difference to the other contexts. One could speculate that people were buried in their best clothes, and that this involved more linen than the daily clothes. If this is true, then the relation of textile types between the graves and the settlement becomes key in understanding the use of linen during the Viking Age. There were no linens found among the textiles in the harbour. These textiles were often tarred and probably used for caulking and other maintenance work on the ships, and generally interpreted as the remains of daily working clothes of seamen and workers. Hägg (1984: 218) therefore suggests that linen was a sign of status. This seems substantiated by the finds. As part of her reasoning, she also argues that linen is not warm enough, and therefore an addition to the clothing. To this one could answer that the summers here on the border between Southern Scandinavia and Northern Germany can be quite warm, and that fashion anyway cannot be explained through any physiological logic. But the evidence seems quite compelling, that the use of linen was different from that of wool. Linen may not have been reserved for a very high social level of society, so linen should not be understood as a social marker as such. But is it reasonable to interpret these differences such that the linen would represent people wearing their “Sunday best”. This interpretation makes sense for the fine qualities of fabric and the many tabbies in the Viking Age graves. Apart from the textiles, the excavations at Haithabu revealed more than 2900 flax seeds and 2600 fragments of seed capsules. A small pile of shives also indicate the processing of flax fibres (Behre 1983: 24-27) In Birka charred remnants of bread were also found in no less than 37 cremation graves. Analyzes have shown that at least four of the breads contained flax seeds. Most of the bread was baked from barley, but the flax seeds are all found in wheat bread, one of which also contained naked barley. Wheat makes a finer bread, and it is possible that the flax seeds were put in to make an even finer and more tasty dough (Hjemqvist 1989: 262, 272).
Production sites That linen may have been considered a finer cloth than wool, but not necessarily reserved for a select few in the upper class, seems to be suggested by the production sites. These sites indicate a high and specialized production of flax during the Scandinavian Viking Age.
Næs Foremost among these sites is Næs in South-western Zealand, which was excavated in 1997-1999 (Hansen & Høier 2001). On a headland a small farmstead dating from the second half of the 8th century to the 10th century was found. On the site there were four main houses, of which at least three were not contemporary. There were also 16 smaller houses and no less than 69 sunken huts. The site is places on a promontory close to the shore, and there would have been access from the sea. The finds from the site indicated that in addition to being a farmstead, trade was also carried out on the site and it was interpreted as a landing site. The sunken huts were relatively small, generally around 3×3.5m, but the size varies from 2 to 4 meters. In the layers filling the huts various items were found which would be typical for a settlement, like bones and pottery, but also tools and personal items were found. In almost all of them were found loom weights, spindle whorls or both (Hansen & Höier 2001: 64). The connection between sunken huts and textile industry therefore seems relatively well established here.
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