Typical Linear pottery dwellings were long
rectangular houses; the roof was supported by rows of vertical posts, and
the wall construction consisted of upright timbers. Some of those
houses were _really_ long, including what were probably the longest
houses on earth at that time (ca. 5000 BC). They are called "longhouses" by the
archaeologists who study them:
"A Linear Pottery settlement consisted of 1
longhouse to over 10 at a single time period (Lüning 1982, 1982a). The houses
are constructed similarly ... throughout Central Europe (Coudart 1989). The
length of the longhouses varied from 7 to 45 meters. Studies of charcoal samples
from Olszanica in Poland (Milisauskas 1986), Bylany in the Czech Republic
(Soudský and Pavlu 1972) and Langweiler 8 in Germany (Castelletti 1988) indicate
that the longhouses were built of oak. However, Bakels (1978) noted that oak
charcoal disintegrates slowly; thus oak may only appear as the most common wood
utilised for construction as a result of its better preservation
qualities."
(Kruk & Milisauskas, _The Rise and Fall
of Neolithic Societies_, Kraków 1999)
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2001 9:32 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Danubian homeland?
What evidence is there of true longhouse construction in
northern Europe before the transition between the end of the MBA and LBA? As far
as I know true longhouse architectural design, with double or triple interior
partition, is a hallmark of the LBA Urnfield Culture. This architectural type
and the dramatic expansion of the components that constituted the Urnfield
Culture may have more to do with diary cattle than livestock in
general.