Discovering Viking Archaeology in Sherwood Forest

Archaeologists have spent the week of 17 - 22 January 2011 investigating the area of Thynghowe in Sherwood Forest. Nottinghamshire County Council archaeologists have been using GPS and Total Station surveying techniques. Archaeologists from University College London Assembly Sites Project were using magnetometry equipment to investigate the site. A 'Thyng' (things, dings, tings etc) is a Viking assembly or meeting place, where they met to resolve disputes and make the law. A 'howe' could indicate a prehistoric burial mound. This site demonstrates the possibility of many sites that may lie undiscovered in our historic and ancient forests and woodlands. Thynghowe lay beneath forestry plantation until rediscovered by myself and wife five years ago. It is not much to look at but its past reflects hundreds, if not thousands of years, of use for public assembly by the people of the 'shire' - there is evidence to suggest that 'Sherwood' comes from the original word 'Shirewood' and would have reflected the presence of an Anglo Saxon shire moot. This would have predated the Viking Thynghowe site. These assembly sites had to provide good acoustics for the open air meeting and also enough grazing pasture for horses and water for the many hundreds of people who would have attend a shire moot.