The Danish Museum Act is important for anyone who is going to carry out excavation or construction work in Denmark. The ground beneath our feet often hides irreplaceable ancient monuments that give us valuable insight into life in Denmark over 15,000 years.
Your local archaeological museum in Skive municipality is Museum Salling (tel. 9915 7190 // email: arkaeologi@museumsalling.dk)
INFORMATION ON THE WEB
To make it easier to plan earthworks in Denmark, you can find information about known ancient monuments and the Museum Act on the website of the Danish Cultural Heritage Agency.
WHAT ARE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REMAINS?
Ancient monuments can be visible in the form of burial mounds, castles and churches, but they can also be hidden in the form of grave finds, house plots, cellars or waste pits – or appear as traces of many other activities.
If you find collections of stones, dark traces in the subsoil or similar during excavation work, it may be a sign that the ground contains archaeological remains. Ancient monuments are not immediately visible.
If you are unsure whether there are ancient monuments in a specific area, you can contact the local museum before buying land, building and construction work or similar.
The Danish Museum Act protects cultural heritage, and it is not legal to remove or destroy significant cultural heritage in Denmark without a prior survey or registration carried out by professionals.
Whether a monument is significant and thus worthy of preservation or registration is decided by the local museum in collaboration with the Cultural Heritage Agency.
BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITIES
The municipality must involve the local museum responsible for archaeology as early as the consultation phase in connection with municipal plans, local plans, etc. The museum can carry out an archival check to ensure that the presence of ancient monuments is taken into account in further planning. At the latest in connection with the issuance of a building permit, the municipality must notify the museum of the permit and inform the developer of the provisions of the Danish Museum Act.
When buying larger areas, it is a good idea to contact the local museum for information about any ancient monuments on the site. Before a sale, the seller can also ask the museum to carry out an archaeological survey of the area to identify any hidden ancient monuments.
Museums with archaeological responsibilities review planning documents, permits and notifications, answer inquiries, negotiate with municipalities and developers, and carry out the necessary archaeological investigations.
Similarly, prior to construction, the developer can ask the local archaeological museum for an opinion on possible ancient monuments on the site. The museum’s opinion will initially be based on archival control and will include an assessment of the risk of destruction of significant ancient monuments. From the time the museum receives such a request, the museum has four weeks to prepare a response; for major preliminary investigations, however, six weeks. If it is deemed that the archival control does not in itself provide the museum with a reasonable basis for making an assessment, the museum will submit the case to the Danish Agency for Cultural Heritage, which, based on the museum’s recommendation and budget, will assess the need for an archaeological preliminary investigation (test excavation).
For smaller preliminary surveys where the total area is less than 5000 m2, the museum pays the costs of the archival control and preliminary survey. For larger preliminary surveys and preliminary surveys in medieval town centers, the costs are borne by the developer. An archaeological preliminary survey is voluntary, and the initiation of such a survey is therefore subject to the consent of the person responsible for the site.
The purpose of the preliminary survey is to create an overview of any ancient monuments of significant interest on the site. The museum’s opinion should be seen as an offer that gives the client the opportunity to organize their construction work so that costs for major archaeological excavations are avoided or reduced and the risk of delaying the construction is minimized.
If traces of ancient monuments are found during construction work, e.g. stone collections or dark traces in the subsoil, the part of the work that affects the ancient monument must be stopped immediately and the local archaeological museum responsible must be contacted. On the recommendation of the local museum, the Danish Agency for Cultural Heritage will assess whether an archaeological survey is required or whether construction can continue. The cost of this investigation is borne by the developer. However, the costs are paid by the Danish Agency for Cultural Heritage if the local museum has stated in a statement commissioned prior to the project that there were no ancient monuments of significant interest on the site.
In special cases, the Danish Agency for Cultural Heritage may grant subsidies for private expenses for major preliminary surveys and archaeological excavations.
