When archaeologists broke ground near St. Alban's Church in Odense, Denmark in 2017, they expected to find medieval artifacts. What they didn't expect was that those artifacts would assault their noses with a centuries-old stench.

The team unearthed wooden barrels filled with human waste from the 1300s - and somehow, impossibly, they still reeked.

Why Does 700-Year-Old Poop Still Smell?

The preservation comes down to chemistry and luck. These weren't just random deposits - they were cesspits, medieval waste management systems where human excrement was collected in wooden barrels or pits.

The anaerobic conditions (lack of oxygen) in the waterlogged soil created a perfect time capsule. Without oxygen, the bacteria that normally break down organic matter couldn't do their job. The waste effectively pickled itself in its own juices.

The volatile compounds that create the smell - sulfur-based molecules, ammonia, and organic acids - remained chemically stable in this environment. When archaeologists opened the barrels and exposed them to air, those molecules were still active enough to trigger the same olfactory response they would have in 1300.

A Window Into Medieval Life

For archaeologists, these smelly barrels are treasure troves. Medieval cesspits reveal:

Diet and nutrition patterns (seeds, bone fragments, plant matter)
Parasitic infections and health conditions
Economic status (expensive foods vs. subsistence diets)
Seasonal eating habits

The Odense discovery included well-preserved organic material that helped researchers understand what medieval Danes ate, what diseases they carried, and how they managed waste in densely populated urban areas.

Medieval Sanitation Wasn't All Bad

While we think of the Middle Ages as filthy, many towns had organized waste collection systems. In Odense, barrels were periodically emptied and the contents sold to farmers as fertilizer - a early recycling economy.

The wooden barrels themselves were valuable, so they were reused multiple times. The ones discovered in Denmark had likely been in service for years before being abandoned or lost in the cesspit.

So yes, medieval poop still smells. And thanks to the dedication of archaeologists willing to endure that smell, we know more about medieval Denmark than ever before. Some say archaeology is glamorous - those people have never opened a 700-year-old barrel of excrement.

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