Household air pollution from wood burning in two reconstructed houses from the Danish Viking Age

Abstract

During 13 winter weeks, an experimental archeology project was undertaken in two Danish reconstructed Viking Age houses with indoor open fireplaces. Volunteers inhabited the houses under living conditions similar to those of the Viking Age, including cooking and heating by wood fire. Carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM2.5 ) were measured at varying distances to the fireplace. Near the fireplaces CO (mean) was 16 ppm. PM2.5 (mean) was 3.40 mg/m(3) , however, measured in one house only. The CO:PM mass ratio was found to increase from 6.4 to 22 when increasing the distance to the fire. Two persons carried CO sensors. Average personal exposure was 6.9 ppm, and from this, a personal PM2.5 exposure of 0.41 mg/m(3) was estimated. The levels found here were higher than reported from modern studies conducted in dwellings using biomass for cooking and heating. While this may be due to the Viking house design, the volunteer's lack of training in attending a fire maybe also played a role. Even so, when comparing to today's issues arising from the use of open fires, it must be assumed that also during the Viking Age, the exposure to woodsmoke was a contributing factor to health problems.

Biomarkers of oxidative stress and inflammation after wood smoke exposure in a reconstructed Viking Age house

“…The subjects were staying in a reconstructed Viking Age house for 1 week. The present investigation was embedded in a 15‐weeks indoor environment study with focus on the living conditions and health issues of the Vikings in a historical and archaeological perspective [Christensen, ]. We have not considered the Viking Age food healthier than the recommended diet today.…”

Humans and fire: Changing relations in early agricultural and built environments in the Zagros, Iran, Iraq

“…These fire installations, thereby, by their durable nature, provided enduring facilities as well as tangible representations of key social concepts, roles and relations that enabled these to be returned to and passed on, affording social as well as economic stability and continuity (Bloch, 2010) in communal gatherings and within individual households as well as during flexible fission and fusion of social groupings as observed more widely in the Neolithic (Roberts and Rosen, 2009; Wengrow and Graeber, 2015) and ethnographically (Arshi and Kasraian, 1994/2001; Watson, 1979). Fire also impacted on health as attested in a range of built environments (Christensen and Ryhl-Svendsen, 2015; Scott and Damblon, 2010), accumulating on walls as repeated layers of soot at Shimshara in the Zagros, as also observed at Çatalhöyük (Figure 6; W Matthews, 2005a and 2005b).…”

“…Use of fires, hearths and ovens within buildings is also likely to have had an impact on human health as fire heat, smoke and particulates are a health hazard affecting respiratory tract and eyes and tissues (Christensen and Ryhl-Svendsen, 2015;Scott and Damblon, 2010). That smoke did affect interior spaces is attested by the accumulation of soot on multiple layers of whitewash on wall plaster fragments from Shimshara, 9th millennium BP ( Figure 6; W Matthews, in prep).…”

“…They also benefitted from forensic (Harrison, 2013) and IR investigations (Forget et al, 2015). The environmental and health aspects of fire in archaeology have been investigated by drawing on research in medical and pathological sciences, the built environment and experiment (Christensen and Rhyl-Svensden, 2015). Select examples of how these can be investigated in the Zagros are examined in the final section of the case studies (section ‘Fire as destructive force’).…”