Will, the English and early Americans certainly used scribe technique as well, yet it seems they still brought the timbers up higher when they were cutting the joinery.
Also, the Germans were the least inclined of all to use gigantic timbers, yet they seem to have kept their timbers as low as anyone, and in many cases still do.
It seems to me that in many cases traditionally the joinery is not cut on the scribe floor, but the framework is all scribed and the timbers taken to another place to be cut, which allows for continuous scribing and cutting, i.e. efficient division of labor.
