To make shingles, you have to cross cut a log at the length the shingles will be, then you take that log, stand it on end, and split it into shingles. Saws were very uncommon and expensive. To make a saw you need a long length of high carbon steel, and in this time frame even low carbon iron was expensive. Without a saw, you'd have to cross cut with an axe, and try and true up the end grain of those blocks so the shingles are at least close to the same length. Straw on the other hand, is a waste product from growing grain. It's only other common use is bedding or insulation. Thatching is also warmer. Stuff like bull rushes were also used where available. The only time shingles or shakes were used prior to it being an architectural feature was after saws were cheap, and in areas where straight trees of large diameter were plentiful. I enjoy these shows, and I'm not saying shakes or shingles were never used, I'm just saying that making shingles without a big crosscut saw would be extremely difficult. Where I live in the Pacific northwest USA, the local natives made their houses out of all wood, the roofs were done with planks the length of the house though. They'd notch out the living tree while still standing, then split the planks out of the trunk, leaving the tree in place. I couldn't understand why they'd do it this way, until I thought about how much work it is to stabilize a big log to split it. Leaving the tree standing, the only awkward part is cutting the upper notch, you can pry away on the future plank and the trunk is going to not wiggle around still rooted to the ground.

Matt Moore okay thank you for the further explanation, I see what you are saying that somewhere in the process a saw would be needed…that's what I can glean never having taken saw to log in my life lol. If they had used a saw then the experiment would be flawed in that instance, I had assumed that it would only have been undertaken with the hand tools that were readily available and most likely to have been used…and of course from the point he made about not using a saw 🙂 . I think the common stand is it was thatch most often used, at least from most depictions I have seen.

Not a problem at all. If I hadn't had personal experience with splitting shakes I don't know that I'd have thought it all the way through.

God knows…

Looks like !Lindybeige!

These 'reconstructions' are so speculative as to be completely pointless.

Sounds like a piss poor idea. People usually built on top of hills or at least in the heights so that the water would run past.
In the more colder environments people would dig into the sides of steep hills and make a very low door at the lower end of the home. That would keep the heat from getting out as heat travels upwards.

lot of history is. Rarely is anything perfectly preserved. And not every house was the same. We can only find averages and common types. Most reenactments are of the average or most likely not an individual person or structure.

Matt Moore I'm guessing you've not heard of an AXE or called aex or aesc by the Anglo-Saxons, it's this lovely invention from thousands of years ago that they used to use to chop a tree down, then they would use it to chop it into logs and clean up the ends the best they could, maybe with their sharp knife called a seax and then stand the log on end and split it into shingles! Plus the tree wouldn't of been that wide maybe a foot to a foot and half in diameter….. And if I'm not mistaken thatch was made from willow reed, which grows in water, not straw as that rotted away to quick, and if there wasn't much water around or willow reed growing and not much straw around that would probably be why they adapted to shingles, but like a lot of this sort of history all I can do is assume that's the reason to shingles and not thatch…

Storing potatoes? In 6th century? Real arecheologist expert…. 😀 😛