TOFTING AND ELISENHOF, NEAR TÖNNING,
SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN, GERMANY
Albert Bantelmann, on the other hand, pressed the search
northward by excavating, in the summers of 1949 and 1950,
a dwelling mound at Tofting (Schleswig-Holstein)[141]
at the
mouth of the river Eider, close by the Danish border. His
excavations showed that conditions in the homeland of the
Anglo-Saxons were identical with those which van Giffen
and Haarnagel had found prevalent in the adjacent territories
of the Frisians.
Tofting was a relatively modest site; but from 1957
onward, in annual excavations as yet not terminated,
Bantelmann peeled off, layer by layer, in the Warf Elisenhof,[142]
near the town of Tönning at the mouth of the
river Eider in Schleswig, the remains of a village that was
founded in the seventh or eighth century A.D. and remained
in continuous occupation deep into the High Middle Ages.
The earliest settlement, which is so far known only
through a preliminary report, was built on natural ground
on one of the banks of the river Eider. Later the site was
raised and peripherally expanded by heavy deposits of
manure and clay, until it finally comprised an area of
roughly seven hectares. The occupants of the earliest settlement
were cattle-raising farmers, which is attested by the
presence of bone deposits of cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses
in, respectively, decreasing magnitude. The predominant
dwelling in all layers was the aisled post-and-wattle house,
giving shelter to humans and animals under the same roof.
Layout and construction were in all essential features
identical with those of the houses of Ezinge and Feddersen-Wierde,
and the state of preservation left no feature in
doubt (figs. 319, 320). Main posts and wattle walls survived
in certain cases up to a height of 7 feet (2 m.). In some
houses the outer posts consisted of inward leaning timbers
of unusually heavy scantling (fig. 320)—no doubt the supports
of a peripheral course of poles that served as footing
for the rafters. The floors of the houses were formed by
turves of clay, heavily matted with roots. The section of
the house that contained the hearth and served as living
quarters invariably lay on a higher level than the part that
contained the stalls for the cattle. From the higher level
the floor gradually slanted down to reach its lowest point
at the end of the stable section, thus affording easy drainage
for the liquid waste of the animals, which was conducted
downward in carefully constructed flues—the same type of
flues (one groundboard and two sideboards) used today
in the farmhouses of the same district, where it is called
Grüpp.
The length of the houses varied with the number of
cattle owned by each farmer. The width amounted uniformly
to about 17 feet (5 m.)—as it did in van Giffen's and
Haarnagel's early Iron Age houses—a dimension obviously
conditioned by the fact that it offers a comfortable minimum
of space for two rows of animals and a central lane of
access with drains for the waste products. As in the Iron
Age houses, the roof received its main support from two
ranges of freestanding inner posts. The cattle stood in
pairs in each stable, their heads turned toward the walls of
the house. The cross partitions by which their boxes were
formed consisted of split logs set into the ground in palisade
fashion. The outer walls were wattled, with the twigs
wound around a sequence of thin posts alternating at
regular intervals with heavy posts which must have supported
the wall plates. Only a small percentage of the
houses was oriented from east to west. The determinant
factor in the choice of the axis appears to have been the
slope of the Warf, as it offered best drainage.
Besides the standard house there was a variety of non-aisled
smaller buildings, some with wattle walls, others
with walls of turf; the latter, apparently used as weaving
houses. Two of these smaller houses were in ridge-pole
construction.
The Elisenhof is altogether a spectacular site. Its full
evaluation, which is forthcoming, will unquestionably give
us new insights into the constructional aspects of its houses.
The same may be expected from the excavation of a ninth-century
village on the Grothenkamp near Neumünster in
Holstein, which came to light in an emergency dig undertaken
in 1962.[143]
Also not to be overlooked, in this connection,
are three houses (one of them aisled) which A. van de
Walle excavated in 1955 in the ancient town center of
Antwerp in a settlement-horizon that could be dated in the
eleventh century.
[144]
I reproduce in figures 321 and 322 a
plan and a reconstruction of this house as proposed by van
de Walle.
The great importance of these settlements, together with
those of Leens, Emden, and Wilhelmshaven-Hesse, is
that they have helped to close the gap between, on one
hand, the Iron Age houses of Ezinge, Jemgum, and Befort
and, on the other, isolated medieval house sites found in
Germany in such places as Wilhelmshaven-Krummer Weg
(eleventh-twelfth centuries), Ramm (thirteenth century),
Hungersdorf (about 1400), Hardesbüttel (thirteenth-fifthteenth
centuries);[145]
and in Holland in such fourteenth-century
sites as Lievelde, Waalhaven, and in Boudewijn
Hartsland.[146]
Thus, pre- and protohistory were connected
to the modern period with the story of a house type whose
historical life span, it now seemed, would have to be counted
by millenniums rather than by centuries. In this matter,
too, the last six years have brought a sensational surprise.
