When I was in college, the archaeology club had t-shirts printed "Coprolitic analysis: it's a shitty job but someone has to do it" ... The Dean was not amused, but the professors loved them, and so did our fellow students when they asked what the shirts meant and we told them. You can learn so much from a person's poo.
I was just thinking about that person, whoever they were, and will probably make a silent toast to them on the next "remember your ancestors" day... I mean, imagine being remembered more than 1,000 years after your death, by probably your most uncomfortable and embarrassing moments (and thinking at the time: 'at least no one will ever know'). For their sake, I will remember them as a skilled craftsman who knew how to tell a good joke.
Reminds me of my favorite way to troll my students. I have them pass around some cut and polished dinosaur coprolites and ask them what type of fossil they think they are. Then I show them a full one. Some brave soul eventually says it looks like poop. My excuse is it drives home the process of mineralization transforming what was once there.
Dude yes! I was in lanse aux meadows at the reconstruction one and it was about 10c rainy and windy outside but inside was like the perfect temp, dry and quiet. It was wonderful
Turf houses were built by the first Ukrainians in the Canadian prairies in the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th. I have visited them at the living museum near Edmonton. There was a hole dug and the turfs were kept to make the roof. They were remarkably cozy. I wonder if the long viking hearth was used for heat retention. All those stones when they got hot would continue to radiate heat for hours.
Ah, yes, like a forerunner of a Russian stove. Many vikings settled in the Kiev region of Ukraine because it was on their trade route to Constantinople.
I've been to Dublinia. The amazing thing is that it's completely underground. I was told by a tour guide that it was a trade off for allowing the ugliest building in Dublin to be build, since that was planned and during the excavation for the foundation they found such a wealth of archeological finds about Viking-age Dublin. The Viking Longhouse floorplan is mirrored in the Saxon farms that are still in existance in the Netherlands - long structures where the roof is supported by beams, and the walls used to be wattle-and-daub or planks but in medieval times it switched to timberframe with bricks. Some of the Saxon farmbuildings have the original beams and have been dated to the 13th century. These farms can be mostly found in the province of Drenthe. The front room was living space around an open hearth build against the brick wall that seperated the living area from the stable area. What many people don't realise is that the walls don't hold up the structure - they're just to keep the weather out. They're basically post-and-beam constructions.
Yeah, the roof rested on posts, not the walls (load-bearing walls only started to appear after the posts had been moved into the walls, and _that_ only happened relatively late in the medieval period, at least in a Norse context).
I haven't been to Dublinia yet - as an artist I'm too distracted by the National Gallery. Lol I remember walking around the Viking streets with my youngest and marvelling at the mapping out of the buildings in the cobbles. They're much bigger than I expected after being used to seeing Irish longhouses from recent centuries in rural areas.
I was under the impression from the architecture books I've read that post-and-beam is the proper name for modern stick frame construction and that timber frame and post-and-beam were not the same thing.
I remain astounded how much stuff remains, but also at the boundary setting that persisted through the centuries. Someone lays out the property boundaries, builds a house and living space, and gets on with life. Over time, people continue to build new buildings on top of what was there, but still "color within the lines" architecturally. "Yeah, this is an adequate amount of space to live and craft in. No need to adjust. Thanks people who came before me for setting the template!" Maybe people wanted to change it up, so they purchased the lots around them and expanded, but still kept to the predefined boundaries. People are fascinating.
Agreed! That is something I especially enjoy about the Time Team episodes too, how Stewart Ainsworth is able to deduce former abbey boundaries from where the oldest roads run, or how the names of fields in continuous use since pre-Roman times may reflect a religious pilgrimage route, or how the former presence of a mill or fishpond can be deduced from the lay of the land & where the streams run? It's very Sherlockian & so fascinating to watch!
I’m learning more and more about the study of landscape archaeology and how those markers of field and farm/tenement boundaries persist. I had no idea that they found such things in cities such as York and Dublin. I do have a question. There was much Roman trade in the Iron Age. We visited Caernavon and the legionnaire quarters and there were what seems like the same toilets arrangements as what you’re drawings showed in the Your Viking tenements. How much technology was traded to Germanic tribes in the Roman civitas trading hubs on the northern Danube that made it into Viking homes eventually?
@@anna_in_aotearoa3166 I agree completely. I live in the U.S., and I haven't seen any of the new 'Team's' episodes yet, but I love watching the Time Team's older episodes, with Tony, Phil, Mick, and the others. From Time Team, I've learned quite a bit about the processes and everything, that are involved in archaeology/anthropology digs and discoveries. I love learning about the rich history behind the artifacts/ruins that they find. It's all quite amazing, the things they've discovered. Their findings are an absolute treasure. 🙂🌱
@@Greye13 Last weekend the latest episode was released in 3 parts on RUclips, Anglo-Saxon Cemetery is the title. They set out to preserve a cemetery in danger of disappearing due to agriculture and they find.... something completely different - mostly thanks to Stewart's walking! Other than the ones that passed away, the only ones missing were Phil and Tony. Even Pottery Paul was back! And they had a Mick Aston doll on the table in the tent... This was by far the best of the newer episodes, although i found them all interesting - this one definately had that old Time Team vibe.
Here in Kansas, many of the settlers started with "dugout" houses, partially (usually three sides) cut into the side of a hill and then turfed over with a sod roof. They are a very practical sort of house where there is a lack of large structural timber. The low profile is also wonderful in a land plagued by tornadoes. Unfortunately, most family groups replaced the 'soddies' with a frame built house as soon as financially possible. On my grandparent's farm, the original dugout was still there, converted to livestock housing, but it was still so nice to go in and cool off in the summer.
This is fascinating! Were the settlers copying the indigenous people? I'm sure many of them were using tipis, but I'm wondering if they left stockpiles in these sorts of structures
@@sarahwatts7152 The Native American tribes in this area were semi-nomadic, but their winter villages often were earth dome extended family houses. The settlers tended to more rectangle shaped houses and lived in them year round. Same materials, but different architecture.
@@pufthemajicdragon Compared to the mountains, yes. and I see the little emoji 😃 But you really only need about six feet of elevation, which you can find along streams even in the western part of the state, where it really IS flat.
@@sarahwatts7152 Most of the Native tribes in the area now known as Kansas, were semi nomadic. They used Earth lodges for winter wherever they had wind protection such as an area of woods. Of course, the land used for corporate farming at present so there's no way to see what they land looked like pre-colonization. The different tribes followed the Buffalo herds seasonally so I the summer they used semi permanent lodges that basically provided shelter from rain and sun but allowed air to freely circulate. They were mostly hunter gatherers.
In Schleswig-Holstein they also found a Viking age settlement last year. It's from the 9th to 10th century and consists of at least 8 pit houses. And this year they found an entire settlement from the late Roman imperial period and the migration period (3rd to 5th century). This one has 7 long houses, which is exciting, because until now they only knew pit houses from the migration period in this region. They also found gravesites. Schleswig-Holstein is digging up a lot of stuff at the moment. Honestly, I cannot even keep track of where everything is. Lots from the Roman age and migration period. In Lübeck they even dug up settlements from the stone age, iron age and Roman imperial age all stacked on top of each other. So, in terms of what the old Germans did, there is a lot going on up there to keep your eyes peeled for.
For anyone who hasn't been to Jorvik Viking Centre, it's really good, especially for kids. You get to see the original archaeological dig, then ride on a little ghost train thing around a reconstruction of what it might have been like, complete with the sounds and smells (yes really). When you get off there's a museum full of stuff they found there. It's really well presented and the staff are really knowledgeable and enthusiastic. If you were a British child during the 80's or 90's, there's a good chance you went on a school trip there, or at least saw it on Blue Peter.
I visited it in the 80s when it's presentation style was pioneering and awardwinning. No train rides then. We walked round, which meant that there were spots of congestion. I suppose that's why they introduced the transport - also keeping excited children off the exhibits.
When you were describing dirt houses, they sound exactly like a Devon cobb longhouse. Made entirely of mud and horse hair. They have rounded corners to the houses and this makes for a very soft appearance to the house but makes it difficult for furniture placement. These days they are often painted, and for,preference with lime wash as it allows the house to breathe where as you sometimes get sweaty interior walls if the outside is painted in a waterproof paint. If limewash is applied the whole house will be dry inside and out. The chimney is often stuck on the outside of the house. One for each room often. They look like round bumps on the outside of the house. Called longhouses as they are often one room front to back with a back connecting corridor. There are indeed second floors and a thatched roof though many are now tiled. Have lived in a couple in my life time. They are indeed very cozy with the walls being 3 to 4 foot think warm in winter and cool in summer. . Not wonderful for mobile reception, and you often have to stand in the window for any reception at all. Originally the had mud floors but now have all sorts, wood, tiles, carpets. . The one thing you learn very quickly is if there is anything like wall paper or tile stuck on the inside wall, never under any circumstances try to take them off just add to them tiling over or papering over. If you try to take a tile off you will often make huge holes in the interior walls , sometimes all the way through to the exterior. As I found out to my horror when I didn’t like the tiles over the bathroom sink and decided to remove them . A massive hole appeared all the way to the,outside and once the builder arrived , he tutted and said no never do that. The rooms just get smaller and walls thicker in cobb houses. 😀 Basically if you want to live in a Viking house , try a Devon cobb longhouse 😀
Architecture is always interesting to me because you can get such a good understanding of how daily life might have been by having a look at how they're built, where the cooking fire was settled, the materials, etc. Super hype about this vid!
