Assembling in times of transition – the case of cooking pit sites

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SETTLEMENT CHANGE

ACROSS MEDIEVAL EUROPE

OLD PARADIGMS AND NEW VISTAS

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SETTLEMENT CHANGE

ACROSS MEDIEVAL EUROPE

OLD PARADIGMS AND NEW VISTAS

edited by NIALL BRADY & CLAUDIA THEUNE

RURALIA XII

This is a free offprint – as with all our publications the entire book is freely accessible on our website, and is available in print or as PDF e-book.

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Assembling in times of transitions

The case of cooking-pit sites

Marie Ødegaard *

Abstract:

Large cooking-pit sites in Norway are discussed as a source to the thing-system in the Early Iron Age. The sites represent traces of large-scale gatherings associated with judicial activities, amongst others, and extend as far back as the pre-Roman Iron Age. It is argued that these sites might be the remains of judicial assemblies, in Old Norse called things. The sites might also be seen in light of the assemblies (concilium) and the warrior bands (centena) described by Tacitus in AD 98. Within a few hundred years after the Scandinavian societies encountered the Romans, changes in the social, economic, and political structures can be seen. After c. AD 200, the higher strata in society conducted large-scale restructurings of the landscape to increase surplus production. The ability to do this must have required active leadership and necessitated regular meetings. The cooking-pit sites might have been important in this respect and may also explain why the sites experienced increased usage between AD 200-400. Around the 7th century however, there was a decline in the use of the cooking-pit sites. While some sites show evidence of continued use as thing sites, others fell completely out of use.

Keywords: cooking-pit sites, large-scale gatherings, thing, administrative areas, judicial assemblies (concilium), warrior bands (centena).

Résumé

Se réunir en période de transition : le cas des sites de foyers en fosse

Dans cet article, le phénomène de larges sites de foyer-fosses en batterie est discuté étant à la base des réunions dites « thing » (grands rassemblements) en Norvège au début de l’âge du fer. En effet, ces sites remontant à l’âge du fer préromain, montrent entre autres, des traces de rassemblements à grande échelle associés à des activités juridiques. Mais il est également possible de les considérer comme les lieux d’assemblée générale (concilium) respectivement lieux de rassemblement de guerriers (centena) décrites par Tacitus en l’an 98. Néanmoins, ce n’est qu’après quelques centaines d’années de la rencontre entre les Romains et les sociétés scandinaves, qu’on constate des changements profonds dans les structures sociales, économiques et politiques du pays car ce n’est qu’après env.

200 AD que les couches supérieures de la société tentent à imposer des restructurations à grande échelle du paysage pour générer une production excédentaire. Ceci nécessite

* Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo

P.O. Box 6762 St. Olavs plass, 0130 Oslo Norway [email protected]

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186 SETTLEMENT CHANGE ACROSS MEDIEVAL EUROPE un leadership actif et des réunions régulières. A cet égard,

les sites des batteries de foyers en fosse ont peut-être joué un rôle important, ce qui expliquerait pourquoi les sites ont connu une augmentation de fréquentation entre 200 et 400 AD. Néanmoins, on constate un déclin au cours du VIIe siècle, et même si plusieurs sites gardent leur fonction de lieu de rassemblement (thing), de nombreux endroits auront été complètement abandonnés.

Mots-clés: sites de fosse-foyers en batterie, lieux de rassemblement à grande échelle (thing), zones administratives, assemblée juridique (concilium), assemblée des troupes de guerriers (centena), transition entre l’âge du fer précoce et tardif.

Zusammenfassung

Assamblagen in Übergangszeiten – das Fallbeispiel von Kochstellen

In diesem Beitrag werden große Kochstellen in Norwegen als Quelle für das Thing-System in der frühen Eisenzeit diskutiert. Die seit der vorrömischen Eisenzeit bekannten Stätten weisen Spuren großangelegter Zusammenkünfte auf, die unter anderem eventuell mit richterlichen Aktivitäten verbunden sind. Es wird argumentiert, dass

