What Did Viking Town Houses Look Like? And Where Did They Poop? 

Imagine the only archaeological evidence of your life being the largest human coprolite ever found.

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.

Turf houses are surprisingly comfortable. Keeps the temperature steady. Who doesn't like flowers on your roof?

Turf houses in the US plains were called sod houses. I love how people throughout the world came to the same solutions for shortages and availability fmin their environment.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You have such a relaxing, comfortable sounding voice. Your story-telling history lessons are excellent! Thank you for being you!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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 ;-)

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.

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.

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 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

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!”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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❤

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.

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.)

The temptation to build a longhouse in the woods in my area is unbearable.

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.

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.

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

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)

Best vibes of any RU-vidr on Norse-related topics

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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 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)

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. 😀

Honestly, smoke aside these do genuinely look cozy

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 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 ;-)

My Norwegian relatives who homestead in the Dakota territory in the 1800 first homes where sod houses.

Thanks it’s always nice to learn something cool during coffee break!

Awesome video! I'd love to see you do a series on the York excavations and the different finds!

Love your stories, Jimmy!

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?

Excellent, as usual! :)

Awesome video!

Lloyds Bank and coprolite is the perfect pairing of words

Great video; thank you for sharing!

Thanks

Great content! 🎉

awesome video!! had a great conversation about this with some of the folk from my house hold in the SCA here :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.

Fascinating! Thank you!

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.

A wonderful overview; thank you.

This is so cool! I really like learning about how people lived, especially just regular folks.

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. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

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🥰

Thank you for the super interesting video, and the links!

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.

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.

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…..

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!

Suburban Vikings sounds like a sitcom.

This was very interesting and really well done.

Well. Thank you for a new rabbithole to investigate LOL. This was AMAZING and I've downloaded all the linked PDFs.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a Viking. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a Viking-hole, and that means comfort."

Hungarians also had these pit houses. They were used in the winter. In the summer they lived in yurts.

This is brilliant. Thanks.

I'm pretty sure I walk past this area to a residency I have in York. Always love the walls at sunset!

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! 😍

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 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.

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

I found myself thinking of Hobbit Holes, which were undoubtedly inspired at least partly by pit and/or turf houses.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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!

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.

Thank you!

nice one, our kid lives in York too

I had no idea Viking town houses pooped. Learn something new every day.

Cool. Something I haven't thought much about.

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.

Thanks!

I went to Dublinia in 2016. Loved it. Look forward to going to York sometime.

A pit house sounds quite nice, but that might be my inner hobbit talking