Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1961, Blaðsíða 42

46
ÁRBÓK FORNLEIFAFÉLAGSINS
Stöng we see that tlie dwelling consisted of the same four kinds of houses,
grouped in the same way. The main houses are huilt end to end with the
smaller houses lying at right angles behind them. This is the socalled Þjórs-
árdalur type, also known froin the excavation of the farm Þórarinsstaðir
(cf. Árbók 1943—48, p. 1 ff.). The byre was of the familiar mediaeval shape.
Below the floor of the living-room there was a floor from an earlier
building. It seems to liave been a single small house with a hearth at the
south wall. During the excavation many traces of primitive iron extracting
were noticed, some of them clearly lying under the walls of the farm. Every-
thing considered it seems a reasonable theory that originally this was an
iron extracting place from one of tlie bigger Þjórsárdalur farms and the
small house was inhabited by tlie workers during the extracting season.
Later one of them settled parmanently on the spot, took up regular farming
and built tlie farm. But certain tliings show that the farm was not inhabited
long and it was not rebuilt. The farm was deserted before Stöng, not because
of any catastrophic natural events hut in all probability because the place
did not prove suitable for farming. Probably the settler himself was the
only farmer on the spot.
The study of the ash layers was important as it supported the already
mentioned redating of tlie white ash layer, which devastated most of the
farms. In tlie Gjáskógar ruins all the floors were covered by a 10—15 cm
thick layer of soil accumulated by wind, but above the layer was the
well-known white ash layer of a tliickness of about 70 cm. This means that
the farm was abandoned and tlie ruins had stood open for a considerable
time, maybe 50 years, when tlie wliite ash fell. Ahove tlie wliite layer there
were about 20 cm of wind-accumulated soil, but then there was a 10 cm
thick layer of pure greyisli-black tephra not formerly recognized as mark-
ing a certain eruption but now identified by tephrochronological studies
carried out by Tliorarinsson as the tcphra from the 1300-eruption of Hekla.
This being establislied there was no obstacle against tlie white pumice
being result of Hekla’s eruption in 1104 A.D., as a devastation of Þjórsár-
dalur in 1104 is also in tolerably good agreement witli Lárusson’s and
Steffensen’s views.
That means tliat Stöng and most other Þjórsárdalur farms were aban-
doned tliat year or about two centuries earlier than previously thouglit. They
are characteristic for the huilding customs of the llth century, not tlie 13th.
As for the Gjáskógur farm it seems likely that it was built in the second
quarter of the century sinc.e it was abandoned long before the devastation
of Stöng in 1104.
Thorarinsson touches liglitly upon the revision of his chronology in
Laxárgljúfur and Laxárhraun, Geogr. Ann. Stockli. 1951, pp. 7—8; The
Eruption of Hekla 1947—48 (Reykjavík 1954), II, 3, pp. 39—40 (the Gjá-
skógar ruins referred to as ,,Hólar“) and On tlie Geology and Geomorpho-
logy of Iceland, Geogr. Ann. Stock. 1959, p. 153, but a thorough report on
this important revision of his chronology will be published later.