Bankoff and Winter are not the only researchers who committed arson in the name of science. In 2018, a team of Ukrainian and British archeologists burned down not one but two historically accurate structures.
Still, the results were nearly identical. The walls of both buildings were left intact, as were various clay pots and figurines the researchers had placed inside them. What’s more, neither fire managed to spread, indicating that the practice was safe and controllable.
The structures have thick kiln like clay walls .. large amounts of additional fuels was required to burn the wooden walls, roof and thatching out and still the burn was contained by thick two storey high clay walls.
There's no real suggestion that all the houses were all burned all at the same time, just that all the houses were regularly burnt out, with suggested reasons:
* burning houses of dead people,
* burning to strengthen clay walls
I looked for and didn't see "burning to clear out bugs and nasties in thatchwork | organic woven walls, etc".
Once a generation "maintainance" isn't a bad theory - drop the roof, replaster the walls with wet clay pushed into cracks and washout sections, new walls for new rooms, etc. and then torch to cleanse and 'fire' the clay.
Yeah, but cutting down 250 trees and making them into firewood, without chainsaws or other modern tools seems like a lot of work (actually an insane amount of work bordering on unbelievable) just for maintenance. Even with a chainsaw, doing it to one tree is very labor intensive. That is time they are not planting/harvesting/hunting. Instead they would be burning massive amounts of calories over a very extended period of time. Though, I suppose I’m making assumption about how big the trees were. I’m assuming these are old growth forests with tall and wide trees.
There's no real suggestion that all the houses were all burned all at the same time, just that all the houses were regularly burnt out, with suggested reasons:
* burning houses of dead people,
* burning to strengthen clay walls
I looked for and didn't see "burning to clear out bugs and nasties in thatchwork | organic woven walls, etc".
Once a generation "maintainance" isn't a bad theory - drop the roof, replaster the walls with wet clay pushed into cracks and washout sections, new walls for new rooms, etc. and then torch to cleanse and 'fire' the clay.