Sometimes provides some intrresting clues or confirmations of their metaphysical beliefs too, in terms of aligning entrances with certain cardinal directions/the sunrise, burying apotropaic fetishes under thresholds, indications of veneration of the communal hearth etc...? I'm a big fan of material archaeology as a way of learning more about the past, not relying solely on written records, which can be scant, missing or severely biased? Any items found generally still require a fair degree of interpretation, but their orientation in the landscape & proximity to certain centres of activity etc can really tell one so much!
“Vernacular architecture” is what you’re talking about. It’s such a fascinating rabbit hole to go down, and it makes you realize how un-suited our modern western style houses are to most of the environments we build them in.
I like to see how small the doors were in ancient buildings, as it hints at the size of our ancestors; unless they were built small to keep the heat in.
@@euansmith3699 That's something I noted on visiting the oldest house in Scotland (Traquair) as its front door, which you would expect to be grand in the home of a Stuart family, was about the height of mine (made in 1975). It only made sense after seeing upstairs. The people had to have been much shorter to have got through doorways with hats or bonnets on.
In my Alternate-Universe daydreams (if I had the opportunity to take a different path at a different fork in the proverbial road), my dream home would be pit house: protected from hurricanes, a constant temperature of ~13 C/55 F year-round, before adding any additional heating, And as a wheelchair user, I could have a spiral ramp going around the outside walls, that could be a lot of fun. ...Also, I could play a TARDIS-like trick on folks ;-)
Textile tools and equipment are highly portable. Even a full sized vertical loom is pretty easily moved about, even when dressed. Yes, it would probably take two or three people to lug it out into a yard or light exterior sheltered space. The basic activities of fibre prep, combing, spinning and even the use of a vertical loom could have been accomplished either outside or near a door because decent lighting is really important. However, it’s only natural to always find the items in the remains in an interior location, because that’s where it was probably stored when not in use. As a spinner, I much prefer to work with the best lighting I can get, but when I’m not working, everything is tucked away. My loom is by a window. Of course in the winter months, I work indoors, but decent lighting is always a premium part of textile work, because you really need to see what you’re doing.
My brother and I were talking about how Viking characters are often dressed as modern bikers in movies. He said that he wanted to open a shop called the Biking Viking.
14:10 I got a bit of a shiver when you talked about the crafting materials left behind. Just makes the people come alive as real individuals. There was a real person who could have said, "Yeah, one of my neighbors carves amber and the lady two doors down does plant dyeing." I just love those personal details that remain in the archaeology.
Hello Jimmy! In Canada turf houses were built when people were "settling" the prairie provinces. They were called soddies because they were built from the sod.
If you’re in the south of England and want to experience an Anglo-Saxon house (and all its glorious smokiness) - check out the two they built at Butser ancient farm where I volunteer. They’re built on the post holes and plan of ones excavated nearby. Lovely video as always - thanks for sharing your passion and knowledge with us!
@@jeannerogers7085 wonderful to hear that! Yes, I believe they’ve really expanded over the years. Well worth another trip if you’re ever in the area :)
a very interesting example of the evolution of our perspective towards early iron age homes are the reconstructed iron age farms in Norway Stavanger (which are totally worth checking out) part of the reconstructed houses are still from the 1980s while some of them have had a makeover. the newer houses are higher and the interior walls have been whitewashed, creating a much more humane and more livable environment compared to the much lower darker almost cave like reconstructions of the 1980s. they even experimented with some paint on the white walls and have lots of woven blankets and other decorative things hanging from the wall. thanks to this makeover the farms went from cold dark and damp holes in the ground to comfortable warm and cozy farmsteads.
As a Scandinavian, I'd suspect that any house where the owners could afford it would have had at least a half floor loft for storage if not a full second floor.
This is the sort of information that lured me into studying geography in my long past undergraduate days. My obsession with maps was a factor, sure.... Thank you for the presentation. You make the information clear and engaging.
Thank you for sharing your lovely surroundings as well as the history! I'd never thought of them having proper cities, with row houses and everything -- that's fascinating! I do wonder how they turned poop into sturdy, lasting building material. That's impressive and ingenious, honestly.
Cows, sheep, goats, and other grazing herbivores have fibrous poop. You mix it with clay, straw, and sometimes other materials like sand or dirt. The daub hardens as it dries and locks around the woven wattles that make up the bones of the wall. Often you would then give it a whitewash with a plaster mixture for water resistance. Wattle and daub construction has decent insulating properties, it can be built almost anywhere, and it's easy to repair. Once dry it really doesn't smell like anything except earth. You could make it from human poop if you really wanted to, just add some hair and some shorter grass, but most building authorities would not be pleased. Adjusting the mix ratios gives you all manner of materials like adobe or cob, so you can find people building with it in every climate all over the world.
@@SAOS451316 We were shown cob being made by an old man in Mick Aston's early series (Time Signs). He said ideally you had a bullock to tread the clay/straw mixture, and he would add his own dung to the mixture. That got around the need for wood, brick or stone, but it would only support itself and a light roof: you could not have an upper storey.
One of my favourite weird archaeology facts is that only an archaeologist will be excited about finding a Stone Age rubbish dump (a midden, in other words). You can learn a lot from a person from their rubbish, so what they valued and what they threw away, what they ate, etc. When I was a kid and didn’t clean my room, my mum would say “go clean your room, it looks like a midden!”
In the autobiographical Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, she talks about her family building a sod house on the prairie. They also lived in a dugout--a small room dug into the side of a hill--that they bought from Swedish immigrants. That was in the late 1800's after the American Civil War. It's interesting how those building techniques were never lost.
I’ve actually visited that very house (sunken in now) with the rock in the river. The paths there and the history…. Still there after her description all these years later actually brought tears to my eyes. There is such a connection in remaining artifacts when you feel connected to the people that actually lived there.
I love to learn about living conditions in different cultures. Thank you for this! Great video! It amazes me how you just cite facts from the top of your head and basically can film anywhere❤
Loved the mention of Salish long houses! On Turtle Island/ North America, some nations also had pit houses. I live on the traditional territory of the Syilx Okanagan First Nation, and their winter dwellings were pit houses (bottom dug into the ground, top is conical structure with wooden supports covered in dirt, with chimney/ wooden ladder). Great for the cold winters! (Current temps drop to around -20C, and would have been historically colder than that.)
In northwestern Germany the nowadays old farmhouses are kind of longhouses. But humans living on one end and the animals on the other. Excavations there show that similar houses have been build there for thousands of years. Not to say that they are the same as the viking longhouses, just something your video reminded me of.
Viking longhouses had one end for people and the other for livestock as well, so that’s definitely a similarity rather than a difference. And Scandinavian farmhouses remained elongated even after separate barns became the standard.
Yeah, I'm from the Netherlands and it sure sounds like our historical farm houses! Though he didn't mention anything about having the animals inside. Which definitely happened in my area.
I had the great thrill to go to Pompeii a couple weeks ago and while the dozens of visitors were all "what a lovely pillar" in the square, I was the only geek who turned around and said "what's in this little closet?" And I saw the trays and trays of finds all locked away! Wish I had been able to get a tour of that stuff! I also chatted with a lovely Irish archeologist who looked to be uncovering a bone in a trench. Thanks for all the information--this is perfect for a project I'm working on right now. Hope to make it to York one day. It's a long flight....
I’m a great giant of a woman ( I’m 183cm or 6ft, my husband is 193cm or 6’4”) and I have always wanted a hobbit house, perhaps a pit house is more my style. I would just love to build one in the woods on our property just to visit or go camp in when it’s not boiling hot.
I think turf houses and pit houses are due for a comeback; they seem like they'd be really great for natural insulation, which would be a good way of adapting to climate change. Higher temperatures are gonna require more air conditioning, which will lead to more power consumption, which leads to more carbon emissions, so why not build a house that doesn't NEED aircon? Plus, they'd look nice, who doesn't want to live in a real-life Hobbit house? Cozy af
Pit houses in particular have a fairly large number of people trying to get them to be used, except they have a few issues. Ventilation tends to be poor, they have little natural light, and they tend to be very damp. Now, all of these are issues you can address, but a house above ground it easier, cheaper, and safer. I personally have always wanted a Hobbit hole.
Thank you, I have been wondering about this! People in rural Norway could be found living in what were literally called smoke parlors ("røykstuer", with a sort of enclosed oven whose thick walls retained and radiated heat) or hearth parlors ("årestuer", with simply an open hearth) heated in this manner and vented through a hole in the roof well into the 19th century. I believe the absence of a chimney precludes an upper story as this would be entirely smoke-filled.
@@knutanderswik7562 I bet that was the origin of smoked food: hanging it up where the smoke kept insects away, and eventually realising that food that had been smoked kept longer even after it was taken down, and that the flavour could actually be rather nice.
Salish longhouses in North America were designed to use the rafters to smoke their fish supply for the winter, makes sense to have a similar idea for a similar set of natural resources!
