Excavation of an Early Iron Age Burial Cairn with a Cremation Burial at Lerstad in Ålesund

Abstract

For three weeks during the summer of 2023 the University Museum of Bergen excavated a cairn at the farm Lerstad in Ålesund municipality, Møre og Romsdal county. Underneath the cairn a grave consisting of a layer of charcoal mixed with fragments of burnt human bones (Norw.: ‘brannflakgrav’) was investigated. A 14C sample from the charcoal, believed to be from wood used in the cremation fire, was dated 46 BCE-58 CE - late in the Pre-Roman Iron Age or early in the Early Roman Iron Age. No burial goods or artefacts was found in the grave. Close to the cairn several cooking pits were found. The majority of these are 14C dated to later parts of the Early Iron Age.