Were Vikings Really ‘Uncivilized’ Barbarians? Large Textile-Production Site Discovered in Denmark Challenges That Stereotype

The massive settlement, which spans more than a million square feet, likely dates to the late Iron Age or early Viking Age between 600 and 950 C.E.

Sarah Kuta | Daily Correspondent

June 24, 2026 5:31 p.m.

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The Vikings are often portrayed as fearsome raiders, willing to destroy anything that stood in the way of their conquests throughout Europe. But a new archaeological discovery in Denmark paints a more nuanced picture of these seafaring Norsemen.

Researchers unearthed the remains of a sophisticated textile-production site in Søften, a small town near Aarhus, Denmark’s second-largest city, on the Jutland peninsula.

The discovery suggests the area’s residents were part of an expansive international trade network, a finding that confirms the Vikings were “not just simple, uncivilized, barbaric hordes, rambling about Europe,” Kasper Andersen, a historian at the Moesgaard Museum tells James Brooks of the Associated Press (AP).

“To have a place like Søften, you need a very well-organized society with a production line, and you also need a market to have the production,” Andersen says. “The textiles from Søften go into a market that’s much bigger than just the local area.”

The textile-production site was massive, spanning more than one million square feet. Archaeologists say it’s at least 1,000 years old, likely dating to the late Iron Age or early Viking Age between 600 and 950 C.E.

The site has an area for processing flax—a natural plant fiber often used to make linen—as well as 82 semi-buried huts where they suspect people lived and worked. They also found a single residential house, which suggests the site was managed by a central actor who controlled resources and production.

During the dig, which started in August 2025, archaeologists also found spindle whorls, which were used to spin raw fibers into thread, and loom weights, which helped hold the threads taut during weaving. They also found silver coins, pearls, beads, pottery, a pair of scissors, a knife and a key.

In the future, researchers hope additional investigations—such as carbon dating and pollen analysis—might shed even more light on the site, including what kind of textile production took place there.

During the Viking Age, which ran from 793 to 1066 C.E., Aarhus—then called “Aros”—was a royal and commercial hub, connecting residents with other parts of Scandinavia and beyond. Archaeologists suspect people living in the villages and settlements around Aarhus, including Søften, brought their goods into town so they could reach distant markets.

“When you have a production site of this scale, it cannot be only because of the local area,” Andersen tells the AP. “It needs to be understood as part of a greater network, a much bigger international perspective.”

The area around Aarhus has produced a wealth of archaeological evidence. Last year, researchers unearthed a large Viking Age burial site in the village of Lisbjerg, located just a few miles from both Aarhus and the newly discovered textile-production site. They found 30 graves, including some that contained valuable grave goods like ceramics, coins, pearls, gold thread and scissors, which suggests the people buried there were of high status. However, they also found some simpler graves, which they suspect may contain the remains of enslaved individuals.

They think the burial site had ties to a large estate, discovered in Lisbjerg in the late 1980s, that likely belonged to a nobleman—possibly, an earl or steward who served under Harald I, the king of Denmark and parts of Norway from about 958 to 985 C.E. The owner of the estate likely “had enormous power—economically, politically, religiously and socially,” Liv Stidsing Reher-Langberg, an archaeologist with the Moesgaard Museum, told Live Science’s Perri Thaler.

In 2024, an archaeology student using a metal detector discovered seven silver bracelets in the nearby village of Elsted that researchers later dated to around the 9th century C.E. They may have been worn as jewelry, but they also have been used as a form of payment.

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.