Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 95

ICELANDIC FARMHOUSE EXCAVATIONS: FlELD METHODS AND SITE CHOICES
significant difference is that at Kúabót
the floors were excavated. This resulted
in a much greater number of artefacts and
also in observations about the history of
use of each building. In some cases more
than one floor layer was distinguished
and recorded. This represents an impor-
tant shift in the perceived goal of an
archaeological excavation. Instead of
aiming to reveal a building at its point of
- preferably hasty - abandonment, the
emphasis was now on revealing the
building at its point of construction, thus
including in the excavation the removal
of occupation layers and at least minor
repairs. From a theoretical point of view
this is a significant change. It reflects a
growing realisation among fíeldworkers
that an archaeological site is the result of
complicated developments and not a stat-
ic phenomenon. It is also a more sophis-
ticated approach to the goal of revealing
the building as it really was. For the evo-
lutionary archaeologist it certainly makes
more sense to try to describe the building
as it was originally intended than in its
fmal form, after perhaps decades of wear,
and tear, modifications and repairs.
Reading archaeological reports from
the 1970s and 1980s it is difficult to see
that the sections really did improve the
stratigraphic analysis. Conceptually all
these sites were dug in plan: the plans are
the principal - and most easily compre-
hensible - evidence of what was found,
and it was during the excavations in plan
that the main stratigraphic units - always
whole buildings or building phases -
were defined. The sections - normally
drawn towards the end of the process
when most of the defínitions had already
been made - were a back-up, the real sig-
nificance of which was to give the exca-
vators confidence to proceed through
complicated stratigraphy. The sections
allowed deposits to be removed without
them being fully understood. The section
revealed by the removal would clarify
the matter. Which in a sense is always
true: a section will always tell a story - it
is just not certain if it reflects the story of
the site formation.
The limitations of this approach were
beginning to become visible in the late
1980s. In large scale excavations of sites
with deep stratigraphies like Stóraborg,
Viðey and Bessastaðir excavators were
beginning to worry about a number of
issues:
- The accurate location of artefacts was
disproportionately related to meaning-
ful stratigraphic units. Artefacts found
in floor layers or fills of buildings
could be ascribed to that stratigraphic
unit, whereas those found undemeath
floor layers or in middens not clearly
associated with a particular building
could not be given a meaningful loca-
tional reference, except at best relative
to something else. The records of
such relationships were also often
only placed in artefact descriptions,
not on the plans or sections. At
Stóraborg the location of artefacts was
to begin with recorded in x, y and z
but this accuracy was in no way
matched with the accuracy of the
stratigraphic record - the co-ordinates
of artefacts could not always be relat-
ed to particular plans or sections - and
this time consuming practice was
therefore ceased.
- Increasingly detailed excavation and
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