Kaupang in Skiringssal". [Radio]. NRK P2 Dagsnytt Atten. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Intervju om boken "Kaupang in Skiringssal". [Radio]. NRK P1 Østafjells. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Danenes by i Norge. [Journal]. Dagbladet. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Derfor ble Kaupang Norges første by. [Journal]. Aftenposten. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Intervju om boken "Kaupang in Skiringssal". [Journal]. Østlandsposten. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Tingene vandrer. Den lille arkeologiskolen. Levende Historie. ISSN 1503-4208. 2. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Bjørvika er dårligst tenkelig sted for vikingskipene. [Journal]. Uniforum. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Recension: John Ljungkvist: En hiar atti rikR. Om elit, struktur och ekonomi kring Uppsala och Mälaren under yngre järnålder. Fornvännen. ISSN 0015-7813. p. 57–58. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Evolusjonslærens inntog. Den lille arkeologiskolen. Levende Historie. ISSN 1503-4208. 1. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Verdt å vite. Intervju om Kaupang. [Radio]. NRK P2. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). AmS trekker seg ut fra Avaldsnes-prosjektet. [Journal]. Stavanger Aftenblad. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Intervju om Avaldsnes

• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Intervju om Avaldsnes. [Radio]. NRK Rogaland. Full text in Research Archive
• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Sponsor i veien for samarbeid. [Journal]. Haugesunds Avis. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Intervju om Avaldsnes

• Skre, Dagfinn (2007). Skarpe observasjoner (Anmeldelse av Anne Eriksen: Topografenes verden). Apollon : Forskningsmagasin for Universitetet i Oslo. ISSN 0803-6926. p. 51–51. Full text in Research Archive
• Molaug, Petter Bjerregaard; Skre, Dagfinn & Flodin, Lena (2018). Oslogate 6. Arkeologiske utgravninger 1987-1989. Norsk institutt for kulturminneforskning. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  De store arkeologiske utgravningene i de norske middelalderbyene siden 1970 har gitt et vell av dokumentasjonsmateriale, gjenstander og andre levninger fra en type kulturminner som har stor kulturhistorisk verdi, både kildeverdi og opplevelsesverdi. Ikke minst gir de tykke kulturlagene med til dels meget godt bevart organisk materiale utrolig gode muligheter til å komme nærmere hendelser og tilstander i et område. Oslogate 6 er et slikt område. Rapporten er en gjennomgang og systematisering av materialet fra ett av de viktigste utgravningsfeltene i Oslo. Det gir også bakgrunnen for den funksjons- og aktivitetsanalysen som er foretatt og setter feltet inn i en videre geografisk sammenheng. Feltmetoden i Oslogate 6 var basert på utgravning og dokumentering av de enkelte jordlagene, i tillegg til mer nøyaktig geografisk stedfesting av funnmaterialet. Spesiell vekt ble lagt på beskrivelse av de enkelte lagene for å kunne vurdere lettere hvordan de var dannet. De eldste funnene på stedet var ardspor fra en åker datert til vikingtid. Bybebyggelsen har startet i slutten av 1000-tallet, da med stor vekt på metallbearbeiding. Fra sent 1100-tall var området dominert av skomakervirksomhet. Bebyggelsesutviklingen er den samme som i andre deler av middelalder-Oslo, med økende tetthet og regularitet frem til 1200-tallet, hvor størsteparten av arealet var dekket av tømmerhus, den resterende delen av trebrolegninger. Bygårdsstrukturen var ganske stabil med gjennom hele middelalderen fra midten av 1100-tallet med bodbygninger ut mot gaten (stretet) og rekker med hus med gavlen mot gaten innover i bygården, inntil en gårdsplass. Eiendomsgrensene fortsatte også inn i nyere tid, da det ble bygget noen steinkjellere i tillegg til trebygningene og husene lå noe mindre tett enn i høymiddelalderen. Dateringene av bebyggelsesfasene og aktivitetene er gjort ved dendrokronologi, C14-datering og datering av gjenstandsmaterialet. Det sistnevnte domineres av lær, særlig læravfall fra skoproduksjon, men også ferdige, utgåtte sko. I dette området av middelalderbyen lå i høy- og senmiddelalderen skomakerbodene, omtalt i skriftlige kilder. Andre viktige funngrupper er av tre, gevir, metall og stein. Alle gjenstander er forsøkt funksjonsinndelt.

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