Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 120

Uggi Ævarsson
Fig. 4. Sections A - H. Section through the living room (from Gestsson 1959, p.10).
was very straight-forward based on their
methodology; just dig fast until one finds
or unveils something interesting or
important. If it was interesting or consid-
ered important it was documented, it
seems. The excavation was done by hand
even though a bulldozer is mentioned.
Gestsson puts the ruins he finds in his-
torical context - the cultural history of the
nation, architectural history and tradition.
He uses the Sagas of Icelanders and other
written sources to interpret the site, its
function, structure and meaning. He rides
sorne kind of an archaeo-ethnographic
horse when he uses the writing time of
the sagas as a reference (Gestsson 1959,
52).
One of the main conclusions of the
excavation is that this middle-sized farm
at Gröf is the only farm excavated in
Iceland from the 14th century and is con-
sidered to yield information about a very
important stage in the development of
farm-buildings in Iceland. Specifically,
the layout of the farm is seen as a bridge
between the Viking period longhouse
(skáli) and the post-medieval passage
house (gangabær) which predominated
until the end of the 19th century when
Norwegian-style timber houses and later
concrete houses became widespread. So,
according to the interpretation, the con-
clusion of the excavation is that a very
important link in the chain of history of
buildings and architecture through the
ages had been found. Despite the
archaeo-ethnographic perspective there
is almost no consideration at all of social
aspects. Probably there was no research
objective at the beginning of the excava-
tion since it was basically a rescue exca-
vation, but as the project developed, the
aim became filling in the gaps of exterior
and interior architecture from the 14th
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