diese Stätten Überreste von Gerichtsversammlungen sein können, im Altnordischen Thing genannt. Die Stätten könnten auch im Licht von Versammlungen (Concilium) und Kriegerverbänden (centena) gesehen werden, die von Tacitus im Jahre 98 n. Chr. beschrieben wurden. Nach Kontakten der skandinavischen Gesellschaften mit den Römern sind in Skandinavien Veränderungen in den sozialen, wirtschaftlichen und politischen Strukturen zu beobachten. Ab ca. 200 n. Chr. konnten höhere Schichten der Gesellschaft umfangreiche Umstrukturierungen des ländlichen Raumes vornehmen und die Überproduktion zu steigern. Dies erfordert eine aktive agierende Herrschaft und regelmäßige Zusammenkünfte. Die Kochstellen könnten in dieser Hinsicht wichtig gewesen sein und auch erklären, warum die Standorte zwischen 200 und 400 n. Chr. verstärkt genutzt wurden. Um das 7. Jahrhundert herum ist ein Rückgang der Nutzung der Kochstellen zu beobachten. Während einige Kochstellen Beweise für die fortgesetzte Nutzung als Thingstätten haben, wurden andere Orte nicht weiterverwendet.

Schlagwörter: Kochgruben, große Versammlungen, Verwaltungsgebiete, richterliche Versammlungen (Concilium) und Kriegerverbände (Centena).

During the last 20 years, numerous specialised cooking- pit sites have been unearthed in Scandinavia and interpreted as the archaeological traces of large-scale gatherings. However, these sites are not fully understood as assembly sites. A cooking pit is a pit for dry cooking: A hole is dug in the ground, in which stones are heated on a fire and when sealed by a layer of turf it creates a cooker for meat or fish (Fig. 1). The pits are often around 1 m in diameter and experiments show that one could prepare food for 30 to 50 people in such a cooking pit (Pilø 2005, 292; Skre 2007, 403). If the pits were cleaned out after use, the pits and stones could be re-used. The number of pits at one site varies greatly between sites, from 20 to more than 500 pits, and even as numerous as several thousand per site. Cooking pits are common traces of Iron Age settlements; however, a large, specialised site is defined as one containing a minimum of 100 pits – sites of this size are likely to represent the remains of large-scale gatherings. The sites are also without a direct connection to contemporary and nearby settlements (Ødegaard 2015, 302).

While known to occur throughout a large geographical are – encompassing northern Germany, southern Scandinavia, and southern Norway (Fig. 2)–these large sites are relatively rare. They can be divided into three types:

1) linear sites with one row of pits; 2) two or more rows of

pits; and 3) clustered and unstructured groupings of pits.

The younger sites tend to be the most unstructured and are often larger (Henriksen 2005, 90-92). The northern German and southern Scandinavian sites are often of the linear type, and usually dated from ca. 1700 to 500 BC, and more rarely from 500 BC to AD 1. The Norwegian sites differ from the others as they are often irregularly structured and later in date, ca. AD 1-600 (Gustafson 2005, 105). It is unknown if there are differences in function between the linear and unstructured sites, but the dates nevertheless indicate that the Norwegian sites belong to a different cultural context (Martens 2005).

The function of these pit sites – apart from being locations for cooking – is disputed and not clear. The low number of specialised sites and the large number of pits indicates that they were in use only at special occasions, when many people gathered and large quantities of food were needed (Ødegaard 2015, 301). Therefore, they are interpreted as traces of large periodic assemblies for larger areas. Some interpret them as evidence of cult practices and sacrifice (e.g. Narmo 1996). Some sites are connected to later judicial assemblies, in Old Norse (ON) called things, leading several researchers to interpret the pit sites as having a political and judicial character and being remains of thing-meetings from the Early Iron Age (Skre 2007, 385-406; Ødegaard 2015). The thing in

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Scandinavia, known from the 9th century onwards, was an institution for justice: a ‘multi-functional venue for discussion and determination of any matter of communal concern’ (Vogt – Esmark 2013, 152). Food and drink at thing sites were banned by the church in Norway in the

13th century (F I, 2), indicating that they must have played an important role in society up until then.

The question is, what kind of meetings took place at the pit sites: cultic, legal, or military? To investigate the function of the cooking-pit sites and explore if they can

Fig. 1: The remains of a cooking pit after the plough layer is removed (© Marie Ødegaard, KHM).

