At low tide on a lonely shore of the Baltic, a dozen small hollows in the sand seem innocuous. Yet, as windblown grains disturb them, you glimpse ancient charcoal stains and faint outlines of stones.
It is here, on the remote island of Gotska Sandön, that archaeologists believe they have uncovered traces of an Iron Age port—one that may rewrite parts of Nordic and maritime history.
A Beach, Two Coins, And Twenty Hearths: A Puzzle Takes Shape
In early 2023, an excavation team working on Gotska Sandön, a protected island north of Gotland in Sweden, stumbled upon a tantalizing find: two Roman silver coins, each dating to the first and second centuries AD.
One coin was minted under Emperor Trajan (AD 98–117), the other under Antoninus Pius (AD 138–161). Alone, they were mysterious—how did Roman coins find their way so far north, in an island nearly off the beaten path?
Intrigued, archaeologists returned in subsequent digs to that same beach. Their labor yielded not just stray fragments, but a pattern: twenty hearths, buried under sand and time, aligned along the shoreline where the coins were found. One hearth has been dated by carbon-14 to roughly 2,000 years before present—contemporaneous with the coin finds.
Professor Johan Rönnby, a marine archaeology specialist affiliated with Södertörn University, frames the site not as a port with stone quays and jetties in the modern sense, but rather a landing site—a place where small boats could be beached, and their crews temporarily camped.
So, what motivated such repeated visits? Seal hunting may well be a candidate. The carbon remains of burnt seal bones found in hearth contexts further inland and in related parts of the island suggest that “train oil”—the product of boiling seal blubber—was produced here. Rönnby and colleagues hypothesize that hunters from nearby Gotland or beyond might have landed on Sandön to process blubber, using fire pits to render oil.
At the same time, the discovery of ceramics and other artifacts on the island, traced to both pre-Roman and Roman Iron Age contexts, reinforces the idea that this isolated shore held more than seasonal use.
Piecing Together The Mosaic: Trade, Travel, And Territorial Crossroads
Beyond the hearths and coins, the broader archaeological record on Gotska Sandön is richer than once thought. A joint project by Uppsala University and Södertörn University has uncovered evidence of activity spanning from the Late Bronze Age through the medieval period.
Sabine Sten, Professor of Osteology at Uppsala, reports that hearths surface not only in the Roman/Iron Age horizon but earlier, and burned seal bones accompany them.
Meanwhile, medieval graves and human remains have been located at a different point on the island, Säludden, showing that the island’s story did not end with the early centuries.
Historical stratigraphy suggests that the site of Säludden may have been a mooring or meeting place and perhaps even a strategic landmark in the medieval struggle for control over Gotland and surrounding maritime routes.
In one striking case, a skeleton was exhumed lacking a skull—a grim echo of earlier disturbances, potentially due to earlier anthropological collections or even conflict. In a twist, evidence of a medieval steel gauntlet earlier found on Sandön hints at military or armed presence.
These layers of human presence—seasonal hunting, maritime traffic, burial rituals, medieval mooring—suggest that Gotska Sandön was not always the lonely, windswept refuge it is often portrayed to be. Instead, it was a crossroads, a waypoint, perhaps a small engine of trade or exchange in the Baltic web.
The Fourth Point: The Broader Meaning Of This Discovery
The discovery is not just about isolated artifacts—it challenges our assumptions of the extent, direction, and nature of contact, trade, and mobility in the Baltic region.
Consider this:
- Roman material far north — The find of silver Roman coins so far from the empire’s core territories invites fresh thinking. It may reflect long-distance trade, gift exchange, or merchant networks extending beyond traditionally mapped Roman influence.
- Maritime connectivity — The ability to sail to this remote island and provision, process resources, and then depart implies sea routes and coastal knowledge more active than previously assumed.
- Economic specialization — The seal blubber processing suggests niche, high-value products (oil, fat, perhaps for illumination or trading) played a role in sustaining maritime economies, even in peripheral zones.
- A layered palimpsest — Rather than a “single-use” seasonal camp, Gotska Sandön’s archaeology hints at continuity and reinvention over centuries, as human priorities and regional dynamics shifted.
- Rewriting the Baltic narrative — The Baltic Sea has often been cast as a periphery to grander agendas in Roman, Germanic, or Slavic histories. But here is evidence that people in the Baltic zone had agency, trade reach, and maritime knowledge in antiquity that deserves recalibration of our regional narratives.
In short: the discovery forces us to see the Baltic not as a backwater of “civilization” but as a more active participant in ancient networks—sometimes trading, sometimes hunting, sometimes controlling, always adapting.
An Imagined Day Two Millennia Ago
Imagine you are a hunter or trader on Gotland around AD 150. You load your small boat with sealing gear or saltware ceramics. The Baltic’s fickle conditions press you to seek sheltered shores.
You sight the dunes of Sandön on the horizon. You beach your craft, begin to dig a shallow pit for a hearth, and set a fire. You splash sea water on lips of a cauldron filled with seal fat. Smoke curls into the salty wind as you render oil, your companions laying out rods and making small repairs.
Over the next weeks, perhaps others arrive from neighboring islands or distant coasts—some to trade goods, others to rest. Coins pass hands in quiet trade. Then, when the season tells you, you re-embark, leaving only blackened hearths behind.
This ephemeral scene, once lost to time, is being scratched back into sight by patient hands and burning embers.
What Comes Next — And Why It Matters
Excavation is ongoing. The research teams plan further digs along the shoreline, inland, and at Säludden, hoping to recover ceramics, structural remains, more hearths, even personal items that can speak of origin, movement, and belief.
Isotope and DNA analyses may help determine whether people who passed through were local islanders or travelers from farther afield.
Already, Sten and colleagues are applying modern osteological techniques, carbon dating, and stable isotope analysis to build identities of those buried on the island, and to compare diets and movement.
If further evidence supports the notion of a semi-regular port along this shore, it will resonate well beyond a single island. It may push historians to reconsider:
- the northward reach of Roman-era trade and goods
- the agency of peripheral communities in shaping maritime routes
- and the role of small-scale resource economies (such as sealing, blubber oil) in driving connectivity rather than being passive by-products
It may also spark new archaeological interest along other Baltic islets, prompting fresh surveys and excavations.
A Hopeful Horizon
At its heart, this discovery is a quiet but powerful reminder: even in places we thought empty or marginal, human lives once thrived, travelled, laboured, and left traces. In those hearths, flickers of smoke once warmed faces.
In those coins, stories once crossed seas. The past is not always in grand cities or temples—it can hide in sand and salt, waiting for patient eyes to see.
Gotska Sandön reminds us that landscapes we consider desolate may still hold stories that shift our understanding of what was possible. May this Iron Age port light new paths for connecting the Baltic to the ancient world—and may those paths lead us to more wonder.
Sources:
Heritage Daily
Uppsala University
Södertörn University
