Project Details: The Siglunes Project: Long-term Investigations of Marine Economy in Eyjafjörður

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Project Description

Title:	The Siglunes Project: Long-term Investigations of Marine Economy in Eyjafjörður
Description	The Siglunes site is characterized by a series of coastal remains associated with fishing-related activities on the peninsula itself, and an enormous farm mound and connected in-, and outfield complex on the mainland. Although heavily impacted by coastal erosion, the fisheries portion of the site offers a most unusual opportunity to consider the development of commercial fishery in its local environmental and cultural context, thanks to a well stratified archaeofaunal record that gives insights into the Atlantic marine ecosystem before the ‘great whale massacre’ and through the major climatic shifts of the MCA-LIA. The stratified deposits at Siglunes have excellent organic preservation, and preliminary work in 2011-2013 recovered significant amounts of well-preserved mammal, fish, and bird bone. The Siglunes faunal and structural deposits are dated by AMS radiocarbon, volcanic tephra, artifacts, and documentary sources to span the 9th to early 20th centuries AD and represent a major archive not only for archaeology, zooarchaeology and environmental history, but for fisheries biologists and marine mammal conservation science. Siglunes research is ongoing and hopes to not only provide further investigation of the fishery portion of the site, but also the long-term farming activities. Recent analysis of the recovered archaeofauna from targeted midden areas has already provided valuable insight into the Viking Age to Late Medieval Marine Resource Exploitation and potential local and regional subsistence and exchange strategies.
Keywords:	Iceland terrestrial & marine resources long-term occupation subsistence vs. commercial fisheries
Sponsors/Funders	NABO, NSF, Fornminjasjóður
Country	Iceland
Region	Eyjafjörður, Siglufjörður, Siglunes Peninsula
Project Start Year	2011
Project End Year	Ongoing

Project Contact

Contact:	Ramona Harrison
Address	Øysteinsgate 3, 5020 Bergen
Postcode	5020
Email	Ramona.Harrison@uib.no

Project Content

	Fornleifaskráning í Hvanneyrarhreppi II: Minjar í Siglufirði (sunnan Siglufjarðarbæjar og austan fjarðar), Héðinsfirði og Hvanndölum Ritstjóri: Birna Survey report by Birna Lárusdóttir (edt.)2008. Information on the Hvanneyrarhreppur archaeological remains, including a thorough survey of the Siglunes ruins.
	Siglunes Field Report 2011 Report on the initial excavation season, listing all the ruins and providing profile drawings, matrices, and information on erosion stage of the various structures related to Viking Age and later fishing activities. This report also provides assessment of the structural, archaeofaunal, and artefactual remains. Tephra assessment by M. Sigurgeirsson included.
	Siglunes_preliminary_zooarch_report This is a faunal report by Ramona Harrison, providing preliminary results from the 2011-13 rescue excavations at Siglunes.
	Fornleifar við Siglunes Úttekt by Þór Hjaltalín and Sólborg Una Pálsdóttir This is a report provided by the Icelandic Heritage Agency, Minjastofnun Íslands (formerly Fornleifavernd ríkisins), written by Þór Hjaltalín and Sólborg Una Pálsdóttir. The site background, information on structural remains, and erosion phases observed over several decades are presented here.
	Siglunes blog 2012 Information on the 2012 Siglunes field season.
	Siglunes blog 2011 Background on the Siglunes Project

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