The remnants of houses were in an oval and later in a rectangular shape. They had a double-span interior. It was mainly the dark traces of the support logs in the light, sandy soil which remained. Similar houses existed at that time in today’s Westphalia and the Netherlands. Small rectangular structures of pillars indicate that there might have been storehouses which belonged to the residential houses.
At the time of the Varus Battle, at the beginning of the 1st century AD, the Germanic tribes lived in the region between the rivers Elbe and Weser in loose village-like settlements. These consisted of dispersed, single farmsteads. They were a lot different to today’s densely built-up villages.
A Germanic farmstead was composed of a rectangular residential house, as mentioned above, where humans and animals lived in separated areas. In addition to this, there were various storehouses and adjoining buildings. The arable farm land, the areas used for animal litter and wintertime forage, and the woodland used both as a close and night-time pasture were situated nearby. During the day, the cattle would graze further away at the edge of the forest.
