Archaeologists Discover Large Viking Age Textile Production Site in Denmark

Archaeologists have uncovered a 100,000-square-meter Viking Age textile production site in Søften, Denmark, that includes an area for processing flax and more than 80 pit houses used as workshops and dwellings. The site, located 10 kilometers north of Aarhus on the Jutland peninsula, dates to the late Iron Age and early Viking Age between A.D. 600 and 950.

Archaeologist Liv Stidsing Reher-Langberg led the 10-month excavation and said the settlement showed a clear focus on textile production that set it apart from other contemporary sites. "We have spindle whorls, we have weight looms; that tells us about what has been going on in the pit houses," Reher-Langberg said. The team also recovered silver coins, glass beads and pottery.

Separate zones for production and crafts plus one residential home suggest oversight by a single powerful individual. Metal detector finds of silver coins in the area over the past three decades prompted a trial excavation 1½ years ago ahead of road and industrial construction. Reher-Langberg noted that the features continued across the trenches.

Moesgaard Museum historian Kasper Andersen described the site as another piece in the puzzle of local economic and political structures. Aarhus, then called Aros, served as a royal and trade center during the Viking era. A similar noble site was found last year in Lisbjerg, 4 kilometers away.

"When you have a production site of this scale, it cannot be only because of the local area," Andersen said. " He added that such a settlement required both a well-organized society with production lines and access to external markets. Reher-Langberg said further carbon dating and pollen analysis could clarify the exact textiles produced at the site.