Traces of Unusual Huts Offer Clues to Origins of Medieval Port Town

WOLIN, POLAND—According to a Science in Poland report, traces of four unusual huts dated to the eleventh or twelfth century have been uncovered on an island in the Baltic Sea near the coast of Poland. Researchers were excavating an area once known as Srebrne Wzgórze on the northern edge of the medieval town, where there had been a market and craft workshops, when they unearthed the huts. “They are platforms made of clay and sand, surrounded by a ditch,” said Wojciech Filipowiak of the Polish Academy of Sciences. “Some have a hearth, some have an oven,” he added. Pottery, animal bones, Norwegian whetstones, glass beads, and metal objects were also recovered. “We have not seen structures like this from this period in Wolin before,” Filipowiak explained. “We previously thought the town grew from the center. Now it seems that perhaps the center was occupied by Slavic people, and on Srebrne Wzgórze, at a distance sufficient for establishing contact, Scandinavians appeared,” Filipowiak suggested. He thinks that remains of the town’s original port, dated to the ninth or tenth century, may rest under the huts. To read about the submerged remnants of an eleventh-century fort that collapsed on an island in western Poland, go to "A Familiar Face."