Gjellestad and its Surroundings: What was known prior to the excavation of the ship burial?

The story behind the discovery of the Gjellestad ship burial is long and fragmented. In this chapter, we describe how knowledge of the prehistory of Gjellestad and its surroundings gradually developed over many generations, concluding with the use of georadar and the discovery of the ship. Significant artefacts and materials from various prehistoric periods are presented to provide the reader with an overview. An important factor in the accumulation of knowledge of the area is that discoveries of sites and objects occur through coincidences and circumstances not directly controlled by archaeologists, but by planning ap- plications and landscape changes. Through many different sources and surveys, we have gradually gained knowledge of site and a landscape, but the material is often fragmented, and outside the remit of research projects there are rarely possibilities or resources to investigate further.