Hi, nice video again😊 but unfortunately you showed the old reconstruction of a long house, there were NO covered or roofed pathways around the house. Archeology showed that they actually were tipping towards the roof to support the roof an walls. One of the discussions at the time for the first Trelleborg excavation were if these were vertical or not. That lead to the development of a new way to excavate post holes. Before the discussion, post holes were just emptied, and the excavating archaeologist noted if there were traces of the post. Olaf Olsen, pointed out that it’s hard to se if the posts actually were vertical or not. There for he started to cut half of the post holes away to get a “earth profile” and in these they could se that the postes actually were tipping toward the roof. You can read about it in Olaf Olsens little but very important book “om at udgrave stolpehuller” (how to excavate post holes)
Covered… pathways…? Are they not just buttressing the roof? Who thought they were for a covered pathway? What a wild interpretation to make! I do enjoy Olsen’s work. Very handy
@@TheWelshViking hi, I only mentioned the covered pathway because you used a photo of the old trelleborg house, we’re the posts running along til outer walls are interpreted as a covered walkway/pathway. Until Olsens (at that time) new excavation method it was thought that these outer posts stood vertical. There for the reconstruction you used. By the way.. are you going to the EAA in Belfast start August?
For other americans like myself.....UK town houses dont nessesity include shared party wall, unlike american town houses.....i got super excited by the idea of multifamily structures from the title but nope its just excedingly cool close packed simgle family houses..... on the other hand, having a bunch of houses with shared walls probably increaded the risk of large fires so it makes more sence this way. Really cool video though
As a young child learning to read I was fascinated with everything and would read anything I could get my hands on, whether I understood it or not. Something I remember reading about was Vikings and their longhouses …I was so young I didn’t even know anything about history….being an American child in the mid60s……but I have been very interested in Scandinavian history and how people lived long ago ever since. I enjoyed this a lot. Thanks.
They also might have been processing flax into linen. The comb would be used to clear the rough hard inner core of the flax plant. There are some very good videos out there on how that is done if you are interested
Dublinia is a very fun and affordable museum. I think I've gone 3 or 4 times and still never boring. It has life size Viking dwellings and markets to walk through, lots of hands on things for kids or adults who like to learn kinesthetically...also a life size Medieval quay to walk through. And as if that wasn't enough, it has a great view of the city from the tower and you can walk across the arch over the street to Christ Church Cathedral and see the resting place of Strongbow and the crypt museum! 10/10 recommend!
Me every time Jimmy describes pit (& turf) houses during this video: Hobbit holes, Hobbit holes, Hobbit holes.... (I wouldn't be surprised if that is actually where Tolkien got his inspiration for them, seeing as he was a historian)
I enjoyed the video, Jimmy. This is a great topic of discussion. I always love the places you choose to record your videos. They're really quite lovely. Best wishes.🌱
I am always impressed by the resourcefulness & efficienct use of resources of ancient/iron age peoples. A central indoor hearth makes perfect sense for heating as well as cooking. In the evening it would be a source of light as well. (Not sure I would want walls made from manure since I'm sure the smell was quite pungent whenever it was damp)
They have started recreating a pithouse in Eiríksstaðir, Iceland. The people behind it did a deep dive into pithouses in Iceland an believe that they were often focused on textile manufacturing and the recreation is gonna focus on that 😊
I've heard that association, the idea being that apparently the higher humidity of an earth-sheltered workspace keeps the fibers of the yarns more flexible and elastic for easier spinning and weaving.
I remember being shown the Lloyd's Bank Coprolite when we went on a school trip to York as a kid. Strangely enough, the Viking Poo was the highlight of the day for most 10-year-olds, irrespective of its archaeological significance
not born???? lol I watched that time team live...... and I was not a kid >.< If they alter the pitch of the roof, it's less smoky and smoky is good for hanging meats and sausages and cheeses. Keeps the insects down too. I love all the shoes and soft goods that get saved in York and Dublin soil. I hope you're feeling a bit better :)
Very interesting! I've lived in the northeast United States, either in New York or New England, my entire life, and one of the things that really struck me is the similarities between the structures of the Viking settlements and those of Europeans that settled in the northeastern areas of North American in the 17th century -- many centuries later. The earliest houses were built using upright posts, with horizontal clapboards fastened to the exterior as weatherproofing. All of the surviving buildings are on stone foundations, but posts holes at many archeological sites indicate that many, perhaps most, of these buildings had no foundations as such, and the vertical posts were driven directly into the ground. In early buildings the clapboards were exposed on both the interior and exterior, but in all surviving cases they were covered inside with wainscotiing of some sort or wattle-and-daub at a very early date, perhaps a year or two after construction. Plaster was also applied to the interior walls at a later date, but usually within twenty or thirty years of construction. The biggest difference was that all of these houses (except some very early huts) had proper chimneys of stone or brick, usually in the center of the house. Also, thatched roofs were almost never used as they didn't stand up to the climate. The standard was wooden shingles. I find these features to be true of both early Dutch and early English settlers, even though the structures of these buildings are otherwise quite different. It seems that these vernacular building techniques transcended time and culture. A quick aside: a full second floor in the Viking houses would have been impossible with the open central hearth, although loft-like spaces could easily have been built at either end. And a quick question: I remember reading years ago that long houses accommodated both the extended family and their livestock. (Sorry I don't have the reference handy. This was about 60 years ago.) Do you know if this was true of Norse houses or in areas that came under their influence?
More modern variants of longhouses have been built into the, I believe, 18th century in northern Germany, so it might have been the same in the Netherlands and Great Britain.
Thank you for all this wonderful information and sources for us to dig into!! Urban Vikings conjures up an even more complex society and makes good sense!! Take care Jimmy🥰
Jimmy, please explain what you mean by a 'metalled' walkway with cobbles. I have never seen a cobbled walkway dissected nor have I read about the process, but it sounds like you have and you know a secret or two about it. Could you please be so kind as to elucidate? My curiosity is gnawing me to a nub here.
As usual an enjoyable, informative and entertaining presentation History Jimmy. Editing Jimmy gets 👍🏻👍🏻 and Storyteller Jimmy gets 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻. It’s interesting how various peoples of cultures all over the globe engineered their homes to adapt to the various climates in every location in every era. Could the smoke inside some buildings be actually intentional to control insect pests? Some indigenous peoples used smoke and sometimes mud to prevent insect bites in locations where swarms of biting flying insect pests could be a health concern. Maybe you might have some thoughts on this idea? You do a great job educating and explaining the interesting things people did to survive in sometimes rather harsh climates whether it be extreme cold or heat. If these people weren’t clever and practical those cultures would have died out and left nothing behind. Have a great weekend Dr. Jimmy. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
@@m.maclellan7147 it kinda would make some sense as for a practical explanation/solution to flying biting insects. Where people keep livestock there will be biting insects and those insects aren’t particular about from which warm blooded mammal they get their blood from whether four legged or two legged and then there’s the possibility of disease being transmitted cross species too. Were Vikings aware of insect borne disease?
I find the history and material culture of everyday life soooo much more fascinating than the lives of nobles or the history of wars. Maybe that’s why I’m so into the history of clothing and normal peoples lives. Your clothing and home says so much more about you than you think, and seeing what material culture survives shows how normal, everyday people dealt with their own problems, what they thought about the society they lived in, how concerned with conformity or propriety they were, how their home life may have been. It’s just such a great way of humanizing history. I just think it’s neat
What you describe was originally called "Marxist Archaeology." It was brought to the English-speaking world from mainland Europe by V Gordon Childe, an Australian who was based in Edinburgh and London. As a communist, he was never allowed to go to speak in the United States.
As a history enthusiast, I love your videos. German here, and may I correct you: it's "Grubenhaus", plural Grubenhäuser, from Grube: pit. Umlaute are tempting;) Some ppl do have "Grübchen" though, these are dimples :D
I'd imagine that part of the point of such a large hearth (on top from all the "doing different things in different areas" that Jimmy mentioned) was simply as a sort of radiator: earth (or clay), on top of being insulating, stores a lot of heat & then releases it pretty slowly & steadily.
My husband and I were walking those York wall tops a couple months ago on a trip across the Pond to visit his mum - and I recognized your filming location immediately! And a couple years back, we were in Dublin - but Dublinia wasn’t open yet. The Jorvik Viking Centre Museum has been in my bucket list since it was first built; incredibly well done, down to “smell-a-vision” (and yes, we saw The Poo!). My only fuss about the whole trip, was the near total lack of ANYTHING with the white rose badge. For goodness sakes, you’d expect to find those all over the place for American tourists to take back home…..
I'm surprised to hear you speak of half a dozen people living in a longhouse. To me 6 people sounds like parents with children, not an extended family with grand-parents, their kids and their grand-kids.
@@TheWelshViking I never said it was inaccurate - you certainly know more than I do about the topic - just that I'm surprised. I honestly know nothing about the sizes of families at the time, and I have a hard time imagining how many people lived in an average village, small town or large city at the time. Is a typical village a dozen houses with an average of 6 people in each? Or is it like 50 houses? Just looking to learn.
Yes, I was surprised by that. I was expecting 10-15.
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I'm in AWE at how modern and well designed these houses were, and how cosy. Some houses in the Atlantic coast of Ireland are so low that are almost underground, the roof has a steady slope and after the first storm there I could see why. I've been to turf houses too, and as others said, they're incredibly cosy to live in and beautiful to look at. On a different note, I felt some anxiety for all the items I can't see because they have no room to display them... Thanks for the video and have a lovely day!
