Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Side 49

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF THE MEDIEVAL ICELANDIC FARM: THE ByRE
Fig. 13: Plan of the farm at Sámsstaðir. After Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, 1972.
traces of postholes. The other room was
the barn. It measured 14 x 5 m and no
traces of internal architecture could be
detected. Strangely enough a hearth was
found in the middle of the barn, indicat-
ing that the room had had several phases
of use. The excavator suggested that the
room had been used as a dwelling during
the construction of the other longhouses
and was maybe not a barn at all.
On top of one of the longhouses a small-
er building had been erected. It had three
distinct floor layers, all fatty with grass
remains embedded in them. This led to
the interpretation of the structure as a
barn. It meaured 9,9 x 3,8 m but the
north end was indistinct. In the earliest
floor layer a row of irregularly placed
slabs and stones had been placed along
the middle of the southern part of the
building. The excavator considered them
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