Fig. 2: The distribution of cooking-pit sites in Northern Europe (© Marie Ødegaard, KHM, after Jes Martens 2005).

Fig. 3: The sites discussed in the text and their location in the law provinces AD c. 1200 (© Marie Ødegaard, KHM).

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188 SETTLEMENT CHANGE ACROSS MEDIEVAL EUROPE be related to the thing institution, this paper will discuss

in detail three Norwegian cooking-pit sites, located on the farms of Lunde and Bommestad in Vestfold and Guåker in Hedmark (Fig. 3).

The Scandinavian thing

The thing was an arena where the elite and the local population met for political and judicial decision-making, at the proper time and place (Sanmark 2017, 1-3).

Thing sites are closely connected to their judicial districts. Four law areas are known to have existed in the 12th and 13th century in Norway (Fig. 3). The case study sites, Bommestad and Lunde, were in the Borgarthing law area, and Guåker was in the Eisivathing law area. Also, four administrative levels are known to have existed here, with the law thing at the top (Indrebø 1935; Ødegaard 2015). The rural assemblies were probably connected to the Old Norse heruð (sing. herað) divisions, which are the oldest known administrative districts in south-east Norway, certainly at least as old as the Viking Age (Indrebø 1935), and, as will be argued, they might be older still (Andersson 1999). One herað was divided in quarters, each served by a local thing and one common to the entire herað area. Later sources refer to the latter as a ‘weapon-thing’, where weapon inspections of the arms that all free men were lawfully bound to have would took place (Sanmark 2017, 52).

These thing meetings were probably althings where the local population would meet.

Method

To investigate the function of the cooking-pit sites and whether the sites can be linked to the later thing system, the oldest administrative divisions in the investigation area must be mapped. These divisions can be reconstructed using diplomas and tax records, place names, topographic features, archaeological material, and previous research (e.g. Bull 1920; Indrebø 1935). Thing sites can be identified through diplomas and place names.

Diplomas, i.e. letters and documents with legal force, are published in the series Diplomatarium Norvegicum (DN).

Dating from the 13th to 17th centuries, the Norwegian diplomas are considerably younger than the cooking-pit sites; however, the thing sites might be older than written sources attest. In Scandinavian history and archaeology, there is a long tradition of using place names, such as theophoric names, to construct a relative chronology and identify the function of specific sites.

Lunde, Vestfold County

The cooking-pit site at the farm of Lunde was discovered when the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology, the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, and the Vestfold County Council (LBI ArchPro-project), carried out a geophysical survey in 2010 and revealed c. 750 anomalies, which were interpreted as cooking pits. In 2011, The Assembly Project, a research project led by the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, in collaboration

Fig. 4: Excavations were made of 30 pits distributed across the large site with c. 1000 pits (©

Marie Ødegaard, KHM).

Tab. 1 (opposite page): The dates from the cooking-pit site at Lunde, calibrated in OxCal 4. Excavations were made of 30 pits, and 38 dating samples were sent for ¹⁴C-analysis (© Marie Ødegaard, KHM).

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189 ØDEGAARD

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190 SETTLEMENT CHANGE ACROSS MEDIEVAL EUROPE with the LBI ArchPro-project, conducted an excavation

here. The estimation is now ca. 1000 cooking pits, making the site one of the largest of its kind in Northern Europe (Ødegaard 2015, 302). The aim of the excavation was to date the pits to find out whether they were the result of one large feast or several recurrent meetings, and if the feast site could be linked chronologically to a later thing at the neighbouring farm, Tjølling.

Excavations were made of 30 pits (Fig. 4), and 38 dating samples were sent for ¹⁴C-analysis. Multiple pits contained several charcoal layers, indicating reuse of pits several hundred years apart (Ødegaard 2015, 302-309).

The site is dated from 380 BC to AD 630, with a peak between AD 100 and 400 (Tab. 1). Furthermore, if one pit could cover the food nees of 30-50 people as previously mentioned, the simultaneous use of all the pits could have catered to 30,000-50,000 people, which seems unlikely. Small amounts of burnt bone from sheep/goat and cattle were found. The large number and reuse of the cooking pits suggests a site used by many people across centuries.