@@TheWelshViking Doesn't the use of the suffix "-gate" to name a street in English come from Old Norse? I vaguely remember reading that somewhere after idly wondering whether all these medieval English streets were so-named after gates in city walls, and being subsequently surprised to read that the etymology of the suffix had nothing to do with the English word for an opening in a wall.
This video made me really wish I could visit a living history museum that focuses on this historical time period. I live in southern New England, and our closest one portrays rural life from the 1790s to the 1830s. It's absolutely fascinating! This past October we took a tour of the village herb garden, then ended up having a wonderful hour and a half long conversation with the interpreter who gave it. I would absolutely LOVE to check out a viking age version!
Just found your channel. Very nice content. Great use of reference materials. Excellent job making history understandable. Keep up the super work. Binging your catalog as we speak.
Properly made "open fire" house isn't _that_ smokey, I'd say. The smoke kinda gets pulled out through the opening up in the roof (when it works properly). You do smell like smoke after staying in a building like this, but it's not like you can't breathe or like there's really even visible smoke. Also this is why you use dry wood. If ever in Finland get in contact with a group called Sommelo, and they might show you a few recreations of iron age (viking age) type buildings typical to Finland and surrounding areas. These are located in the capital, Helsinki. They are a group of non-profit volunteers and history enthusiasts, so if they give you a private tour, give them a small donation to help with keeping the place in shape. If you get very lucky you might get to see them building a new roof, making iron age pottery, cooking authentic dinners "viking" style etc. or participate and learn this stuff yourself. *Oi, Jimmy! If you visit Finland sometime I can set this up!* 😀 There's also a recreation of a viking long house and a "Viking center" in a place called Rosala near Turku.
I Spent many happy days livingin a pit style house not far from york at the museum of farming. cozy and a lot less cow poo required for the walls. the stone base of the firepit acts like a giant storage heater, we found it impossible to sleep on the loft in the roof due to the Smoke.
I went to the Jorvik Viking Museum last September and saw the giant poo! I'm going to Dublin in December. I plan on taking a walking tour of Viking Dublin. Definitely checking out the archeology museum because it's free.
Lovely video, made me smile several times! 😀 It was interesting to hear you mention trelleborgs, in Sweden we have a town called Trelleborg and there they built a quarter of the trelleborg that was excavated and it is open for visitors.The Valheim-picture was also nice to see! 😍
Something about that first line made it sound like you live on top of a wall.😆 Very interesting video! I love learning about daily living. Those central hearths make me wonder what it was like having toddlers around -- I don't guess they were any easier then.
Oh this was super interesting, hadn't heard about those small town houses before. The daily life of those who lived before us, to me, is always much more intriguing than war etc. I do feel like I really have to visit York one day. :)
Another great video. Completely unrelated but wondering if you know anything about the battle of Bryn Glas/Pilleth and the Glyndŵr uprising, I drove past the site a few weeks ago and looked it up knowing nothing of it. Everyone knows about William Wallace and the Scottish uprising but I'd imagine no-one knows about the Welsh one, I'd love a video in your informative style
The houses sound a bit like old time Finnish cellars: you dig a downward sliding hole. Then you line the walls with rocks, and use rocks to build steps down. Make a roof from rocks and wood, and put the ground you dug up, back on top of the roof. They look like small mound of rocks, with grass and moss growing on top.
Thank you for your lesson on Viking houses! Fascinating. I’m interested in the pit houses because they’ve found pit houses in Britain around 500 BCE built by Saxons mixed with round houses of the British. Is there some sort of information trading between Norse and Saxon?
When you’re looking at the migration period and Britain, you need to remember that the settlement pattern is much more complicated than the “Angles and Saxons”. For starters, the Angles & Saxons at the time lived on the North Sea coast between Denmark and the Netherlands, and the Jutes were basically Danes. Additionally, there is archaeological evidence for the presence of other Germanic peoples, like the Franks, in southwestern England-there is even a hypothesis that the ancestor of Vortigern, named Gloui, who reportedly gave his name to the city of Gloucester, was originally Clovi (aka Clovis), a known Frankish royal name. (If you’re wondering how that could have happened, there’s no G or U in classical Latin, so they used C and V respectively for those sounds.) So if someone ran across a Latin inscription about an important dude named Clovis in 5th century Gloucestershire, it would be pretty obvious to conclude that the name was pronounced Glowi or Gloui or something like that, especially since we didn’t know about any evidence of Frankish settlement in England until probably 1,000 years after the stories were first written down. Edit: what I’m trying to say is that during the migration period they hadn’t really codified into their specific languages and cultures yet; they were all different vegetables in the big soup pot of Northern Germanic cultures. ✌️
@@DneilB007 I’m definitely thinking of that complexity of not exactly migration to Britain but rather a slow mingling of Germanic peoples with the native Britains. My background is ethnohistory of the Maya and syncretic religions but because my daughter got her MA at Exeter in Iron Age and Romano-British archaeology; I’ve done a lot of research. Your information about Vortigern’s ancestry is fascinating. Do you have any sources that someone like my background can read. I’ve always wondered about the story that he invited “Saxons” over to fight the PICTs and Irish.
@@mayanscaper The official in charge of coastal defence of later Roman Britain was called the "Count of the Saxon Shore," so "Saxon" may have been their omnibus term for "barbarians from across the sea," much like how we say "Holland" nowadays to refer to The Netherlands as a whole, not just that one province.
Another fascinating and entertaining video from our York Correspondent. What happened in York, that left those dying and bead making materials lying about the place?
I'm doing a cross country trip this autumn to Prince Edward Island. One of the places I plan to visit is L’Anse aux Meadows where they found like just one Turfhouse lol
I just came back from a great ringing weekend in York - I'm fairly sure you cycled past me turning right in front of the Minster late Saturday afternoon. You had headphones on or I would have accosted you to say thank you for your channel in person.
Fantastic video, it's amazing to imagine the viking age landscape of York whilst walking around the city. Speaking of, sorry for the strange individual who waved at you on Goodramgate earlier today. My girlfriend and I spotted you whilst out for a walk, and she panicked!
ok, now i legit want a pithouse cottage complete with the floor drain and oak walls. Those look so cozy and nice! People of the past sure knew how to do things effectively even with limited sources. Who cares about glass windows
Brilliant video, thank you. I think it's time I revisited the museum in Dublin again, apparently the Dublin tenements you mention are now under concrete with the DCU headquarters on top. Next time I pass by I'll imagine the tenements that used to be there.
I knew when I saw a picture of my favorite Skyrim mod I was going to be in for a ride :D This was absolutely fascinating! And now I want to make a pit house in Valheim lol
this was a wonderful look at how viking living spaces worked. thanks for the detailed rundown. this makes me want to play AC Valhalla again. the village houses and work areas you can build up are so charming.
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Imagine the only archaeological evidence of your life being the largest human coprolite ever found.
It took so much self control not to scream laugh at this.
incredible
Imagine that by using toilets and waste treatment systems, we'll never have a chance to beat that record. 😂
Literally known for the shit you left behind.
The only archeological evidence that will be left of us if we keep going will be all the trash
When I was in college, the archaeology club had t-shirts printed "Coprolitic analysis: it's a shitty job but someone has to do it" ... The Dean was not amused, but the professors loved them, and so did our fellow students when they asked what the shirts meant and we told them. You can learn so much from a person's poo.
I was just thinking about that person, whoever they were, and will probably make a silent toast to them on the next "remember your ancestors" day... I mean, imagine being remembered more than 1,000 years after your death, by probably your most uncomfortable and embarrassing moments (and thinking at the time: 'at least no one will ever know'). For their sake, I will remember them as a skilled craftsman who knew how to tell a good joke.
Reminds me of my favorite way to troll my students. I have them pass around some cut and polished dinosaur coprolites and ask them what type of fossil they think they are. Then I show them a full one. Some brave soul eventually says it looks like poop. My excuse is it drives home the process of mineralization transforming what was once there.
Coprolite: why yes, you can polish a turd.
What do you do with a constipated Mathematician?
Give them a pencil and let them work it out themself.
Speech Therapist T Shirt : SLPs do it orally.
Turf houses are surprisingly comfortable. Keeps the temperature steady. Who doesn't like flowers on your roof?
And we're starting to come full circle to a degree by adding green roofs to buildings, albeit more for the ecological benefits than architectural
They look like fairy houses ❤✨
Dude yes! I was in lanse aux meadows at the reconstruction one and it was about 10c rainy and windy outside but inside was like the perfect temp, dry and quiet. It was wonderful
Turf houses were built by the first Ukrainians in the Canadian prairies in the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th. I have visited them at the living museum near Edmonton. There was a hole dug and the turfs were kept to make the roof. They were remarkably cozy.
I wonder if the long viking hearth was used for heat retention. All those stones when they got hot would continue to radiate heat for hours.
Ah, yes, like a forerunner of a Russian stove. Many vikings settled in the Kiev region of Ukraine because it was on their trade route to Constantinople.
I've been to Dublinia. The amazing thing is that it's completely underground. I was told by a tour guide that it was a trade off for allowing the ugliest building in Dublin to be build, since that was planned and during the excavation for the foundation they found such a wealth of archeological finds about Viking-age Dublin.