Additional costs in connection with construction delays that the archaeological investigations may cause the developer are not covered by the provisions of the Museums Act.
AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
Compared to the previous legislation, the new Museum Act does not contain major changes for agriculture and forestry.
If you come across ancient monuments during earthworks in agriculture or forestry, you must contact the local museum responsible for archaeology. If the ancient monuments are discovered in connection with the landowner’s normal and unchanged operations, the financing of the subsequent archaeological excavation is not the responsibility of the landowner.
When you receive a grant for planting, you will also be informed about how to deal with the cultural-historical remains in the area. The preliminary survey does not have to be paid for by the forester.
For building and construction work – e.g. building stables etc. – the general rules for building and construction work apply. The cost of a preliminary survey is thus the responsibility of the developer if the affected area is over 5000 m2. Likewise, the landowner (or developer) is responsible for financing any subsequent excavation.
In agriculture and forestry, it is possible to obtain compensation for crop losses caused by the archaeological excavation, provided that the operation remains unchanged and continues. In case of a change in soil treatment, e.g. from normal plowing to deep plowing (which has a significant destructive effect on cultural remains), you can contact the local museum free of charge and request an opinion and a possible preliminary survey of the area.
The Danish Agency for Cultural Heritage has the central responsibility and prepares guidelines for all archaeological activities in Denmark. The overall prioritization of the individual survey tasks, including the financial framework, approval procedures, supervision of the surveys and financial management, is carried out by the Danish Agency for Cultural Heritage.
EXTRACTION OF RAW MATERIALS
It is recommended to carry out a preliminary survey as it reduces the risk of finding previously unknown ancient monuments during extraction. The preliminary survey is voluntary. The preliminary survey and any excavation are paid for by the raw material extractor.
If no preliminary survey has been carried out and archaeological remains are discovered during extraction, you must contact the local museum responsible for archaeology. This may lead to a temporary suspension of extraction. Any resulting losses are at the expense of the extractor.
The preliminary survey should be regarded as an insurance policy; if a voluntary preliminary survey has declared an area “archaeological monument-free” and new archaeological remains are discovered during extraction, the subsequent archaeological excavation will be free of charge for the extractor.
In connection with the Act, a subsidy scheme has been established to cover the extractor’s expenses for major preliminary surveys and actual excavations. The scheme is administered by the Danish Cultural Heritage Agency.
ANCIENT MONUMENTS IN CITIES
Medieval towns are often located in the core of modern cities. Here you will usually find thick cultural layers, i.e. layers with traces of human activity. The cultural layers consist of a mixture of rubbish and building remains. With the help of this material, it is largely possible to uncover daily life and changes in the cities over 1000 years. The discoveries that emerge provide different types of information than those known from contemporary written sources and are therefore an important supplement to a nuanced picture of urban history.
The medieval cultural layers are not protected in Denmark, as is the case in several of our neighboring countries, but they are nevertheless considered to be cultural assets of national importance worthy of preservation. During building and construction work, which is often very extensive, the cultural layers are destroyed, as the foundations of new buildings are often excavated to remove all the cultural layers. Therefore, prior to construction work, a documentation of the layers and building remains that will be destroyed as a result of the earthworks must be carried out.
The local archaeological museum responsible for archaeology will determine whether there are cultural layers on site. If the museum finds that there are cultural layers, the museum will recommend the case to the Cultural Heritage Agency, which will decide whether an archaeological excavation is necessary.
One of the aims of the new museum law is to avoid unnecessarily costly excavations and, in collaboration with the developer, to find alternative building constructions that only affect a small part of the oldest cultural layers. This makes it possible to preserve the history of the site to a certain extent, while at the same time not halting urban development in the central part of our oldest cities.
The information that can be retrieved from the cultural layers beneath the city center comes from monasteries, cemeteries, marketplaces, dwellings, roads, sewage systems and heaps of garbage, which often contain very well-preserved oraganic materials such as leather, wood, bone waste and foodstuffs.