The place-name Lunde may denote a ‘holy grove’, which provides an interesting perspective on the range of possible functions of the site (Sandnes – Stemshaug 1976, 209). Lunde is located close to the central place Skiringssal and the Viking Age town of Kaupang.

It is likely that chieftains sat there, controlling the surrounding landscape throughout large periods of the Iron Age and up to the mid-10th century, when Kaupang was abandoned (Skre 2007). Less than 1 km

north-east is a medieval church at Tjølling. The name Tjølling, ON Þjóðalyng, is comprised of a first element, þjóð ‘people’, and a second element, lyng ‘heather’. To interpret the name, other words containing the same element þjóð are used, such as þjóðvegr, which means ‘the common road’ and the word composition þjóðstefna, i.e. the common thing. The name Tjølling or Þjóðalyng has therefore been explained as ‘heather, used as a thing- site’ (NG VI, 287-289). The name is difficult to date;

however, the localisation in a presumably Viking Age place-name environment, i.e. Kaupang, has led to the assumption that it should be dated to the period after ca. 550 AD (Brink 2007, 63), but might be older still, from the Early Iron Age (Storm 1901, 227). The name and localisation suggests that assemblies were held there at least in the Viking Age. However, there are different opinions as to whether the name refers to a common rural thing-site (Fritzner 1886-1896, 31-32) or a regional thing-site (Storm 1901, 227). The church at Tjølling, dated to the first half of the 12th century, indicates that the site may have been a regional meeting site at that time. The church is eastern Norway’s second largest basilica – a church type that is relatively rare in Norway and often connected to important sites in Scandinavia (Skre 2007, 389-395). At Tjølling there is also evidence of a thing meeting for a larger region, southern Vestfold, in 1557 (DN I, 1118). This suggests that people from a very wide area may have gathered here. The site at Lunde must be seen in comparison with the cooking-pit site of Bommestad, less than 4 km to the north.

Fig. 5: The distribution of cooking-pit sites, thing sites, and churches compared to the known administrative areas in Numedal municipality in Vestfold County (© Marie Ødegaard, KHM).

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191 ØDEGAARD

Bommestad, Vestfold County

On the farm of Bommestad in Vestfold, the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, excavated a large cooking-pit site in 2006 with ca. 500 pits. The site is dated to 180 BC-AD 430, with a peak between AD 1-200 (Samdal – Bukkemoen 2008). The farm name Bommestad, ON Bundingsstaðir or Bóndþingstaðir, may be interpreted as ‘farmer’s thing-site’, connecting the site to a later assembly (NG VI, 342). Etymologically, the first element bóndi means ‘farmer’. The second element -þingstaðir is a compound appellative meaning thing site and may date back to the Viking Age, but might be older (Bjørkvik 1980, 87-95).

Bommestad and Lunde were located in the same rural administrative division, Numedal municipality, in the Borgarthing law province (Fig. 5). The medieval subdivisions of this municipality are unknown, but it consisted of five so-called herred in the 19th century, i.e. a younger spelling of ON herað. Lunde is located in Tjølling herred, while Bommestad is in Hedrum herred.

This indicates that the sites may have served different areas and/or had different functions.

While the cooking-pit site at Lunde went out of use around AD 600, and continuity might be questioned, the localisation in a central place area and the place-name Tjølling indicate that there probably was a judicial meeting site here in the following period as well. The large stone basilica and later diploma also indicate later regional assemblies at the site (Ødegaard forthcoming). Bommestad, on the other hand, has no other evidence of a thing meeting except for the cooking pits and the later name, and no thing meetings are recorded here in written sources. It may be that the cooking-pit site at Lunde was located at such an important site that it became almost an institutionalised practice to meet here. Lunde and Bommestad might thus have been on different scales, regionally and locally.

Guåker, Hedmark County

The cooking-pit site at the farm of Guåker in Stange, Hedmark, was excavated by the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, in 2009 (Bukkemoen 2017).