The Viking Longhouse floorplan is mirrored in the Saxon farms that are still in existance in the Netherlands - long structures where the roof is supported by beams, and the walls used to be wattle-and-daub or planks but in medieval times it switched to timberframe with bricks. Some of the Saxon farmbuildings have the original beams and have been dated to the 13th century. These farms can be mostly found in the province of Drenthe. The front room was living space around an open hearth build against the brick wall that seperated the living area from the stable area. What many people don't realise is that the walls don't hold up the structure - they're just to keep the weather out. They're basically post-and-beam constructions.
Yeah, the roof rested on posts, not the walls (load-bearing walls only started to appear after the posts had been moved into the walls, and _that_ only happened relatively late in the medieval period, at least in a Norse context).
@@ragnkja And in the 13th century somebody reinvented the idea to put all the load onto pillars and created the Gothic period.
I haven't been to Dublinia yet - as an artist I'm too distracted by the National Gallery. Lol
I remember walking around the Viking streets with my youngest and marvelling at the mapping out of the buildings in the cobbles. They're much bigger than I expected after being used to seeing Irish longhouses from recent centuries in rural areas.
I was under the impression from the architecture books I've read that post-and-beam is the proper name for modern stick frame construction and that timber frame and post-and-beam were not the same thing.
You have such a relaxing, comfortable sounding voice. Your story-telling history lessons are excellent! Thank you for being you!
Jimmy narrates an audio book, when???
I remain astounded how much stuff remains, but also at the boundary setting that persisted through the centuries. Someone lays out the property boundaries, builds a house and living space, and gets on with life. Over time, people continue to build new buildings on top of what was there, but still "color within the lines" architecturally. "Yeah, this is an adequate amount of space to live and craft in. No need to adjust. Thanks people who came before me for setting the template!" Maybe people wanted to change it up, so they purchased the lots around them and expanded, but still kept to the predefined boundaries. People are fascinating.
Agreed! That is something I especially enjoy about the Time Team episodes too, how Stewart Ainsworth is able to deduce former abbey boundaries from where the oldest roads run, or how the names of fields in continuous use since pre-Roman times may reflect a religious pilgrimage route, or how the former presence of a mill or fishpond can be deduced from the lay of the land & where the streams run? It's very Sherlockian & so fascinating to watch!
I’m learning more and more about the study of landscape archaeology and how those markers of field and farm/tenement boundaries persist. I had no idea that they found such things in cities such as York and Dublin.
I do have a question. There was much Roman trade in the Iron Age. We visited Caernavon and the legionnaire quarters and there were what seems like the same toilets arrangements as what you’re drawings showed in the Your Viking tenements. How much technology was traded to Germanic tribes in the Roman civitas trading hubs on the northern Danube that made it into Viking homes eventually?
@@anna_in_aotearoa3166 I agree completely. I live in the U.S., and I haven't seen any of the new 'Team's' episodes yet, but I love watching the Time Team's older episodes, with Tony, Phil, Mick, and the others. From Time Team, I've learned quite a bit about the processes and everything, that are involved in archaeology/anthropology digs and discoveries. I love learning about the rich history behind the artifacts/ruins that they find. It's all quite amazing, the things they've discovered. Their findings are an absolute treasure. 🙂🌱
@@mayanscaper the toilets would have been still in use in most of Europe. People still needed to poop when the Romans dispersed.
@@Greye13 Last weekend the latest episode was released in 3 parts on RUclips, Anglo-Saxon Cemetery is the title. They set out to preserve a cemetery in danger of disappearing due to agriculture and they find.... something completely different - mostly thanks to Stewart's walking! Other than the ones that passed away, the only ones missing were Phil and Tony. Even Pottery Paul was back! And they had a Mick Aston doll on the table in the tent... This was by far the best of the newer episodes, although i found them all interesting - this one definately had that old Time Team vibe.
Here in Kansas, many of the settlers started with "dugout" houses, partially (usually three sides) cut into the side of a hill and then turfed over with a sod roof. They are a very practical sort of house where there is a lack of large structural timber. The low profile is also wonderful in a land plagued by tornadoes. Unfortunately, most family groups replaced the 'soddies' with a frame built house as soon as financially possible. On my grandparent's farm, the original dugout was still there, converted to livestock housing, but it was still so nice to go in and cool off in the summer.
This is fascinating! Were the settlers copying the indigenous people? I'm sure many of them were using tipis, but I'm wondering if they left stockpiles in these sorts of structures
@@sarahwatts7152 The Native American tribes in this area were semi-nomadic, but their winter villages often were earth dome extended family houses. The settlers tended to more rectangle shaped houses and lived in them year round. Same materials, but different architecture.
I've been to Kansas, there are no hills! :P
@@pufthemajicdragon Compared to the mountains, yes. and I see the little emoji 😃 But you really only need about six feet of elevation, which you can find along streams even in the western part of the state, where it really IS flat.
@@sarahwatts7152 Most of the Native tribes in the area now known as Kansas, were semi nomadic. They used Earth lodges for winter wherever they had wind protection such as an area of woods. Of course, the land used for corporate farming at present so there's no way to see what they land looked like pre-colonization. The different tribes followed the Buffalo herds seasonally so I the summer they used semi permanent lodges that basically provided shelter from rain and sun but allowed air to freely circulate. They were mostly hunter gatherers.
In Schleswig-Holstein they also found a Viking age settlement last year. It's from the 9th to 10th century and consists of at least 8 pit houses.
And this year they found an entire settlement from the late Roman imperial period and the migration period (3rd to 5th century). This one has 7 long houses, which is exciting, because until now they only knew pit houses from the migration period in this region. They also found gravesites.
Schleswig-Holstein is digging up a lot of stuff at the moment. Honestly, I cannot even keep track of where everything is. Lots from the Roman age and migration period.
In Lübeck they even dug up settlements from the stone age, iron age and Roman imperial age all stacked on top of each other.
So, in terms of what the old Germans did, there is a lot going on up there to keep your eyes peeled for.
For anyone who hasn't been to Jorvik Viking Centre, it's really good, especially for kids. You get to see the original archaeological dig, then ride on a little ghost train thing around a reconstruction of what it might have been like, complete with the sounds and smells (yes really). When you get off there's a museum full of stuff they found there. It's really well presented and the staff are really knowledgeable and enthusiastic. If you were a British child during the 80's or 90's, there's a good chance you went on a school trip there, or at least saw it on Blue Peter.
I visited it in the 80s when it's presentation style was pioneering and awardwinning. No train rides then. We walked round, which meant that there were spots of congestion. I suppose that's why they introduced the transport - also keeping excited children off the exhibits.
When you were describing dirt houses, they sound exactly like a Devon cobb longhouse.
Made entirely of mud and horse hair. They have rounded corners to the houses and this makes for a very soft appearance to the house but makes it difficult for furniture placement. These days they are often painted, and for,preference with lime wash as it allows the house to breathe where as you sometimes get sweaty interior walls if the outside is painted in a waterproof paint. If limewash is applied the whole house will be dry inside and out. The chimney is often stuck on the outside of the house. One for each room often. They look like round bumps on the outside of the house. Called longhouses as they are often one room front to back with a back connecting corridor. There are indeed second floors and a thatched roof though many are now tiled. Have lived in a couple in my life time.
They are indeed very cozy with the walls being 3 to 4 foot think warm in winter and cool in summer. . Not wonderful for mobile reception, and you often have to stand in the window for any reception at all. Originally the had mud floors but now have all sorts, wood, tiles, carpets. .
The one thing you learn very quickly is if there is anything like wall paper or tile stuck on the inside wall, never under any circumstances try to take them off just add to them tiling over or papering over.
If you try to take a tile off you will often make huge holes in the interior walls , sometimes all the way through to the exterior. As I found out to my horror when I didn’t like the tiles over the bathroom sink and decided to remove them . A massive hole appeared all the way to the,outside and once the builder arrived , he tutted and said no never do that. The rooms just get smaller and walls thicker in cobb houses. 😀
Basically if you want to live in a Viking house , try a Devon cobb longhouse 😀
Best vibes of any RUclipsr on Norse-related topics
Aw shucks!
Architecture is always interesting to me because you can get such a good understanding of how daily life might have been by having a look at how they're built, where the cooking fire was settled, the materials, etc. Super hype about this vid!
Sometimes provides some intrresting clues or confirmations of their metaphysical beliefs too, in terms of aligning entrances with certain cardinal directions/the sunrise, burying apotropaic fetishes under thresholds, indications of veneration of the communal hearth etc...?
I'm a big fan of material archaeology as a way of learning more about the past, not relying solely on written records, which can be scant, missing or severely biased? Any items found generally still require a fair degree of interpretation, but their orientation in the landscape & proximity to certain centres of activity etc can really tell one so much!
“Vernacular architecture” is what you’re talking about. It’s such a fascinating rabbit hole to go down, and it makes you realize how un-suited our modern western style houses are to most of the environments we build them in.
I really want to build a Viking age settlement in Minecraft now.
I like to see how small the doors were in ancient buildings, as it hints at the size of our ancestors; unless they were built small to keep the heat in.
@@euansmith3699 That's something I noted on visiting the oldest house in Scotland (Traquair) as its front door, which you would expect to be grand in the home of a Stuart family, was about the height of mine (made in 1975). It only made sense after seeing upstairs. The people had to have been much shorter to have got through doorways with hats or bonnets on.
