Long before their Viking successors wielded naval prowess to conquer distant lands, boats were at the heart of life in Scandinavia. Tens of thousands of depictions of prehistoric ships have been discovered adorning rocks across the region now encompassing Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Despite this, little evidence remains of how or where people actually built these vessels. Now, new research by Mikael Fauvelle, an anthropological archaeologist at Lund University in Sweden, suggests the historical remains of this mighty maritime construction industry have already been discovered—scientists were just looking at them wrong.

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