Altogether, ca. 100 cooking pits and a culture layer with fire-cracked stones were uncovered. Interestingly, Hedmark County Council has recently registered at least 84 pits 150 m north-east of the site, so the site might be much larger (ID 225113, Askeladden.ra.no).

The cooking pits are dated from ca. AD 200-900, their main use was in the first 200 years and usage decreased considerably towards the onset of the Viking Age. In parallel with the last phase of usage, a cultural layer containing bones and teeth mainly from sheep/

goats, pigs, and cattle was found and dated to the Viking Age. There were also layers of fire-cracked stones, probably

from the brewing of beer. Such stone layers are normally dated from the 7th century and up to the 17th century.

The layers are probably related to the cooking-pit site’s final stages, and thus were a part of the activities at the pit site (Bukkemoen 2017).

The farm name, Guåker, ON Guðakr, comprising a first element guð, ‘God’ together with akr ‘field’, is interpreted as ‘God’s field’, and might be connected with pre-Christian worship (NG III, 160). Certain place- names are often put in connection with judicial functions, such as akr, signifying dry lands suitable for meetings (Brink 2004, 210). The name might be from the Viking Age and might have originated because of the gatherings.

The archaeological finds indicate continuity in assemblies from ca. AD 200 up until at least AD 1000.

Guåker in Stange, as mentioned above, was located in the Eidsivathing law province in the Early Middle Ages. Written sources from the 15th century indicate an administrative division in quarters here, and the district was named after the farm; the Gudåker quarter (Fig. 6) (Indrebø 1935, 115-117). Such quarter districts were often named by farms with judicial functions when the district was created (Moseng 1994, 94), probably sometime in the

Fig. 6: The cooking-pit site at the farm of Guåker and the administrative divisions of Stange municipality in the Early Middle Ages. Administrative divisions after Indrebø 1935 (© Marie Ødegaard, KHM).

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192 SETTLEMENT CHANGE ACROSS MEDIEVAL EUROPE 11th century, if not before, indicating that there probably

existed a thing site at Guåker at that time. A thing here is further testified by written sources, which describe Guåker as a fixed assembly site and the main district thing for Stange in the 15th and 16th centuries (e.g. DN IV, 1029/1498; DN IV, 1110/1537). When a site has the main district thing, it indicates that the site was a ‘weapon thing’

where, as mentioned, royal officials controlled the thing men’s weapons once a year. This thing was common for all quarters in a herað district and thus a regional thing-site.

Cooking-pit sites functions and the thing institution

The three case-study sites are all connected to farms with later medieval thing meetings. However, most of the cooking-pit sites in Norway, such as at Lunde and Bommestad, went out of use before the 7th century, long before the known law areas were established.

In the first centuries AD, society was one of warriors in which war and religion were inseparable. Religious, political, military, and legal actions were probably tightly integrated as rituals (Henriksen 2005, 97-98), and gatherings would contribute to creating cohesion and group fellowship. The solutions to conflicts, alliances, and other relationships and activities were also strengthened by sharing food and drink (Enright 1988; Gjerpe 2001).

Interestingly, the Guta Saga (1, 51), codified in the 13th-14th centuries, states that local assemblies before conversion to Christianity in the 11th century used to

“worship with animal sacrifice, food, and beer, and those involved were called ‘boiling-companions’, because they all cooked their sacrifice meals together” (Peel 2015). The importance of alcohol is also substantiated in the Norwegian provincial laws (e.g. G 6-7; Larson 1935). This might explain the brewing stones at the pit sites. Considering that law, religion, and warfare were strongly integrated within social life, these sites were probably multifunctional, constituting the contracting of marriages, rituals, and military elements (Hultgård 2002, 212). The connection between the cooking-pit sites and later thing meetings also suggests that the specialised pit sites were large-scale meeting places with judicial activities, amongst others, extending as far back as the pre-Roman Iron Age.

A few hundred years after the Germanic societies encountered the Romans in the final years BC, changes in the social, economic, and political structures can be traced within Scandinavia. Society became more hierarchical (Hedeager 2001; Herschend 2009).