In my Alternate-Universe daydreams (if I had the opportunity to take a different path at a different fork in the proverbial road), my dream home would be pit house: protected from hurricanes, a constant temperature of ~13 C/55 F year-round, before adding any additional heating, And as a wheelchair user, I could have a spiral ramp going around the outside walls, that could be a lot of fun. ...Also, I could play a TARDIS-like trick on folks ;-)
Textile tools and equipment are highly portable. Even a full sized vertical loom is pretty easily moved about, even when dressed. Yes, it would probably take two or three people to lug it out into a yard or light exterior sheltered space. The basic activities of fibre prep, combing, spinning and even the use of a vertical loom could have been accomplished either outside or near a door because decent lighting is really important. However, it’s only natural to always find the items in the remains in an interior location, because that’s where it was probably stored when not in use. As a spinner, I much prefer to work with the best lighting I can get, but when I’m not working, everything is tucked away. My loom is by a window. Of course in the winter months, I work indoors, but decent lighting is always a premium part of textile work, because you really need to see what you’re doing.
My brother and I were talking about how Viking characters are often dressed as modern bikers in movies. He said that he wanted to open a shop called the Biking Viking.
14:10 I got a bit of a shiver when you talked about the crafting materials left behind. Just makes the people come alive as real individuals. There was a real person who could have said, "Yeah, one of my neighbors carves amber and the lady two doors down does plant dyeing." I just love those personal details that remain in the archaeology.
I wonder why those materials were left there? Surely they would have been valuable and salvaged?
Hello Jimmy! In Canada turf houses were built when people were "settling" the prairie provinces. They were called soddies because they were built from the sod.
If you’re in the south of England and want to experience an Anglo-Saxon house (and all its glorious smokiness) - check out the two they built at Butser ancient farm where I volunteer. They’re built on the post holes and plan of ones excavated nearby. Lovely video as always - thanks for sharing your passion and knowledge with us!
I visited Butser farm in 1982. I am glad to hear the place is still there, much expanded, no doubt. It was a time trip, very impressive.
@@jeannerogers7085 wonderful to hear that! Yes, I believe they’ve really expanded over the years. Well worth another trip if you’re ever in the area :)
a very interesting example of the evolution of our perspective towards early iron age homes are the reconstructed iron age farms in Norway Stavanger (which are totally worth checking out) part of the reconstructed houses are still from the 1980s while some of them have had a makeover. the newer houses are higher and the interior walls have been whitewashed, creating a much more humane and more livable environment compared to the much lower darker almost cave like reconstructions of the 1980s. they even experimented with some paint on the white walls and have lots of woven blankets and other decorative things hanging from the wall. thanks to this makeover the farms went from cold dark and damp holes in the ground to comfortable warm and cozy farmsteads.
As a Scandinavian, I'd suspect that any house where the owners could afford it would have had at least a half floor loft for storage if not a full second floor.
That does neatly solve the "where did they put stuff?" question and its a good use for roof space.
This is the sort of information that lured me into studying geography in my long past undergraduate days. My obsession with maps was a factor, sure.... Thank you for the presentation. You make the information clear and engaging.
I am done watching your videos for tonight because I cannot fall asleep to them, they are too interesting and I can’t tune them out.
Thank you for sharing your lovely surroundings as well as the history! I'd never thought of them having proper cities, with row houses and everything -- that's fascinating! I do wonder how they turned poop into sturdy, lasting building material. That's impressive and ingenious, honestly.
Cows, sheep, goats, and other grazing herbivores have fibrous poop. You mix it with clay, straw, and sometimes other materials like sand or dirt. The daub hardens as it dries and locks around the woven wattles that make up the bones of the wall. Often you would then give it a whitewash with a plaster mixture for water resistance.
Wattle and daub construction has decent insulating properties, it can be built almost anywhere, and it's easy to repair. Once dry it really doesn't smell like anything except earth. You could make it from human poop if you really wanted to, just add some hair and some shorter grass, but most building authorities would not be pleased.
Adjusting the mix ratios gives you all manner of materials like adobe or cob, so you can find people building with it in every climate all over the world.
@@SAOS451316 We were shown cob being made by an old man in Mick Aston's early series (Time Signs). He said ideally you had a bullock to tread the clay/straw mixture, and he would add his own dung to the mixture. That got around the need for wood, brick or stone, but it would only support itself and a light roof: you could not have an upper storey.
One of my favourite weird archaeology facts is that only an archaeologist will be excited about finding a Stone Age rubbish dump (a midden, in other words). You can learn a lot from a person from their rubbish, so what they valued and what they threw away, what they ate, etc. When I was a kid and didn’t clean my room, my mum would say “go clean your room, it looks like a midden!”
In the autobiographical Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, she talks about her family building a sod house on the prairie. They also lived in a dugout--a small room dug into the side of a hill--that they bought from Swedish immigrants. That was in the late 1800's after the American Civil War. It's interesting how those building techniques were never lost.
I’ve actually visited that very house (sunken in now) with the rock in the river. The paths there and the history…. Still there after her description all these years later actually brought tears to my eyes. There is such a connection in remaining artifacts when you feel connected to the people that actually lived there.
@@LaurieLeeAnnie Wow, that;s cool.
I loved those books as a kid! I think the one in a dugout house was called On the Banks of Plum Creek... 🤔
@@alisonhenry820 That was the third book, and my favorite as a kid. I still read them as an adult :)
I love to learn about living conditions in different cultures. Thank you for this! Great video! It amazes me how you just cite facts from the top of your head and basically can film anywhere❤
Loved the mention of Salish long houses! On Turtle Island/ North America, some nations also had pit houses. I live on the traditional territory of the Syilx Okanagan First Nation, and their winter dwellings were pit houses (bottom dug into the ground, top is conical structure with wooden supports covered in dirt, with chimney/ wooden ladder). Great for the cold winters! (Current temps drop to around -20C, and would have been historically colder than that.)
In northwestern Germany the nowadays old farmhouses are kind of longhouses. But humans living on one end and the animals on the other. Excavations there show that similar houses have been build there for thousands of years. Not to say that they are the same as the viking longhouses, just something your video reminded me of.
It goes to show that a good design will be long lasting and widespread. Materials aside many things today are still recognizable in ancient items.
Viking longhouses had one end for people and the other for livestock as well, so that’s definitely a similarity rather than a difference. And Scandinavian farmhouses remained elongated even after separate barns became the standard.
Yeah, I'm from the Netherlands and it sure sounds like our historical farm houses! Though he didn't mention anything about having the animals inside. Which definitely happened in my area.
I had the great thrill to go to Pompeii a couple weeks ago and while the dozens of visitors were all "what a lovely pillar" in the square, I was the only geek who turned around and said "what's in this little closet?" And I saw the trays and trays of finds all locked away! Wish I had been able to get a tour of that stuff! I also chatted with a lovely Irish archeologist who looked to be uncovering a bone in a trench. Thanks for all the information--this is perfect for a project I'm working on right now. Hope to make it to York one day. It's a long flight....
I’m a great giant of a woman ( I’m 183cm or 6ft, my husband is 193cm or 6’4”) and I have always wanted a hobbit house, perhaps a pit house is more my style. I would just love to build one in the woods on our property just to visit or go camp in when it’s not boiling hot.
I think turf houses and pit houses are due for a comeback; they seem like they'd be really great for natural insulation, which would be a good way of adapting to climate change. Higher temperatures are gonna require more air conditioning, which will lead to more power consumption, which leads to more carbon emissions, so why not build a house that doesn't NEED aircon? Plus, they'd look nice, who doesn't want to live in a real-life Hobbit house? Cozy af
Pit houses in particular have a fairly large number of people trying to get them to be used, except they have a few issues. Ventilation tends to be poor, they have little natural light, and they tend to be very damp. Now, all of these are issues you can address, but a house above ground it easier, cheaper, and safer.
I personally have always wanted a Hobbit hole.
Damp, and also prone to flooding I would imagine.
Those turf houses are giving me flashbacks to my time living in Iceland. Never lived in one, but I've been inside one or two. 😀
Thank you, I have been wondering about this! People in rural Norway could be found living in what were literally called smoke parlors ("røykstuer", with a sort of enclosed oven whose thick walls retained and radiated heat) or hearth parlors ("årestuer", with simply an open hearth) heated in this manner and vented through a hole in the roof well into the 19th century. I believe the absence of a chimney precludes an upper story as this would be entirely smoke-filled.
I DO wonder if the smoke kept flies & similar pests out, though ?! Especially if you were living very close to your Livestock & toilets !?
@@m.maclellan7147 Oh certainly, to say nothing of hanging dried or cured meat and flatbread up there for similar reasons.
@@knutanderswik7562
I bet that was the origin of smoked food: hanging it up where the smoke kept insects away, and eventually realising that food that had been smoked kept longer even after it was taken down, and that the flavour could actually be rather nice.
Salish longhouses in North America were designed to use the rafters to smoke their fish supply for the winter, makes sense to have a similar idea for a similar set of natural resources!
Hi, nice video again😊 but unfortunately you showed the old reconstruction of a long house, there were NO covered or roofed pathways around the house. Archeology showed that they actually were tipping towards the roof to support the roof an walls. One of the discussions at the time for the first Trelleborg excavation were if these were vertical or not. That lead to the development of a new way to excavate post holes. Before the discussion, post holes were just emptied, and the excavating archaeologist noted if there were traces of the post. Olaf Olsen, pointed out that it’s hard to se if the posts actually were vertical or not. There for he started to cut half of the post holes away to get a “earth profile” and in these they could se that the postes actually were tipping toward the roof. You can read about it in Olaf Olsens little but very important book “om at udgrave stolpehuller” (how to excavate post holes)
Covered… pathways…? Are they not just buttressing the roof?
