SØFTEN, Denmark — 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.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 — semisubmerged huts that were used as workshops and dwellings in Viking times.It's located in Søften, 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.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.""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.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.Reher-Langberg said that, over the last three decades, people with metal detectors had unearthed several silver coins in the area.A trial excavation 1½ years ago, before the start of construction work on a new road and industrial area, then piqued archaeologists' interest."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.Moesgaard Museum historian Kasper Andersen said that the discovery at Søften is "another piece in the puzzle" to understanding the local economic, cultural and political structure at the time.During the Viking era, Aarhus — then known as Aros — functioned as a c...