Archaeologists may have discovered Denmark's oldest toilet.

A Viking settlement excavation in Stevns, Denmark has unearthed an unexpected discovery: a latrine dating back 1000 years. This toilet may be the oldest in Denmark, according to reports from ScienceNordic (via Real Clear Science), and it could change our understanding of Viking hygiene.

Researchers from the Museum Southeast Denmark were originally looking for pit houses (partly buried buildings that may have functioned as workshops) when they stumbled upon a long-forgotten waste deposit in a 6.5-foot-deep pit. Samples from the pit's bottom layer contained fly pupae and mineralized seeds, indicative of the phosphate-rich, low-oxygen environment typical of a large pile of waste. Pollen analysis suggests the excrement belonged to a person who consumed honey, likely a human.

Here is what the site looked like before lead researcher Anna S. Beck and her team began their excavation.

While Viking cities may have required toilets to manage the large amounts of waste in dense areas, scholars once believed that rural areas didn’t need formal toilets. Instead, people likely disposed of waste in general refuse piles or relieved themselves in stables among the livestock. However, this pit seems to have been surrounded by two posts that might have supported poles, suggesting it could have had some kind of enclosed structure above it. Based on the charred material found near the pit’s top, it seems that structure may have burned down.

This discovery could challenge that idea, although not all experts agree, according to ScienceNordic. Just because this area had a toilet doesn’t mean that all rural farmers had one—someone in Stevns might have simply been ahead of the curve with new technology. Still, this finding suggests that at least one group of rural Vikings opted for a separate toilet instead of using the stable.

"It’s easy to view people from the past as less advanced than us," Beck told Mytour in an email, "but items like combs, needles, tweezers—and now toilets—demonstrate that Vikings took great care with personal grooming and perhaps hygiene (though not in the way we think of it today)."

And if outhouses like this were actually common in rural Viking life, archaeologists may have simply missed them before, assuming they didn’t exist. This new discovery could pave the way for further research into the bathroom habits of Denmark's rural Viking populations.