History

Imported by the Vikings from east
The "lafte" technique was known in Norway during the Viking era. Archeological evidence of the use of this technique was found inside the gravechamber of one of the Viking ships in Norway dated to 901 AD. Several houses in Trondheim that were built with this technique were found by archeologists and dated to 1050-1100 AD. These findings indicated that that the technique could not be new, but that it had gone through several stages of development.
The use of the technique dominated in the eastern part of Norway, it was in this region the perfect building material - the long and straight pine and spruce forest - was located. From the beginning of the tenth century, no other house building technique was present in this region.

In the Russian town Novgorod 500 houses built with this technique were found, and these findings have been dated to 950 AD. The technique was spread from Russia in several directions, and in the 10th century, the house building technique dominated in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Russia and the Baltic States. Pieces of houses found in Germany and Switzerland have been made with a similar technique and these were almost 2000 years older than the findings in Russia, but these pieces indicated that the technique was not developed very far.