Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1980, Page 118

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ÁRBÓK FORNLEIFAFÉLAGSINS
ly recently and the state of the Stóraborg floors — other samples have provid-
ed a similar picture — should not be regarded as unusual.
Many of the beetles in lceland are only found in association with man and,
whilst some of the Lathridiids (húsvinaættin) and Cryptophagids could move
out into the hayfields during the summer, it is probable that all of these
groups require the artificially warmed environments created in houses, barns
and byres to breed and overwinter successfully. In the fossil record, therefore,
they are good indicators of the proximity of human habitations. Also
associated with man, A. lapponum (taðdýfill) rapidly becomes ubiquitous
after the arrival of domestic animals and can be as much an indicator of the
Landnám as the Landnám ash (Þórarinsson, 1943, Larsen 1978) is, for-
tuitously, in the south and west of the country. The flora includes several
plants which are strongly associated with man-made habitats. These include
Urtica urens (brenninetla), Polygonum aviculare (blóðarfi), Stel/aria media
(haugarfi) and Rhinanthus minor (lokasjóður) but their dates of introduction
must await further study (Steindórsson, 1957). The seeds of one of these
plants, S. media, have been found in deposits of the Landnám period at Holt,
20km west of Stóraborg, and the same deposit also contained several of the
beetles, which are directly associated with man (Leverhulme Research Group,
unpubl. data).
The flora and fauna from Stóraborg provide no indication of a climate in
any way different from that of today. In Britain, the Coleoptera, in par-
ticuiar, have been found to be sensitive indicators of climatic change, even
when resolution becomes difficult because of the effects of man on the land-
scape (Buckland, 1975; 1979; Osborne, 1976). The presence of a beetle,
Hydraena britteni, no longer recorded in Iceland in mediæval deposits in the
bog at Ketilsstaðir, 20km east of Stóraborg, may be an indication of the
climatic deterioration of the early post-mediæval period, conditions becoming
too cold for the beetle, which appears in most samples up to the late fifteenth
century, (Buckland et al., in press). Þórarinsson’s (1961 b) human population
curve should eventually be matched by similar trends from flora and fauna.
Acknowledgements
The research project, of which this paper forms part, has been funded by an
award from the Leverhulme Trust Fund and by grants from the University of
Birmingham. Work in Iceland has been carried out in close cooperation with
the National Museum, under National Research Council permits 1/80 and
48/80. The authors are grateful for the interest and assistance of many scien-
tists in Iceland. In particular, thanks are due to Kristján Eldjárn, Þorleifur
Einarsson, Guðrún Larsen, Þór Magnússon, Erling Ólafsson, Guðmundur