Who thought they were for a covered pathway? What a wild interpretation to make! I do enjoy Olsen’s work. Very handy
@@TheWelshViking hi, I only mentioned the covered pathway because you used a photo of the old trelleborg house, we’re the posts running along til outer walls are interpreted as a covered walkway/pathway. Until Olsens (at that time) new excavation method it was thought that these outer posts stood vertical. There for the reconstruction you used.
By the way.. are you going to the EAA in Belfast start August?
For other americans like myself.....UK town houses dont nessesity include shared party wall, unlike american town houses.....i got super excited by the idea of multifamily structures from the title but nope its just excedingly cool close packed simgle family houses..... on the other hand, having a bunch of houses with shared walls probably increaded the risk of large fires so it makes more sence this way.
Really cool video though
My Norwegian relatives who homestead in the Dakota territory in the 1800 first homes where sod houses.
As a young child learning to read I was fascinated with everything and would read anything I could get my hands on, whether I understood it or not. Something I remember reading about was Vikings and their longhouses …I was so young I didn’t even know anything about history….being an American child in the mid60s……but I have been very interested in Scandinavian history and how people lived long ago ever since. I enjoyed this a lot. Thanks.
They also might have been processing flax into linen. The comb would be used to clear the rough hard inner core of the flax plant. There are some very good videos out there on how that is done if you are interested
The temptation to build a longhouse in the woods in my area is unbearable.
Thanks it’s always nice to learn something cool during coffee break!
Dublinia is a very fun and affordable museum. I think I've gone 3 or 4 times and still never boring. It has life size Viking dwellings and markets to walk through, lots of hands on things for kids or adults who like to learn kinesthetically...also a life size Medieval quay to walk through. And as if that wasn't enough, it has a great view of the city from the tower and you can walk across the arch over the street to Christ Church Cathedral and see the resting place of Strongbow and the crypt museum! 10/10 recommend!
Me every time Jimmy describes pit (& turf) houses during this video: Hobbit holes, Hobbit holes, Hobbit holes....
(I wouldn't be surprised if that is actually where Tolkien got his inspiration for them, seeing as he was a historian)
I enjoyed the video, Jimmy. This is a great topic of discussion. I always love the places you choose to record your videos. They're really quite lovely. Best wishes.🌱
I am always impressed by the resourcefulness & efficienct use of resources of ancient/iron age peoples. A central indoor hearth makes perfect sense for heating as well as cooking. In the evening it would be a source of light as well. (Not sure I would want walls made from manure since I'm sure the smell was quite pungent whenever it was damp)
After a few days it dry's out an stops smelling.
But you have to keep it dry so the straw an wood doesn't rot.
They have started recreating a pithouse in Eiríksstaðir, Iceland. The people behind it did a deep dive into pithouses in Iceland an believe that they were often focused on textile manufacturing and the recreation is gonna focus on that 😊
I've heard that association, the idea being that apparently the higher humidity of an earth-sheltered workspace keeps the fibers of the yarns more flexible and elastic for easier spinning and weaving.
I remember being shown the Lloyd's Bank Coprolite when we went on a school trip to York as a kid. Strangely enough, the Viking Poo was the highlight of the day for most 10-year-olds, irrespective of its archaeological significance
not born???? lol I watched that time team live...... and I was not a kid >.< If they alter the pitch of the roof, it's less smoky and smoky is good for hanging meats and sausages and cheeses. Keeps the insects down too. I love all the shoes and soft goods that get saved in York and Dublin soil. I hope you're feeling a bit better :)
Very interesting! I've lived in the northeast United States, either in New York or New England, my entire life, and one of the things that really struck me is the similarities between the structures of the Viking settlements and those of Europeans that settled in the northeastern areas of North American in the 17th century -- many centuries later. The earliest houses were built using upright posts, with horizontal clapboards fastened to the exterior as weatherproofing. All of the surviving buildings are on stone foundations, but posts holes at many archeological sites indicate that many, perhaps most, of these buildings had no foundations as such, and the vertical posts were driven directly into the ground. In early buildings the clapboards were exposed on both the interior and exterior, but in all surviving cases they were covered inside with wainscotiing of some sort or wattle-and-daub at a very early date, perhaps a year or two after construction. Plaster was also applied to the interior walls at a later date, but usually within twenty or thirty years of construction. The biggest difference was that all of these houses (except some very early huts) had proper chimneys of stone or brick, usually in the center of the house. Also, thatched roofs were almost never used as they didn't stand up to the climate. The standard was wooden shingles. I find these features to be true of both early Dutch and early English settlers, even though the structures of these buildings are otherwise quite different. It seems that these vernacular building techniques transcended time and culture.
A quick aside: a full second floor in the Viking houses would have been impossible with the open central hearth, although loft-like spaces could easily have been built at either end.
And a quick question: I remember reading years ago that long houses accommodated both the extended family and their livestock. (Sorry I don't have the reference handy. This was about 60 years ago.) Do you know if this was true of Norse houses or in areas that came under their influence?
More modern variants of longhouses have been built into the, I believe, 18th century in northern Germany, so it might have been the same in the Netherlands and Great Britain.
Thank you for all this wonderful information and sources for us to dig into!! Urban Vikings conjures up an even more complex society and makes good sense!! Take care Jimmy🥰
Interesting history! I also live in York, just the one that happens to be in Pennsylvania. Videos like this really make me want to visit our namesake.
Lloyds Bank and coprolite is the perfect pairing of words
🤣
Jimmy, please explain what you mean by a 'metalled' walkway with cobbles. I have never seen a cobbled walkway dissected nor have I read about the process, but it sounds like you have and you know a secret or two about it. Could you please be so kind as to elucidate? My curiosity is gnawing me to a nub here.
Suburban Vikings sounds like a sitcom.
Sounds like an old cartoon I'd watch as a kid, like the Flintstones. :)
Awesome video! I'd love to see you do a series on the York excavations and the different finds!
Honestly, smoke aside these do genuinely look cozy
As usual an enjoyable, informative and entertaining presentation History Jimmy. Editing Jimmy gets 👍🏻👍🏻 and Storyteller Jimmy gets 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻. It’s interesting how various peoples of cultures all over the globe engineered their homes to adapt to the various climates in every location in every era. Could the smoke inside some buildings be actually intentional to control insect pests? Some indigenous peoples used smoke and sometimes mud to prevent insect bites in locations where swarms of biting flying insect pests could be a health concern. Maybe you might have some thoughts on this idea? You do a great job educating and explaining the interesting things people did to survive in sometimes rather harsh climates whether it be extreme cold or heat. If these people weren’t clever and practical those cultures would have died out and left nothing behind. Have a great weekend Dr. Jimmy. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I just was musing about the same thing in a reply above - smoke, less insects !?
@@m.maclellan7147 it kinda would make some sense as for a practical explanation/solution to flying biting insects. Where people keep livestock there will be biting insects and those insects aren’t particular about from which warm blooded mammal they get their blood from whether four legged or two legged and then there’s the possibility of disease being transmitted cross species too. Were Vikings aware of insect borne disease?
I find the history and material culture of everyday life soooo much more fascinating than the lives of nobles or the history of wars.
Maybe that’s why I’m so into the history of clothing and normal peoples lives. Your clothing and home says so much more about you than you think, and seeing what material culture survives shows how normal, everyday people dealt with their own problems, what they thought about the society they lived in, how concerned with conformity or propriety they were, how their home life may have been.
It’s just such a great way of humanizing history. I just think it’s neat
Indeed!
My venture into history also started with clothes and then I expanded into other traditional crafts and aspects of everyday life.
What you describe was originally called "Marxist Archaeology." It was brought to the English-speaking world from mainland Europe by V Gordon Childe, an Australian who was based in Edinburgh and London. As a communist, he was never allowed to go to speak in the United States.
@@faithlesshound5621 As a dirty commie, I like that. :)
This is so cool! I really like learning about how people lived, especially just regular folks.
Several episodes of Time Team refer to grubenhauses.... Is that the pit house you were referring to?
Yup! Grübenhaus is the German word, I’m told
As a history enthusiast, I love your videos. German here, and may I correct you: it's "Grubenhaus", plural Grubenhäuser, from Grube: pit. Umlaute are tempting;) Some ppl do have "Grübchen" though, these are dimples :D
I'd imagine that part of the point of such a large hearth (on top from all the "doing different things in different areas" that Jimmy mentioned) was simply as a sort of radiator: earth (or clay), on top of being insulating, stores a lot of heat & then releases it pretty slowly & steadily.
My husband and I were walking those York wall tops a couple months ago on a trip across the Pond to visit his mum - and I recognized your filming location immediately! And a couple years back, we were in Dublin - but Dublinia wasn’t open yet. The Jorvik Viking Centre Museum has been in my bucket list since it was first built; incredibly well done, down to “smell-a-vision” (and yes, we saw The Poo!). My only fuss about the whole trip, was the near total lack of ANYTHING with the white rose badge. For goodness sakes, you’d expect to find those all over the place for American tourists to take back home…..
I'm pretty sure I walk past this area to a residency I have in York. Always love the walls at sunset!
