Fróðskaparrit

						/ UPPISTOVUBEITINUM. SITE AND SETTLEMENT

35

Fig. 7. Wooden rake made ofbirch, the raketeeth ofpine

Partur av rívu úr bjørkaviði við tindum úr furu

small with perforations for suspension, oth-

ers in the form of raw material.

The interesting aspect is, that we are in

posession of a fair amount of imported pot-

tery which is quite unusual. Preliminary in-

vestigations point to Northern Europe as

the source: Andenne and Paffrath3.

The preservation conditions for wood

and timber are optimal, and the amount of

wooden objects found numerous4. Al-

though the islands themselves have been

treeless in all the time they have been in-

habited, the tradition of using timber for

construction survived the Landnam. Thus a

certain amount of building timber was

found at í Uppistovibeitinum, timber often

put to a secondary use - i.e. in floor con-

structions.

We have also found numerous wooden

domestic utensils, such as a dish turned of

alder, bowls of alder and oak, staves and

bottoms  of coopered  vessels  of various

sizes, mostly made of pine, as well as imple-

ments, such as a fíne example of part of a

rake with attached wedged raketeeth. The

cross piece is made of birch, the raketeeth of

pine, fig. 7. We also have the fragments of

two corner staves pertaining to the tradition-

al Faroese leypur-a portable crate. Further-

more we have found counting sticks made

both of hazel, pine and common spruce or

larch; wooden rivets of various sizes made

of pine, cords of twined juniper branches,

and wooden sausage pegs as well as a num-

ber of as yet unindentifíed objects5.

It is interesting to note that, according to

the preliminary results of the wood analy-

sis, the many implements made of pine

seem to have been imported either in the

form of raw timber or as artefacts together

with the artefacts of deciduous wood. Only

1 out of 90 studied wooden implements,

bore traces of boreholes from shipworms,

pointing to the use of driftwood.