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Archaeologists have discovered a huge Viking Age textile production site in\u00a0Denmark\u00a0that dates back more than 1,000 years and underlines the\u00a0sophistication of Viking society.<\/p>\n
Experts from the Moesgaard Museum said this week that the sprawling 100,000-square-meter (more than 1 million-square-foot) site features an area for processing flax as well as more than 80 pit houses \u2014 semi-buried huts that were used as workshops and dwellings in Viking times.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s located in S\u00f8ften, 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of Denmark\u2019s second-largest city, Aarhus, on the Jutland peninsula. The site dates back to the late Iron Age and early Viking Age, sometime between A.D. 600 and 950.<\/p>\n
Archaeologist Liv Stidsing Reher-Langberg, who led the 10-month dig, said that \u201cwe have a clear focus on textile production, which makes this settlement different from other kinds of settlements of this period.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have spindle whorls, we have weight looms; that tells us about what has been going on in the pit houses,\u201d said Reher-Langberg, adding that archaeologists had also discovered silver coins, glass beads and pottery.<\/p>\n
Experts found separate areas for production and crafts, plus a single residential home, which suggests work was overseen by a powerful individual with control over resources and production.<\/p>\n
Reher-Langberg said that, over the last three decades, people with metal detectors had unearthed several silver coins in the area. A trial excavation 1\u00bd years ago, before the start of construction work on a new road and industrial area, then piqued archaeologists\u2019 interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could see in the trenches that it just keeps on going, with these houses and pit houses and textile production features,\u201d Reher-Langberg said.<\/p>\n
Moesgaard Museum historian Kasper Andersen said that the discovery at S\u00f8ften is \u201canother piece in the puzzle\u201d to understanding the local economic, cultural and political structure at the time.<\/p>\n
During the Viking era, Aarhus \u2014 then known as Aros \u2014 functioned as a center for royalty and international trade. And last year, archaeologists discovered another Viking site in Lisbjerg, just 4 kilometers (2\u00bd miles) away, that was likely home to members of the nobility.<\/p>\n
Goods and resources were likely brought from the countryside and settlements like S\u00f8ften, before entering an extensive international trade network, Andersen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have a production site of this scale, it cannot be only because of the local area. It needs to be understood as part of a greater network, a much bigger international perspective,\u201d Andersen said.<\/p>\n
Reher-Langberg hopes future carbon dating and pollen analysis might answer some lingering questions, for instance about what kind of textile production went on at the site.<\/p>\n
During the Viking Age, considered to run from A.D. 793 to 1066, Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raids, colonization, conquest and trade throughout Europe, even reaching North America.<\/p>\n
Andersen said that the discovery at S\u00f8ften shows that Vikings were \u201cnot just simple, uncivilized, barbaric hordes, rambling about Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo have a place like S\u00f8ften, you need a very well-organized society with a production line, and you also need a market to have the production,\u201d he said. \u201cThe textiles from S\u00f8ften go into a market that\u2019s much bigger than just the local area.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#1000yearold #massive #textile #factory #unearthed #Denmarkand #belonged #Vikings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Archaeologists have discovered a huge Viking Age textile production site in\u00a0Denmark\u00a0that dates back more than 1,000 years and underlines the\u00a0sophistication of Viking society. Experts from the Moesgaard Museum said this… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11070,11074,11073,5582,2142,2700,3647,11071,11069,11072,11075],"class_list":["post-9006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-1000yearold","tag-belonged","tag-denmarkand","tag-factory","tag-history","tag-massive","tag-science","tag-textile","tag-textiles","tag-unearthed","tag-vikings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}