Iceland (Other Keyword)
851-862 (862 Records)
Worked bone
SKU13-181 (2014)
Metal object
SKU13-182 (2014)
Clench bolt
SKU13-185 (2014)
Rove and Clench bolt?
Skuggi and Siglunes: Two Icelandic Settlement Sites (2017)
This paper presents results from multidisciplinary investigations at two Icelandic sites from the same region: Skuggi and Siglunes. The small subsidiary farm at Skuggi was likely settled during the earliest stages of Icelandic colonization and was located on a steep mountain slope, about 150 m above the valley bottom. Ideas on its occupation history and causes of abandonment will be discussed, as well as the possibility that the decision to abandon the settlement was heavily influenced by...
Skútustaðir artifact data (2014)
Excel spreadsheet with artifact data from Skútustaðir excavations from 2008 to 2013.
Skútustaðir Artifacts
Spreadsheet and images of Skutustadir artifacts
Strange Tastes and Disgusting Smells: Experiences of German Merchants and Sailors in 16th-Century Iceland (2018)
Each summer during the 16th century, a substantial amount of German merchants and sailors came to Iceland in need of dried fish (stockfish), sulphur and other commodities. They encountered a country, landscape, foodstuffs, customs and people very different from their homes. The experience of risky voyages, being penned on ships with (dead and live) animals, added to the profound sensory impact that came upon them. The paper tries to come towards a synthaesia of what the Germans experienced in...
Transforming Marginality in Medieval Iceland: Landscape Reorganization on Hegranes, Skagafjörður (2018)
Eleventh century Iceland was a period of transition. The settlement of the island two centuries earlier set off cascading environmental and landscape changes whose agricultural consequences were then evident, including deforestation, erosion, and wetland alteration. Meanwhile, the rise of a wealthy landowning class altered the economic basis of society from primarily household production towards more centralized structures of rent extraction and tenancy. On Hegranes, a region in Skagafjörður,...
The Variable Resilience of Large and Small Holdings on the Svalbard Estate, NE Iceland: A Multidisciplinary Study of Farm Abandonments Circa AD 1300 (2018)
Recent studies have identified an important reorganization of the Svalbarð estate, north-east Iceland around AD 1300. The initial coastal-focused settlement of the region was followed by the founding of new farms in the deep interior. Most were not sustained and some farm sites on the coast were also reduced. Initially, the magnate’s farm of Svalbarð had a herding economy supplemented by fishing while Hjálmarsvík, its coastal neighbor, exploited a diversity of marine resources. Around AD 1300...
The Viking Age Settlement of Iceland: The Change from Migrant Society to Settled Society (2018)
The rapid settlement of Iceland has a distinct beginning, but defining the end of the settlement turns out to be difficult. While there are anecdotal stories of earlier settlers, the beginning of large-scale migration to Iceland seems to happen in about AD 870, at the start of Harald Fairhair’s reign, and the time of a distinct volcanic ash layer. The landnám, or land-grab is an important template for our understanding of movements into new landscapes, from the Neolithic Revolution, to the...
Zooarchaeology of Marginality: An Investigation of Site Abandonment in Hegranes, North Iceland (2018)
The settlement of Iceland, a previously uninhabited landscape, began a series of human-induced environmental changes that have had lasting effects on not just the land but on social organization as well. As land claims were made for household farms, hierarchy developed and some were pushed to settle on the margins. In Hegranes, a region in Skagafjörður, northern Iceland, the sites that are on the margins are often much smaller than the others and may not have been farms at all but rather...