I found myself thinking of Hobbit Holes, which were undoubtedly inspired at least partly by pit and/or turf houses.
Some of these remind me of Edoras and Meduseld.
I'm surprised to hear you speak of half a dozen people living in a longhouse. To me 6 people sounds like parents with children, not an extended family with grand-parents, their kids and their grand-kids.
Ok. More then. 37 people.
@@TheWelshViking I never said it was inaccurate - you certainly know more than I do about the topic - just that I'm surprised. I honestly know nothing about the sizes of families at the time, and I have a hard time imagining how many people lived in an average village, small town or large city at the time. Is a typical village a dozen houses with an average of 6 people in each? Or is it like 50 houses? Just looking to learn.
Yes, I was surprised by that. I was expecting 10-15.
I'm in AWE at how modern and well designed these houses were, and how cosy. Some houses in the Atlantic coast of Ireland are so low that are almost underground, the roof has a steady slope and after the first storm there I could see why. I've been to turf houses too, and as others said, they're incredibly cosy to live in and beautiful to look at. On a different note, I felt some anxiety for all the items I can't see because they have no room to display them...
Thanks for the video and have a lovely day!
I bet York has more than 4 viking houses - they just haven't been excavated (yet). But their remains are still there, below the modern houses ;-)
Oh, they found four here. Then there’s Hungate, St Mary’s Square, Skeldergate, Walmgate…
@@TheWelshViking Doesn't the use of the suffix "-gate" to name a street in English come from Old Norse? I vaguely remember reading that somewhere after idly wondering whether all these medieval English streets were so-named after gates in city walls, and being subsequently surprised to read that the etymology of the suffix had nothing to do with the English word for an opening in a wall.
Those long houses look pretty big for 6 people.
This video made me really wish I could visit a living history museum that focuses on this historical time period. I live in southern New England, and our closest one portrays rural life from the 1790s to the 1830s. It's absolutely fascinating! This past October we took a tour of the village herb garden, then ended up having a wonderful hour and a half long conversation with the interpreter who gave it. I would absolutely LOVE to check out a viking age version!
Hedeby has a full museum village with lots of houses from the viking age. You can even spend time there and live like a northman.
Just found your channel. Very nice content. Great use of reference materials. Excellent job making history understandable.
Keep up the super work. Binging your catalog as we speak.
Properly made "open fire" house isn't _that_ smokey, I'd say. The smoke kinda gets pulled out through the opening up in the roof (when it works properly). You do smell like smoke after staying in a building like this, but it's not like you can't breathe or like there's really even visible smoke. Also this is why you use dry wood.
If ever in Finland get in contact with a group called Sommelo, and they might show you a few recreations of iron age (viking age) type buildings typical to Finland and surrounding areas. These are located in the capital, Helsinki. They are a group of non-profit volunteers and history enthusiasts, so if they give you a private tour, give them a small donation to help with keeping the place in shape. If you get very lucky you might get to see them building a new roof, making iron age pottery, cooking authentic dinners "viking" style etc. or participate and learn this stuff yourself.
*Oi, Jimmy! If you visit Finland sometime I can set this up!* 😀
There's also a recreation of a viking long house and a "Viking center" in a place called Rosala near Turku.
Cool. Something I haven't thought much about.
Well. Thank you for a new rabbithole to investigate LOL. This was AMAZING and I've downloaded all the linked PDFs.
I Spent many happy days livingin a pit style house not far from york at the museum of farming. cozy and a lot less cow poo required for the walls. the stone base of the firepit acts like a giant storage heater, we found it impossible to sleep on the loft in the roof due to the Smoke.
I went to the Jorvik Viking Museum last September and saw the giant poo! I'm going to Dublin in December. I plan on taking a walking tour of Viking Dublin. Definitely checking out the archeology museum because it's free.
I think that it's cute that you think that a half a dozen people (6) is a large extended family 😊
Lovely video, made me smile several times! 😀
It was interesting to hear you mention trelleborgs, in Sweden we have a town called Trelleborg and there they built a quarter of the trelleborg that was excavated and it is open for visitors.The Valheim-picture was also nice to see! 😍
Something about that first line made it sound like you live on top of a wall.😆
Very interesting video! I love learning about daily living. Those central hearths make me wonder what it was like having toddlers around -- I don't guess they were any easier then.
Thanks
I went to Dublinia in 2016. Loved it. Look forward to going to York sometime.
Excellent, as usual! :)
awesome video!! had a great conversation about this with some of the folk from my house hold in the SCA here :D
Oh this was super interesting, hadn't heard about those small town houses before. The daily life of those who lived before us, to me, is always much more intriguing than war etc.
I do feel like I really have to visit York one day. :)
Another great video. Completely unrelated but wondering if you know anything about the battle of Bryn Glas/Pilleth and the Glyndŵr uprising, I drove past the site a few weeks ago and looked it up knowing nothing of it. Everyone knows about William Wallace and the Scottish uprising but I'd imagine no-one knows about the Welsh one, I'd love a video in your informative style
The houses sound a bit like old time Finnish cellars: you dig a downward sliding hole. Then you line the walls with rocks, and use rocks to build steps down. Make a roof from rocks and wood, and put the ground you dug up, back on top of the roof. They look like small mound of rocks, with grass and moss growing on top.
Thank you for your lesson on Viking houses! Fascinating. I’m interested in the pit houses because they’ve found pit houses in Britain around 500 BCE built by Saxons mixed with round houses of the British. Is there some sort of information trading between Norse and Saxon?
I mean, they weren’t Saxon if they were 500BC!
@@TheWelshVikingI’m guessing they mistyped BCE for CE, which is pretty much spot on for the time period they’re referring to.
When you’re looking at the migration period and Britain, you need to remember that the settlement pattern is much more complicated than the “Angles and Saxons”. For starters, the Angles & Saxons at the time lived on the North Sea coast between Denmark and the Netherlands, and the Jutes were basically Danes. Additionally, there is archaeological evidence for the presence of other Germanic peoples, like the Franks, in southwestern England-there is even a hypothesis that the ancestor of Vortigern, named Gloui, who reportedly gave his name to the city of Gloucester, was originally Clovi (aka Clovis), a known Frankish royal name. (If you’re wondering how that could have happened, there’s no G or U in classical Latin, so they used C and V respectively for those sounds.) So if someone ran across a Latin inscription about an important dude named Clovis in 5th century Gloucestershire, it would be pretty obvious to conclude that the name was pronounced Glowi or Gloui or something like that, especially since we didn’t know about any evidence of Frankish settlement in England until probably 1,000 years after the stories were first written down.
Edit: what I’m trying to say is that during the migration period they hadn’t really codified into their specific languages and cultures yet; they were all different vegetables in the big soup pot of Northern Germanic cultures. ✌️
@@DneilB007 I’m definitely thinking of that complexity of not exactly migration to Britain but rather a slow mingling of Germanic peoples with the native Britains. My background is ethnohistory of the Maya and syncretic religions but because my daughter got her MA at Exeter in Iron Age and Romano-British archaeology; I’ve done a lot of research.
Your information about Vortigern’s ancestry is fascinating. Do you have any sources that someone like my background can read. I’ve always wondered about the story that he invited “Saxons” over to fight the PICTs and Irish.
@@mayanscaper The official in charge of coastal defence of later Roman Britain was called the "Count of the Saxon Shore," so "Saxon" may have been their omnibus term for "barbarians from across the sea," much like how we say "Holland" nowadays to refer to The Netherlands as a whole, not just that one province.
In Wisconsin, the first settlers often took their cues from the badgers. Some of the first houses in the state were very much like the pit houses.
Another fascinating and entertaining video from our York Correspondent. What happened in York, that left those dying and bead making materials lying about the place?
What indeed! A mystery yet to be solved
I'm doing a cross country trip this autumn to Prince Edward Island. One of the places I plan to visit is L’Anse aux Meadows where they found like just one Turfhouse lol
I just came back from a great ringing weekend in York - I'm fairly sure you cycled past me turning right in front of the Minster late Saturday afternoon. You had headphones on or I would have accosted you to say thank you for your channel in person.
Fantastic video, it's amazing to imagine the viking age landscape of York whilst walking around the city. Speaking of, sorry for the strange individual who waved at you on Goodramgate earlier today. My girlfriend and I spotted you whilst out for a walk, and she panicked!
ok, now i legit want a pithouse cottage complete with the floor drain and oak walls. Those look so cozy and nice! People of the past sure knew how to do things effectively even with limited sources. Who cares about glass windows
Love your stories, Jimmy!
Brilliant video, thank you. I think it's time I revisited the museum in Dublin again, apparently the Dublin tenements you mention are now under concrete with the DCU headquarters on top. Next time I pass by I'll imagine the tenements that used to be there.
Hungarians also had these pit houses. They were used in the winter. In the summer they lived in yurts.
THE LIVE IN YORK TIME TEAM EPISODE WITH LEATHER AND POOP IN A VIKING AGE HOME sorry I'll keep watching now...
I knew when I saw a picture of my favorite Skyrim mod I was going to be in for a ride :D This was absolutely fascinating! And now I want to make a pit house in Valheim lol
I can't help but wonder if the turf and pit houses were the inspiration for the hobbit holes?
this was a wonderful look at how viking living spaces worked. thanks for the detailed rundown.
this makes me want to play AC Valhalla again. the village houses and work areas you can build up are so charming.