Excavations began at Tønnesminde when the Danish National Museum investigated a 500 m² area northwest of the farm in preparation for sewage pipeline construction in 1999.

The survey has increased the number of metal artifacts from the island, changed the conception of Samsø's settlement history, particularly in regards to the Iron Age, and renewed interest in Tønnesminde.

[2] After the rediscovery of the site by the metal detector campaign, excavations resumed at Tønnesminde in 2014 as a joint investigation between Moesgaard Museum and Harvard Summer School Viking Studies Program.

Finds included animal bones, charcoal, pottery, beads, flint debris, an arrowhead, and items typical of Viking Age pit houses, which includes but is not limited to loom weights, spindle whorls, fragments of soap stone vessel, pottery shards, and glass beads.

Additional finds included other usual Viking Age items, ceramic fragments, flint debris and scrapers, and animal bones.

[5] Finds included bone fragments, ceramics, flint flakes and scrapers, charcoal and grain (collected from flotation samples).

[1] The 2014 and 2015 excavations also found flint flakes, including an arrow head, which again indicates settlement during the late Mesolithic or Early Neolithic period.

[3][4] The 2016 excavation additionally discovered flint scrapers and flakes, as well as ceramic fragments, the patterns of which suggest they were created by the Funnel Beaker Culture.

[1] The 2014 investigation of a three aisle long house revealed pottery shards likely from the Pre-Roman Iron Age in one of its roof-bearing posts, as well as in several pits.

[3] The 2015 excavation examined a feature, interpreted as a cooking pit, which contained a significant amount of ceramics dated to the Pre-Roman Iron Age.

[8] Given Samsø's central location, the canal would have enabled a fleet to control ship traffic through Danish waters and better levy taxes.

Around the time of the construction of the Kanhave Canal, Scandinavia focused increasingly on trade, cultural contacts, and warfare with neighboring areas; these changes affected craft production as craftsmen and their creations became more important.

[7] Supplementing the Norwegian soapstone vessel find, the 2017 excavation revealed an almost perfectly round slate dish in the pit house C-14, .