Search Project Results: Iceland

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	Landscapes of Settlement and Change: Long term human ecodynamics in Mývatnssveit
	Skútustaðir Excavation, Mývatnssveit	Skútustaðir is an active farm and hotel center on the south side of Lake Myvatn. It figures in sagas as the home of "Killer Skuta", an early chieftain, and historically was one of two parish church centers in the Myvatn area and has remained one of the most prosperous farms down to modern times. In 2007 Dr. Arni Einarsson of the nearby Myvatn Science Center noticed animal bones and charcoal eroding from previously unsuspected midden deposits south of the present farm dwellings. Follow up work by collaborating FSI and NABO teams (led by Orri Vesteinsson, Agusta Edwald, Tom McGovern, George Hambrecht, Ian Simpson and Astrid Ogilive) in 2007 and 2008 has revealed a deeply stratified set of midden deposits with excellent organic preservation. Test trenches in 2008 have allowed for collection of ecofacts and artefacts datable by a combination of tephra and AMS C14 from first settlement (cultural deposits are directly upon the AD 871+/-2 Landnám tephra) down to the late 19th c. Analysis is still in preliminary stages and a much larger excavation is planned for 2009-10, but initial results suggest some significant changes in economy through time, including a surprisingly substantial amount of seal bones deposited post-1477 (Skútustaðir is about 60 km from the sea).
	Strandasysla Historical Ecology Project 1988-90	This project was a joint collaboration between City University of NY (Tom McGovern) and the National Museum of Iceland (Gudmundur Olafsson) with active collaboration by the Icelandic Natural History Institute (Haukur Johanneson)and the kind support of the people of Arneshreppur in Strandasysla, West Fjords, NW Iceland. The project was an early attempt to connect multiple site investigations (aimed at midden sampling rather than structures)into a landscape-focused investigation of changing human use of terrestrial and marine resources. The project involved site survey and location, and the excavation of midden deposits at the sites of Finnbogastadir (early modern deposits sampled), Gjogur (deeply stratified midden extending to early middle ages) and Akurvik (middens and small fishing booth structures dating from mid 13th- late 15th centuries. The region is very rich archaeologically, with generally excellent conditions of organic preservation and very little of the systematic field-flattening that has erased archaeological deposits in other parts of Iceland. Publication of the large Akurvik archaeofauna and the smaller 18th-early 19th c Finnbogastadir archaeofauna is completed and an initial report on the Gjogur materials are available. More work is planned in this region beginning in 2009 (led by Ragnar Edvardsson) and a PhD project (Frank Feeley, CUNY) is planned using the new and 1988-90 archaeofauna. For more information on the old 1988-90 work contact Tom McGovern (nabo@voicenet.com), for information on the new projects contact Ragnar Edvardsson (re@hi.is)
	Finnbogastadir Rescue Excavation 1990	In 1990 construction work around the modern farm house at Finnbogastadir (Arneshreppur, Strandasysla, NW Iceland) hit a stratified midden deposit that produced substantial amounts of well preserved bone and artifacts dating to the 18th to early 19th century. After consultation with the National Museum of Iceland and with the kind permission and active help of the farm family members of the Strandasysla Historical Ecology project worked to recover and document the archaeological deposits disturbed by the construction work. While the farm midden is exceptionally deep and certainly extends further back in time, the 1990 excavations (carried out by then-graduate students Jim Woollett and Sophia Perdikaris) were limited to what was required in this rescue situation, and the materials recovered all seem to relate to the 18th-early 19th c. The Jardabok land survey thus provided closely contemporary historical evidence for the same period, allowing a tentative connection to the two historical households who shared tenantry at Finnbogastadir in the early 18th c. See: Perdikaris, Sophia, Thomas H McGovern, Yekaterina Krivogorskaya, M. Waxman Early Modern Fisher-Farmers at Finnbogastaðir and Gjögur in Northwest Iceland, (2004) R. Gonzales (ed) Presence of the Archaeo- ichthyology in Mexico, ICAZ Fish Remains Working Group 2003, Guadalajara Mexico pp 139-144. Edvardsson, R., Perdikaris, S., McGovern, T. H., Zagor, N. and Waxman, M. (2004) Coping with hard times in North-West Iceland: Zooarchaeology, History, and Landscape Archaeology at Finnbogastaðir in the 18th century’, Archaeologica Islandica 3, 20-48.
