12/03/2024 By Kane Khanh
How do we know how people lived in the past if they don’t write about it? This is when finds from archaeological excavations come into use and they can reveal a lot about the communities who settled there. This includes diet, climate, town planning, resources available, trade networks, and what people held important in their everyday lives. Another aspect they can highlight is the activities of everyday life, and here, Viking-Age York (Jorvik) will be used as an example, in particular, one street in York’s modern city center, Coppergate. Scandinavian York during the 10th century became a booming manufacturing hub that supported many industries, most notably crafts. A wide range of crafts was possible due to an apparent extensive trade network and objects that flowed through the city, from silver and gold likely from mainland Europe or Ireland, tin from Cornwall, and stone ingot molds from the Shetland Isles or Scandinavia. The excavations that occurred under Coppergate between 1972-81 left over 40,000 objects of an archaeological context over 1000 square meters to dig that in parts went 9 meters of archaeological layers deep!
