Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.1998, Page 119

Gavin Lucas
PREHISTORY AT HOFSTAÐIR:
An Introduction to the 1996-1997 Excavations
The following papers deal with various
aspects of the 1996 and 1997 exca-
vation seasons at Hofstaðir, a site
located within the valley of the Laxá
river in Mývatnssveit, north-eastern
Iceland (Grid Ref. 461488/568107).
The background to the project is
detailed in other papers in this
volume, but an earlier summary in
English can be found in Norwegian
Archaeological Review 30:2 (1997). In
brief, the site consists of a longhouse
or hall (skáli) with subsidiary struc-
tures visible as upstanding remains
and dates to between the 9th and 11 th
centuries. The 1996-7 seasons have
focused solely on these subsidiary
structures, the most significant of
which, so far, has been a sunken floor-
ed building which was previously
interpreted as a rubbish or cooking
pit. The primary factor which dis-
tinguishes the work carried out here
from earlier investigations in 1992 and
1995 by the Institute was the shift in
strategy from re-opening and cleaning
up the old 1908/1965 trenches to
excavating previously undisturbed
deposits by either Bruun or Olsen.
This involved breaking new ground -
in more than one sense — for not only
were new areas investigated, but
techniques new to Iceland were
employed, some of which are described
in the following papers. It is worth
briefly putting these papers in context
and summarising the techniques used
at the site so that their full signifl-
cance can be appreciated.
Field Methodology
In order to gain the fullest possible
understanding of the surviving
archaeological deposits, single context
planning was adopted. This method
was developed on urban sites in Brit-
ain in the 1970s and has since spread
to become an internationally-recogn-
ised recording system, its primary
advantage being control over complex
stratigraphies, both in the field and in
post-excavation work (Spence 1991).
The Institute has adopted this method
and uses single-context plans and pro
forma recording sheets and has recent-
ly issued a field manual detailing the
approach, explicitly geared to the
Icelandic context. All artefacts are
recovered and located in three dimen-
sions (using a Total Station Theodo-
lite), with bone samples separately
bagged and indexed. Environmental
samples are retrieved under the guid-
Archaeologia Islandica 1 (1998) 119-122