Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 65

Note on Organic Content of Turf Walls in Skagafjörður, Iceland
structures can be completely buried, with
little sign of their existence on the ground
surface. If leaching causes a substantial
reduction in organic content (e.g.,
Kortelainen and Saukkonen 1998) of a
particular class of structures (e.g., small
and very early farmsteads) then the iden-
tification of these structures using any
type of remote sensing could be impossi-
ble or at least biased.
On the other hand, it may be that some
proportion of the organic content of turf
walls are consistently preserved. If that
is true, then measurements of the organic
content of buried turf walls may yield
information on a number of different
issues ranging from dating to economic
wherewithal. Unfortunately, the data
collected and processed so far only hints
at some of the possible applications of
measures of the organic content of turf
walls.
If eluviation causes slow and regular
leaching of the organic content of buried
turf walls then the organic content may
correlate positively with the age of the
turf structure. That is, organic content
could vary with age because once
removed from their aseptic environment,
the organic content of turfs will begin to
reduce. Under this scenario, lower
organic content would indicate an older
wall. Conversely, if organic content does
not leach very rapidly and the bog where
the turf is removed receives ever-increas-
ing inorganic content from highland ero-
sion (e.g., Guðbergsson 1996), then
organic content may be inversely corre-
lated with age. That would mean that the
earliest walls would have very high
organic contents because they were built
with turf that had not yet received inor-
ganic matter from the human induced
erosion associated with the settlement.
Organic content could also indicate
the quality of the building or be a proxy
for the wealth of the builders. While
bogs are ubiquitous in Iceland, it may be
that good turf is scarce. Turf cutting and
house building are a labor intensive
activities best done during the summer,
when that activity would compete with
the grass harvest. It may be that the bet-
ter the turf, the less often it needs to be
replaced or repaired. Using the sturdiest,
warmest turf would increase the overall
efficiency of a farmstead. It could be that
only the wealthy could obtain the best
turf. If good turf is only somewhat
scarce, then it may be that only the most
important buildings were constructed out
of the best turf. Therefore, depending on
the relative abundance of good turf,
organic content may be positively corre-
lated with wealth.
Organic content could also become
more variable with structure occupation
length. Turf houses that are occupied for
a long time (several generations) are usu-
ally rebuilt piecemeal over the life of the
house. If the organic content of bogs
varies from year to year or from bog to
bog, then the overall variation in organic
content within a single structure could
yield some relative measure of the length
of time a structure was used or the num-
ber of times it was rebuilt.
Finally, and least desirable, the organ-
ic content of turf in buried archaeological
contexts could be so complex or could be
so sensitive to local environmental dif-
ferences that measurements of organic
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