Ancient-ish Dutch Sawmill

I think my first direct interaction with Chris Schwarz was in response to his invitation to speak at Woodworking in America near Chicago ten years ago.  The topic he asked me to present was on the transition from strictly hand powered craftsmanship to machine power in woodworking,  One of the things that gave him the most satisfaction/validation was that the primary source history pushed the use of machinery for wood processing much farther back than many in the audience had previously considered.

In that vein I was delighted to stumble across this video recently, showing a reconstructed Dutch wind-powered sawmill that is in service now.  The technology, however, goes back several centuries, I believe the crankshaft technology is from the late 1500s.  This commercial sawmill is a replica of one from the mid 1600s.  It is certain that much older water-powered up-and-down sawmills existed, maybe even several centuries earlier.