Lofotr Viking Museum
Meet the Vikings. Smell the tar, taste the food, feel the history. The Vikings have been awaiting you for more than 1000 years. Welcome to the Viking age.
Photo: Kjell Ove Storvik
An analysis of four selected houses at Borg, Vestvågøy from the Iron Age to the High Middle Ages.
by Elin Tinuviel Torbergsen
The purpose of the analysis was to highlight how the building tradition at Borg, Lofoten, Norway, changed from the Late Iron Age to the High Middle Ages. The construction elements such as roof-bearing posts, doorways, fireplaces, walls, and room divisions were compared between Borg I:1a, Borg I:1b, Borg II and Borg III. The results of the analyses emphasized that the building tradition at Borg changed in regard to house construction, size of the buildings and the division of rooms. The residents of Borg traditionally built longhouses with combined living room and byre from approx. 600 AD to the year 1300 AD. It is argued that limited access to local resources, such as timber, led to the residents retaining much of the same building tradition for approx. 700 years.
Read the article “How did the building practices change at Borg” here.