Archaeologists in Denmark have uncovered a huge textile production site dating back more than 1,000 years, offering new evidence of how sophisticated Viking society was. The site covers about 100,000 square meters in Søften, 10 kilometers north of Aarhus on the Jutland peninsula, and dates to the late Iron Age and early Viking period, roughly 600 to 950 CE.
The excavation, led over 10 months by Dr. Liv Stidsing Røhr-Langberg of the Moesgaard Museum in Aarhus, found more than 80 semi-subterranean pit houses used as workshops and living spaces, along with an area for processing flax. Among the finds were spindle whorls and warp-weighted looms, tools used to spin thread and weave cloth, plus silver coins, glass beads, and pottery. The team also identified separate zones for production and craft work, together with a single dwelling, suggesting the site operated under the supervision of a powerful person who controlled resources and output.
Dr. Røhr-Langberg said the textile-related finds make the settlement different from other sites of the same era. She noted that metal detector users had already uncovered several silver coins in the area over the past 30 years. Danish historian Dr. Casper Andersen of Moesgaard said the discovery adds another piece to understanding the region’s economic, cultural, and political structure. He said Aarhus, known in Viking times as Aros, was a center of royalty and international trade, and that goods from Søften and nearby settlements likely fed into a wider commercial network.
Last year, archaeologists also found another Viking site at Lisbjerg, only 4 kilometers away, which appears to have been home to nobility. Røhr-Langberg hopes carbon dating and later analysis will answer remaining questions, including exactly what kind of textile production took place. Andersen said the find shows the Vikings were not uncultured barbarians, but a highly organized society with a production line serving demand beyond the local area.
