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64 The Viking Age in Denmark

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Figurc 17 A-B. The Vorbasse settlcmcnt (mid-Jylland) in the tcnth to elcventh centuries. Notę thc thrcc magnate farm cnclosures to thc wcst. North is up. B represents the latest phase of thc magnate farms (fully drawn lincs). (After Hvass)

period and province too, have yielded no imports either, and Dankirke is probably — despite the absence, so far, of craft production - a chiefly or royal centre (and nodc in an exchange system). This interpretation is supported by the discovery of a powerful ‘hall’, a single posthole of which held morę glass than the en tire site of Helgo.

From the centuries immediately before the Viking Age the data on

settlement arc even rarer. From Skane a number of pit-houses and a few long-houses extcnd back to the eighth century at least, but wc have almost nothing else to bridge the gap in 600, at the very start of the late Iron to Viking Age expansion in settlement.³⁴

The Viking period long-houses often display a ‘boat-shaped’ form with curved long walls. A classical example is the elegant ‘Trelleborg’