Comment by vidarh
12 hours ago
Yes and no, as the article says:
> "The Viking Age ends in the 11th century, and we're talking about boats from 800 years later," he said. "But the construction techniques and the way they are rigged and their general performance characteristics are similar enough. Because this is a project about voyages and not a project about boat building, it seemed like a defensible analogy."
His guess - whether right or not - is that this ship-structure is similar enough that it serves as a possible way to identify possible Viking era landing places.
Boat designs change very slowly, so I would bet on his guess. Most changes would be in improvements in smaller technologies, e.g. improved nails, than in major hull shape changes. As I understand it, Vikings did use barge-like boats, but they mostly used the longboat form, and the major change to long boats is to make them longer to carry more, which doesn't change the draft that much.
To my mind, the greater change would have been to sea levels from the 11th century to now, which would alter landing spots more than the boat design.