Quarrying in Western Norway: An Archaeological Study of Production and Distribution in the Viking Period and Middle Ages

Irene Baug studies the large-scale exploitation of stone in western Norway from roughly AD 800 to 1500 through two major quarry landscapes: the quernstone and millstone workings at Hyllestad and the bakestone quarries of Ølve and Hatlestrand. Archaeological investigation of production areas is combined with the distribution of finished products across urban and rural northern Europe.

The book follows stone from extraction through manufacture, exchange and use, asking who organised quarrying, who controlled access to resources and how production fitted within changing systems of landownership and trade. Stone crosses add a symbolic dimension to the predominantly utilitarian assemblage. Spanning the Viking Age and later Middle Ages, the study connects industrial archaeology with economic history and shows how apparently ordinary stone artefacts can map extensive networks of production and exchange.