Akurvik

Part of: Iceland

In the summer of 1990, an international team carried out survey, excavation, and paleoenvironmental research in Árneshreppur, Strandasysla, NW Iceland. Two small scale excavations were carried out on nearby sites located at the end of the peninsula between Reykjarfjorður and Norðurfjorur. One excavation centered on the deeply stratified midden associated with the farm mound at Gjögur. The other excavation attempted to recover information from the site of Akurvík approximately 3 km to the NW (arrow in figure 1). The Akurvík site had been exposed and badly damaged by marine erosion, and a substantial portion of the site may have been affected by the cultivation of potato fields on part of the small embayment. Small sod structures and dense concentrations of fish bones had been observed in 1987 near an active erosion face in the NW corner of the small bay during a preliminary survey, and small collections of bones had been recovered from the erosion face.