I tend to think the chief's hall is also unlikely to be divided into cattle byre and living quarters - he probably has a seperate byre.
On a quick reread of TR it does give quite a lot on longhouses: it does say that : wood is the main building material in the lowlands, with turf, stone, and wattle and daub in the highlands. So those turf covered steads would probably be upland ones.
There is information about the stead being aligned a north-south axis with shrines at either end. That might tempt us towards having doors on a long east-west axis (on the west for the chief's hall).
Ian
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