Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1980, Page 110

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ÁRBÓK FORNLEIFAFÉLAGSINS
tion of Hekla in 1104 (Þórarinsson, 1950). Sigurður Þórarinsson realised the
potential of such ash and pumice falls for the correlation of strata, a study
which he named tephrochronology. This research has been extended
throughout Iceland (Þórarinsson, 1944; 1970) and it has recently been expand-
ed in southern Iceland by Guðrún Larsen (1979). It is sometimes possible to
use the tephra horizons to relate archaeological sites to their contemporary
natural environments. At two sites, Stöng and Skallakot, soil samples were
taken from above and below an ash layer, known to have been deposited
about the time of the Landnám. Both sites show a marked decrease in the
pollen of Betula (birki) and an increase in the amount of grass pollen over the
settlement horizon; increases in several herbaceous plants are also evident and
Artemisia (malurt) and probably Myrica (mjaðarlyng), plants not native to
Iceland, occur (Þórarinsson, 1944). With his characteristic polymathic ap-
proach, Þórarinsson also included historical and place-name evidence for
cereal cultivation to support the palynological data from Þjórsárdalur in his
seminal work of 1944. The actual remains of cereals have been examined by
Sturla Friðriksson (1959; 1960) in the form of charred grain from Bergþórs-
hvoll, in Vesturlandeyjar, probably of eleventh century date, and from Gröf,
in Öræfi, destroyed by the eruption of 1362; both samples are of rather small
Hordeum (bygg).