How Many Bone Pins Is a Lot? Material Assemblages at Kotið, a Small Viking Age Dwelling in Iceland

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Small Dwellings on the Viking Frontier: New Research from Kotið, North Iceland" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Icelandic Viking Age archaeological assemblages are notorious for their paucity and limited range of material types. Kotið, a small dwelling dating to the original Viking Age settlement of Iceland, is no exception. In two seasons of excavation, only a handful of artifacts have been recovered; however, three bone pins have been found, and several others have turned up at neighboring small dwelling sites. The abundance of bone pins is unexpected, as most Viking Age domestic sites from Iceland, including large and wealthy farms, have at most one or two. The pins are decorated in a variety of styles and show evidence of skilled production. This poster describes the designs and manufacture of the pins and explores the possible meaning of their relative abundance at Kotið and the neighboring small dwelling sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Small Dwellings on the Viking Frontier: New Research from Kotið, North Iceland   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39508.0