Hrísheimar 2005 Interim Report

The excavations at Hrísheimar have now been in progress for five years (2000-05) and this report presents the preliminary results of the 2005 season. The site area is at the edge of the active erosion front in this part of Mývatnssveit, and clearly much of the original land surface and archaeological deposits have been destroyed completely by wind erosion. However the site has proven to be surprisingly productive and continued investigations have opened up some unexpected new perspectives on Settlement Age economy and settlement. The site area has produced many surface finds over the years, including many Viking age beads and (in 2003) a copper/bronze sword chape (Edvardsson R. et al. 2003). In 2003 Adolf Fridriksson successfully recovered a domestic dog bone from a plundered pre-christian grave on the ridgeline NE of the main ruin. The dog bone produced a Viking Age radiocarbon date (with allowance for a partial marine reservoir effect; Fridriksson & McGovern 2004). A set of consistent radiocarbon dates and volcanic tephra now indicate settlement from shortly after the fall of the Landnám ash (AD 871+/-2) to the end of the 11th century (discussion below). Ongoing research thus indicates both that Hrísheimar was once a rather prosperous farm, perhaps somewhere in status between the contemporary households at Sveigakot and Hofstaðir nearby, and that it was occupied for only during the first 200 years of settlement.

Hrísheimar Iceland Mývatnssveit

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