House of Questions
Delphi House of Questions was an EU Culture 2000 project by three EXARC members. Under this umbrella, other EXARC members as well collected and answered the most frequently asked questions by visitors to archaeological open-air museums. The largest part of this collection of questions you can find here – as many of them still carry importance. In most cases we offer the questions both in the original language and in English. With several questions you will find illustrations by Savannah Parent.
What did the people of the lake fortress look like (LV)?
Anthropological and demographic studies give us an idea of the physical characteristics of the ancient Latgallians in the Early Middle Ages. Latgallian men living in the 7th–13th century had an average stature of...
In the Late Middle Ages in the Netherlands, were houses only for sale or could one as well rent a house (NL)?
There are limited numbers or other facts from before 1900. What is clear is that renting or tenancy of land and house found its origin in the Middle Ages, or even before that. The population was by far oriented on the agrarian way...
People back then were not that stupid after all … (CH)
No, why should they! The modern human (Homo sapiens sapiens) is around for about 37,000 years. Ever since, people have the same appearance and the same development of the brain as we do...
How do you see the difference between an old and a new object (CH)?
There are numerous copied artefacts. It is quite well possible to copy prehistoric objects. For a layman it is especially in the case of flint objects difficult to see the difference between a copy and an original. Archaeologists however can generally speaking discern such "fakes"...
Did people in prehistory already keep animals (NL)?
In the Old and Middle Stone Age (in the Netherlands about 250.000 - 7.300 years ago) the people were hunters & gatherers. They hunted for wild animals, but did not keep them themselves...
Which types of animals did people keep in the Iron Age (SE)?
The Iron Age agricultural structure was more based on animal husbandry than the growing of crops. The Iron Age farmers of what was to become Sweden kept several types of animals. The two most important ones were cows and sheep...
What is the use of a division in Old, Middle and Young Stone Age (CH)?
Stone Age takes from 130,000 until 4,200 years before present, or no less then a huge period of 125,800 years. To understand this period better, archaeologists have tried to divide it into different phases, using certain criteria...
How many children did people get in prehistory (NL)?
We do not know exactly how large prehistoric families were because archaeological finds cannot tell us much about this. Research to present today hunters / gatherers reveal, the generally speaking, have small families...
Didn't people in prehistory already have names (CH)?
Until in the Late Iron Age (3rd century BC), people did not use writing. In general, therefore, we are dealing with an alphabetic culture, so we do not have any names form this time...
When were the Middle Ages in Scandinavia (DK)?
In Denmark, the Middle Ages began roughly at the death of king Knut the Holy in 1086, and lasted until the reformation in 1536. In most of continental Europe...