The Iron Age Farm
To the left you will find one of
the housegrounds from the occupation dated to the Migration Period. Low
walls of soil and stones represent the walls of the house, and in the
raiddle of the room a large stone indicate where the fireplace used to be.
The longhouse
The house consisted of two rooms.
one for the people and one for the livestock. The walls were built of stones
and soil. The inside of the walls were covered with braided twigs and clay.
The turfed roof was held by two rows of posts inside the house.
Life on the farm
The Iron Age Farm consisted of
one or more houses, fields, grazingland and hayfields, as well as
gravemounds, the homefields were confined by a fence.
The method of cultivation was less efficient than today the soil being
turned with a wooden spade or with a primitive plough. The stones had to be
removed into heaps along the edges of the fields, only the largest stones
were left in the fields. On Penne there are approximately 150 such heaps.
Sheep, cows and cultivation of cereal are the most common element of Iron
Age farming. Hunting and fishing were additional and stable food supliers.
The people on Penne produced most of what they needed themselves. A few
luxury goods like jewelry and weapons were obtained in exchange for local
goods. Such things were aquired from specialized travelling tradesmen or
imported from northern Europe by Chiefs trading abroad.
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