Landlords and warriors gained ever-greater power and, after about AD 200, it was possible for the upper strata to force through major restructuring of settlements and agricultural landscapes to increase surplus

production, which in turn led to increased social stratification in Scandinavia (Hedeager 1988, 180;

Myhre 2002, 143-149, 168). Clearly, this type of large- scale restructuring of the landscape, affecting both the rights of individuals and groups to land, may have required an active leadership with increasing authority to decide, organise, and resolve disputes associated with the process. This would have necessitated regular meetings (Herschend 2009, 170) and might also explain why cooking pits show increased usage between AD 200-400 in Norway.

However, if the sites represent Early Iron Age thing sites, they should have similarities to what we know about the thing in that period. In 98 AD, Tacitus describes two institutions among the Germanic peoples; the assembly or thing (concilium) and the warrior band (chap. 11).

He describes how the Germanic tribes had chieftains surrounded by followers of about one hundred men, known as a centena (cf. Andersson 1999). The warrior- bands were in charge of local law enforcement in every local administrative unit, the so-called pagus. This might indicate that the chieftains and the warrior-bands had their origins in the thing, and that a communal function was connected to law enforcement and war (Hedeager 2001, 104). Several similarities can also be found between the Germanic concilium and the thing in Scandinavia over a thousand years later, such as meetings at a fixed time and place, and resolutions that had to be approved by the thing congregation by forms of acclamation and the holding up of their weapons, so-called wapentake (Tacitus chap 11;

Iversen 2013).

The age and existence of the ‘hundred-groups’ of warriors are disputed (e.g. Jänichen 1976; Andersson 2000).

Nevertheless, it is likely that the hundred groups and the administrative units implies an assembly system with law provinces (Sanmark 2017, 32, 35). One important element is that these meetings got their power to legitimise political and judicial acts exactly because many people were in attendance, thereby likely incorporating wide sections of free men who had military obligations. The connection between military commitment and assembly politics seems to have been important for the communities and armies of the 5th century (Wickham 2009, 101). The cooking-pit sites may have been important meeting places for such districts. The material from the cooking-pit sites in Norway testifies to such relations, as the sites seem related to heruð districts. This has interesting implications for the age of the heruð – first attested in the Middle Ages.

The English hundred and Frankish centena are based on the same word, the latter known from the continent from the 6th century AD (Andersson 2000).

Importantly, these divisions were social, and only later did they became geographically and territorially bounded, i.e. the ‘groups’ names might have been passed on to the

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names of districts (Andersson 1999). These administrative areas represented ‘tribes’ or social fellowship, socially constructed by their leadership, which would cease to exist if their leaders did not manage to maintain solidarity (Andersson 1999, 6; Myhre 2002, 43). The cooking-pit sites should probably be interpreted as meeting sites for a district containing a minimum number of people who formed a cult, justice, and defence community.

Conclusion

Cooking-pit sites were used for large-scale gatherings, and the material suggests that some sites were used in connection with thing meetings in the Early Iron Age, and some had evidence of assemblies up to modern times.

It is argued here that the sites might be compared with the Germanic thing (consilium) described by Tacitus in AD 98, and that they are related to later administrative districts, the heruð. The importance of the pit sites seems to have increased between AD 200-400, a period when the Germanic societies experienced several social transformations after coming in contact with the Roman Empire. It is likely that social gatherings and meetings for religious, military, economic, and legal matters became increasingly important in this period. The large cooking- pit sites went out of use around AD 600. Nevertheless, the material indicates that some sites might have been used as thing sites in the following periods as well, with some examples continuing into modern times.

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Assembling in times of transition – the case of cooking pit sites

Sidestone Press

SETTLEMENT CHANGE

ACROSS MEDIEVAL EUROPE

OLD PARADIGMS AND NEW VISTAS

This is a free offprint – as with all our publications the entire book is freely accessible on our website, and is available in print or as PDF e-book.

www.sidestone.com

SETTLEMENT CHANGE

ACROSS MEDIEVAL EUROPE

OLD PARADIGMS AND NEW VISTAS

RURALIA XII

This is a free offprint – as with all our publications the entire book is freely accessible on our website, and is available in print or as PDF e-book.

www.sidestone.com

Contents

Assembling in times of transitions

The case of cooking-pit sites

Marie Ødegaard *