Time Team archaeologists hunt for Viking boat burial in Shetland

The National

10-07-2025

A team from the long-running show spent a week at Huesbreck in Dunrossness, south of the island, as they searched for the resting place of a high-status Norse settler.
Dr John Gater, of Time Team, previously said there was a 'sense the site could be very special' as his team geared up to determine the exact nature of the site after Historic Environment Scotland listed the area as the likely home to a Viking boat burial due to the oval-shaped feature in the landscape.
The results from the dig have been kept under tight lips until the excavation is shown on the show, which has been moved to online streaming on its own website after it was pulled off air by Channel 4 in 2014.
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Vikings arrived in Shetland and Orkney in the early to mid-9th Century and integrated with the residents on the island. Around 13 Viking burials have been discovered on Shetland so far.
Paul Clark, of the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology (Orca) at the University of the Highlands and Islands, said discovering a boat burial site would be 'very significant' for the island.
He also believes that the three separate mounds on the site could also be a Pictish cemetery, as there is previous evidence of Viking burials being found along with them.
According to the Scotsman, in an application to Historic Environment Scotland for scheduled monument consent for the dig, Clark said: 'Although the precise nature of the three mounds is uncertain, the presence of apparent man-made features on the geophysical survey results and their proximity to the potential boat burial suggests they may be additional burial features, supporting the interpretation that this site is a ship burial rather than a house site.
'In Scotland, there is a wider pattern of the location of pagan Viking burials, including boat burials, on the same site as earlier prehistoric or Pictish cemeteries...'
Clark said the square-like features picked up in previous geophysical surveys would 'be consistent with burials from the Pictish period'.
He added: 'The Huesbreck burial site has significant potential to enhance our understanding of both the Pictish and the Viking period within Scotland.
(Image: Stonham Barns Park)
'Pictish burials, meanwhile, rarely include grave goods, but often include important organic material that can further enhance our understanding of this period of Scotland's history.
'The evidence suggests that the site has a high potential to be a relatively undisturbed Pictish cemetery, later reused for a Viking ship burial.
'This would be an exceptionally rare undisturbed example of this type of site within Scotland on our current knowledge, and it has high potential to enhance our understanding of both Pictish and Viking era funerary and ritual practices within Scotland.'
If the Time Team archaeologists do find evidence that suggests that a boat burial does exist at Huesbreck, it would join a small group of confirmed Viking-era boat burials in the UK.
Such burials are considered archaeologically significant and typically give an insight into individuals of high social standing.