Quintessential of all the Iron Age Saxon settlements, Feddersen Wierde is located on the marshy coastland of northern Germany. It was first occupied around the first century BC and continued without break until the 5th century AD.
While the first settlement at the site was basically a single farmstead, by the first century AD, the settlement had grown to four or five rectangular long-houses or Wohnstallhaus, measuring up to 30 m (98 feet) in length and 10 m (32 feet) in width. One end of these houses was for human occupants; the other end for cows: the occupants of Feddersen Wierde were primarily cattle herders, and they kept their livelihood close by. As the centuries rolled on, the site gradually grew in elevation, built on the remains of earlier structures and garbage, as is true for most long-occupied settlements.
Feddersen Wierde in History
During the second century AD, social stratification had occurred; archaeological evidence suggests that a leader had been created. Contact with Imperial Rome was evident, too, in the form of trade goods such as terra sigillata pottery, glass beads and vessels, coins, and millstones. One large building stood out from the other long-houses; it was protected by a palisade and ditch. The building contained evidence of the work of specialized craftsmen, artisans in wood, bone, leather and iron. During this period, the site also increased in size, to around 300 human inhabitants in about 50 long-houses and over 400 cattle stalls.
Anglo-Saxon Lifestyles at Feddersen Wierde
Cattle was the major staple product for Feddersen Wierde, but sheep and pigs were also herded, and emmer wheat, barley, oats, and millet were grown, and the residents of the site also hunted, fished, and gathered or tended a variety of local subsistence materials.
After the third century AD, the site began to shrink, and during the early part of the 5th century AD, the population of Feddersen Wierde began a steady decline. Within 50 years, it was abandoned completely. A similarity of ceramic styles at the last occupation of Feddersen Wierde to sites in Great Britain such as Mucking on the Thames and West Stow suggests to some archaeologists that the people at Feddersen Wierde were among the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England.
Sources
Todd, Malcolm. 1996. Feddersen Wierde. P 236 in Brian Fagan (ed). 1996. The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
There's not a whole lot on the web on Feddersen Wierde in English. In the link box you'll find a German-language page for tourists, and a reconstruction of what the house looked like from Kevin Callahan.
