{"id":4580,"date":"2026-06-24T08:03:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/2026\/06\/24\/archaeologists-find-huge-viking-textile-production-site-in-denmark\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T08:03:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:03:48","slug":"archaeologists-find-huge-viking-textile-production-site-in-denmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/?p=4580","title":{"rendered":"Archaeologists find huge Viking textile production site in Denmark"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Archaeologists find huge Viking textile production site in Denmark<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

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\n An archaeologist excavates a Viking Age pit house in Aarhus, Denmark, on June 22, 2026.
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\n James Brooks\/AP
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S\u00d8FTEN, Denmark \u2014 Archaeologists have discovered a huge Viking Age textile production site in Denmark that dates back more than 1,000 years and underlines the sophistication of Viking society.<\/p>\n

Experts from the Moesgaard Museum said this week that the sprawling 100,000-square-meter (more than 1 million-square-foot) site features an area for processing flax as well as more than 80 pit houses \u2014 semisubmerged huts that were used as workshops and dwellings in Viking times.<\/p>\n

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It’s located in S\u00f8ften, 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of Denmark’s second-largest city, Aarhus, on the Jutland peninsula. The site dates back to the late Iron Age and early Viking Age, sometime between A.D. 600 and 950.<\/p>\n

Archaeologist Liv Stidsing Reher-Langberg, who led the 10-month dig, said that “we have a clear focus on textile production, which makes this settlement different from other kinds of settlements of this period.”<\/p>\n

“We have spindle whorls, we have weight looms; that tells us about what has been going on in the pit houses,” said Reher-Langberg, adding that archaeologists had also discovered silver coins, glass beads and pottery.<\/p>\n

Experts found separate areas for production and crafts, plus a single residential home, which suggests work was overseen by a powerful individual with control over resources and production.<\/p>\n

Reher-Langberg said that, over the last three decades, people with metal detectors had unearthed several silver coins in the area. A trial excavation 1\u00bd years ago, before the start of construction work on a new road and industrial area, then piqued archaeologists’ interest.<\/p>\n

“We could see in the trenches that it just keeps on going, with these houses and pit houses and textile production features,” Reher-Langberg said.<\/p>\n

Moesgaard Museum historian Kasper Andersen said that the discovery at S\u00f8ften is “another piece in the puzzle” to understanding the local economic, cultural and political structure at the time.<\/p>\n

During the Viking era, Aarhus \u2014 then known as Aros \u2014 functioned as a center for royalty and international trade. And last year, archaeologists discovered another Viking site in Lisbjerg, just 4 kilometers (2\u00bd miles) away, that was likely home to members of the nobility.<\/p>\n

Goods and resources were likely brought from the countryside and settlements like S\u00f8ften, before entering an extensive international trade network, Andersen said.<\/p>\n

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\n An aerial shot shows an archaeological site in Soften near Aarhus, Denmark, on June 22, 2026.
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“When you have a production site of this scale, it cannot be only because of the local area. It needs to be understood as part of a greater network, a much bigger international perspective,” Andersen said.<\/p>\n

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Reher-Langberg hopes future carbon dating and pollen analysis might answer some lingering questions, for instance about what kind of textile production went on at the site.<\/p>\n

During the Viking Age, considered to run from A.D. 793 to 1066, Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raids, colonization, conquest and trade throughout Europe, even reaching North America.<\/p>\n

Andersen said that the discovery at S\u00f8ften shows that Vikings were “not just simple, uncivilized, barbaric hordes, rambling about Europe.”<\/p>\n

“To have a place like S\u00f8ften, you need a very well-organized society with a production line, and you also need a market to have the production,” he said. “The textiles from S\u00f8ften go into a market that’s much bigger than just the local area.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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