wood

Remains of roofs are rarely preserved so we know little about them. They may have been thatched but at that time people did not grow corn with long stalks as rye later in Middle Ages and modern times and...

Apart from the prehistoric and early medieval large castles, all the way into the High and Late Middle Ages, there were wooden castles. Partly these were, like...

They did not have chimneys in our sense of the word, but from at least the Bronze Age we presume that makeshift chimneys, for example made from wicker and daubed with clay would take smoke from hearths through ceilings...

With wood and turf. A hearth can be found in virtually all excavated houses. Often this is a round spot with a lot of charcoal and orange burned clay. The hearths sometimes were constructed on small platforms...

Āraiši lake fortress was attacked and destroyed in the late 10th century, and was never rebuilt. When the foundations settled and the water level in the lake rose, the building remains and artefacts ended up underwater, and in these anaerobic conditions they were preserved up to the present day...

Yes, the house was this long during its last phase of existence, but it had been rebuilt several times, so the length has varied.

It depends on what resources and materials were available. A possible estimate is one to two years (the reconstruction took one year to build), but we must also consider that the house seems to have been continually added to and maintained.

There were sleeping places and benches along the walls. Sometimes, in one corner of the room, the in- built structure from horizontal logs was made, where house hold items of bigger size and tools were stored...

Every dwelling house with its auxiliary structures was an independent economic unit. Each house would have been the home of one nuclear family, consisting of parents, children and grandparents...

The 9th century lake fortress consisted of 16 houses, with a habitable area of 10–30 m2. The houses were built of horizontal logs, with gently-sloping roofs, made of spruce or birch bark, as well as turf, and served at the same time as the ceiling...