Archaeologists have uncovered the southern quarter of Nya Lödöse, a Late Medieval town buried beneath Gothenburg’s Gamlestaden industrial area. Excavations exposed an earthen rampart, moat, a stone-paved southern gate with timber foundations, a north–south main street to the Säveån River, house foundations and organized agricultural plots. Finds—ceramics, bones, coins, glass and tools—illustrate daily life in a settlement described by a 2017 study as impoverished. Nya Lödöse was largely abandoned by 1624 after Gothenburg was founded nearby and was later covered by 19th-century industry until recent digs revealed it again.
Archaeologists Unearth a Buried Medieval City beneath Gothenburg: The Lost Nya Lödöse
Archaeologists have uncovered the southern quarter of Nya Lödöse, a Late Medieval town buried beneath Gothenburg’s Gamlestaden industrial area. Excavations exposed an earthen rampart, moat, a stone-paved southern gate with timber foundations, a north–south main street to the Säveån River, house foundations and organized agricultural plots. Finds—ceramics, bones, coins, glass and tools—illustrate daily life in a settlement described by a 2017 study as impoverished. Nya Lödöse was largely abandoned by 1624 after Gothenburg was founded nearby and was later covered by 19th-century industry until recent digs revealed it again.
09:40 PM, 11/17/2025Culture
Medieval streets and defenses uncovered under modern industry
Under Gothenburg’s Gamlestaden industrial district, archaeologists have exposed the long-hidden remains of Nya Lödöse, a Late Medieval town that formed in the late 1400s and was abandoned in the early 17th century. Excavations led by Arkeologerna and the State Historical Museums revealed a well-preserved southern sector of the town, including an earthen rampart, a defensive moat, a stone-paved southern gate and the timber foundations that mark its footprint.
Streets, houses and farmland
Diggers uncovered a north–south main street aligned toward the Säveån River, with house foundations lining the thoroughfare. Inside the ramparts archaeologists found organized agricultural plots and evidence that the southern quarter was less densely settled than the northern section. A small building near the gate may have functioned as a tollhouse controlling access to the town.
Everyday life preserved in finds
Archaeologists recovered ceramics, animal bones, coins, glass fragments, wooden objects and tools that illuminate daily life in Nya Lödöse. A 2017 paper in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology characterized the settlement as marked by hardship and poverty, a picture reinforced by the modest material culture uncovered on site.
A turbulent history
Historical records and the archaeological sequence suggest the site was used agriculturally from the late 1400s, with defensive features likely added around 1530. The town appears to have been briefly abandoned in 1547 when residents moved to the newly established Älvsborg, only to return decades later and rebuild fortifications. After Gothenburg was founded in 1621 at a slightly more strategic location, most residents relocated; by 1624 the migration was well underway and within a few years Nya Lödöse was fully deserted.
Forgotten and then buried
Following abandonment the rampart and moat were gradually infilled and the land returned to farming. Industrial expansion in the 1870s placed factories over the site, burying Nya Lödöse beneath later development until recent excavations brought its streets and defenses back to light.
“These finds reconnect Gothenburg to an earlier urban layer—showing a compact medieval town beneath the modern city,” said museum officials involved in the dig.
Today Gothenburg is one of Sweden’s largest cities with a metropolitan population exceeding one million. The discovery of Nya Lödöse reveals an older chapter in the city’s history and provides a rare, tangible glimpse into everyday life and urban development on the Swedish west coast in the Late Middle Ages.