Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Qupperneq 92

Orri Vésteinsson
Sections
When change finally came it came quick-
ly. In 1971 three excavations were start-
ed in Iceland. One was in downtown
Reykjavík directed by Bent Schönbáck
and later Else Nordahl, both veteran
Swedish field archaeologists. One was at
Sámsstaðir in Þjórsárdalur directed by
Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, an Icelandic
archaeologist recently graduated from
Sweden and one at Herjólfsdalur, direct-
ed by an Icelandic archaeology student
from Sweden, Margrét Hermannsdóttir.
In all these excavations a similar method
was applied, copied directly from current
Swedish practice. At all the sites sections
were now employed as the principal
means of stratigraphic control - to all
intents and purposes a new concept in
Icelandic archaeology.
Sections were as such not a complete
novelty in Icelandic archaeology. In
some of the excavations in Þjórsárdalur
in 1939 small baulks or islands were left
standing for the tephrochronologist to
examine (Fig. 5) and in excavations of
the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s short
sections were often drawn or just pho-
tographed. As a rule such sections were
located across narrow corridors or rooms
(Fig. 6), and usually only one or two
were recorded at each site. Their purpose
was limited to recording the relationship
between tephras and the archaeological
deposits but as such they often contained
important evidence for the abandonment
and post-abandonment phases of the sites
in question. At Gröf in the 1950s eleva-
Fig. 6. Section across the passage in Gröf excavated in 1955-57.
From Gestsson 1959, 9.
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