The team, from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, found a 65-foot-long Viking ship near Viksletta, Østfold County, in the southeastern part of the country. Scans by ground-penetrating radar, or georadar, revealed the presence of the ship, the keel and floor timbers of which are intact. The ship is less than two feet below the surface.

The scans also found the remains of five longhouses and several burial mounds nearby. The presence of the mounds and, especially, the boat pointed to the area's being a gathering place for many people who would have allied themselves with a king or strong leader. All are near the previously excavated Jelle Mound, which dates to the 2nd Century B.C. and, local history says, was built for a king named Jelle.

The team mounted the motorized high-resolution ground-penetrating scanning equipment on a vehicle. The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology developed the technology.

Although the practice of burying a Viking ship is not unknown, it is only the fourth such buried Viking ship found in Norway, the archaeologists said.

The first such Viking boat found in the United Kingdom was in western Scotland, near Ardnamurchan, in 2011. Perhaps the most famous buried ship found in the U.K. is at the Saxon Sutton Hoo burial site.