Early Middle Ages

Contraception aids are hardly known from Prehistory. The Greek and Romans used different ways of not getting pregnant: medicines, special positions, periodical abstinence, as well as amulets. If this failed, even then they already used abortion...

Indeed the hand saw is frequently used in our medieval village. But we use the axe even more: for construction wood, fire wood, you name it. The saw dust and small pieces of wood which remain are not thrown away...

Two methods were used to make fire. One was by striking a special piece of iron (strike-a-light) on a piece of flint. The other method is by friction of wood on wood. The strike-a-light was most common. Sometimes people used the back of a knife to strike sparks. Friction of wood on wood (“the old-fashioned way”) was used at religious occasions...

Flax is an annual plant which grows to 60 - 100 cms. The length of the plant is important because it equals the length of the fibres. The plant blossoms with white or light blue flowers. After the blossoming, small seed boxes remain...

A graveyard from the Merovingian era (470-750) gave an average height for men of 174 cm. Skeletons from a graveyard in Susteren from the Carolingian age (750-900) resulted in an average height of 172.5 cm. According to Statistics Netherlands, Dutch men...

No beds are known from the Netherlands from the early Middle ages. In Oseberg and Gokstad (Norway) two beds were found. They look surprisingly modern: they even have a slatted bed base...

On the basis of research on 66 skeletons from a graveyard in Susteren (from around 800 to 1100 AD) we know that women on average reached the age of 44 years and men on average 38 years. The infant death rate must have been very high. About one third of the children died before reaching five years.

The inhabitants of the lake fortress were buried in the flat cemetery on a hill on the north-eastern shore of Lake Āraiši near the Liepiņas farm. As part of the archaeological research on the Āraiši area, 168 female, male and children’s graves were...

Excavated material permits reconstruction of the dress of the people living on the island. Women wore long linen shirts with half-length or full length sleeves. Simple wraparound skirts were made from a rectangular piece of woollen fabric...

With wood and turf. A hearth can be found in virtually all excavated houses. Often this is a round spot with a lot of charcoal and orange burned clay. The hearths sometimes were constructed on small platforms...