Randlev

The archaeological sites Randlev and Hesselbjerg are two closely related excavations done throughout the 20th century near the village of Randlev in the Odder Municipality of Denmark, three kilometers southeast of the town of Odder. Randlev is known primarily for its Romanesque church constructed sometime around 1100 A.D. Hesselbjerg is the large Viking-Age cemetery discovered on the Hesselbjerg family farm, and the site Randlev is the nearby settlement from the same period. Although both Randlev and Hesselbjerg were contemporaneous and encompass a similar area, Hesselbjerg is more specifically the 104 graves discovered prior to the later excavation at the site Randlev, which pertains to the Viking Age settlement. The settlement consisted of a farm complex that was likely active during the ninth and tenth centuries; finds from the site such as silver hoards and elaborate jewelry indicate that the farm was likely prosperous, a conjecture supported by the extremely fertile land surrounding the area. Artifacts were found in the vicinity of the Hesselbjerg and Randlev sites as early as 1932 when a local farmer discovered a silver hoard, but serious excavations were not conducted until 1963. These excavations ended in 1970; Moesgård Museum later returned to the site in 1997 and continued analysis until 2010.

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