So what is our real origin anyway?

Just about every book on the subject of timber framing likes to try and dabble in where our craft started, and most seem to work from the same conclusion. It seems to be widely accepted that our European timber framing evolved over a few centuries from primitive earth-bound post construction gradually over time giving rise to the proper braced frame.

Only problem is, that doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense in a lot of cases.

I've learned in my studies that a lot of the assumptions we have made as to our origins are false -even right down to our ethnic makeup. As Swiss, for example, I have very little Germanic blood in me at all. As southern Bernese particularly, it seems I might not even have that much Indo European blood really.

The same goes for our buildings. For centuries, since the Middle Ages in fact, we've just assumed our timber frames came from Alemannic sources. Now we've found out things are different, they have found timber frames of the same profile as our Medieval ones from much earlier, like 3000 years earlier than they should have. We're talking 2500 BC. Seems the Alemanni stole the style from those who lived here before, and did a fairly good job of spreading it out wherever they happened to go. But that's really ground breaking to think we have a sophisticated timber framing tradition going back over 4000 years, maybe further. It makes you wonder, where DID this all come from.

See we've got this problem with the Germanic model. The things is, the Scandinavians are originally log builders, not timber framers or post builders. But for some reason when the Germanic tribes migrated throughout the continent, they just switched to rudimentary framing practice.

The reason, I think, is not that they didn't know anything about building -they knew a great deal in fact- but really that they weren't building permanent structures. They weren't good at farming, and they would migrate every 60 years or so (I forget the exact time off the top of my head) they had a rapidly growing population and wouldn't figure out sustainable agriculture for a few centuries.

But once they did settle down, they needed to figure things out again. So all of the sudden at a point in the middle of the Middle Ages, timber framing explodes all across Europe in those places that had been overtaken by the Germans during the centuries before...