	Gjogur Excavations 1990, Strandir	The site of Gjogur is a substantial farm mound now associated with a small boat landing. Gjogur is historically known to be an early settlement, and the deeply stratified midden deposits sampled in 1990 indicate a long period of occupation. The 1990 season saw a cutting back of a profile exposed by a 1920's silage (surhey) pit, which had exposed over 2 m of stratified midden deposit. Note that the 2009 excavation did not reach the lowest layers due to water flooding and the lowest layers have not been sampled. This site would certainly repay more investigation, and additional lab work continues on the remainder of the 1990 archaeofauna. Gjogur appears as a farm heavily engaged in fishing and fish processing.
	Akurvik Excavations 1990, Strandir	The site of Akurvik was discovered by Haukur Johanneson in 1987 when beach erosion exposed a series of midden deposits and what proved to be a series of small turf walled booth structures superposed over an 18 m long erosion face at the small embayment at Akurvik at the tip of a rocky peninsula approximately 3 km NE of the Gjogur farm mound. This site was not recorded historically, and seems to have been long abandoned (perhaps due to ongoing uplift making the landing impractical)by the time of the Jardabok survey. The 1990 Strandasysla Historical Ecology project carried out a rescue excavation, cutting back the erosion face to provide a profile and attempting to stablize the exposed deposits. A very large archaeofauna (made up almost entirely of fish bones) was recovered from two major horizons (associated with successive booth structures) dated by radiocarbon to the early and later Middle Ages respectively. The archaeofauna and a summary of the site is published in: Colin Amundsen , Sophia Perdikaris , Thomas H. McGovern , Yekaterina Krivogorskaya , Matthew Brown , Konrad Smiarowski, Shaye Storm, Salena Modugno, Malgorzata Frik, Monica Koczela (2005) ‘Fishing Booths and Fishing Strategies in Medieval Iceland : an Archaeofauna from the of Akurvík, North-West Iceland’, Environmental Archaeology 10,2 : 141-198.
	Study of local subsistence and trans-Atlantic regional trading economy in medieval Iceland	Goal of this project is to gain a better understanding of the interaction of local subsistence and trans-Atlantic regional trading economy in medieval Iceland by collecting faunal materials and other environmental data from deeply stratified middens associated with archaeological sites in Eyjafjörður in the Northeast of Iceland. The Gásir hinterlands project (GHP) aims at the integration of documentary sources, site-focused environmental archaeology, and an integrative regional landscape approach to better understand economic and environmental relationships of farms within the Eyjafjörður region that played an integral part in the food supply and exchange net connected with activities at the Gásir market place.
	Skuggi	Skuggi is an upland small sized farming site in Hörgárdalur, Eyjafjörður and may have been a tenant farm in the earlier Middle Ages, as part of the Staðartunga landholdings. Staðardunga is assumed to have been connected to the medieval monastery at Möðruvellir, situated within 5 km of the medieval trading site at Gásir. As at Oddstaðir, several beads were found in 2009 and were analyzed by Elín Ó. Hreiðarsdóttir. This report and the finds analysis by Guðrún A. Gísladóttir et al. are part of the 2009 GHP Field Report. The report of the 2008 and 2009 faunal analysis is now available.
	The Operation of International Trade in Iceland and Shetland c. 1400-1700	The project will examine the development, operation and impact of European trade in two areas in the north Atlantic - Iceland and Shetland. In the early 15th century both were part of the Danish kingdom but, with the pledging of Shetland in 1469, it passed to the kingdom of Scotland, and led to the opening of trade to Hanse merchants. The lifting of Danish restrictions on Icelandic trade in 1490 had a similar effect. The period of trade extended in Shetland until ca. 1700, while in Iceland the restriction of trade to licensed Danish vessels in 1602 marks a similar endpoint. By far the largest item of trade from both islands was stockfish which was purchased from local fishermen who operated in small vessels inshore. English fishing vessels worked the offshore waters. Our aim is to examine selected places of trade between merchants from the south and the sub-Arctic populations to elucidate the method of operation of commerce. The objective will be to survey and classify trading sites in Iceland and Shetland during the period ca. 1400-1700. Sites will be identified using historical sources and place-names, and located in the field using the normal archaeological techniques of aerial photography and field inspection of earthworks. The survey will be undertaken using differential GPS to map the sites in relationship to the local topography with the further objective of identifying sites for future investigation by excavation.
	Oddstaðir	The site of Oddstaðir farm ruins nowadays belong to the land owned by Öxnhóll farm, once a church farm. The 2009 Midden excavation yielded well preserved animal bones and was sampled for environmental analyses. Tephra analysis and C14 data may confirm an early medieval occupation and 17th Century abandonment of the site. As at Skuggi, several beads were found in 2009 and were analyzed by Elín Ó. Hreiðarsdóttir. This report is part of the 2009 GHP Field Report. A faunal report will be produced in 2010.