Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2005, Page 9

Gavin Lucas
EDITORIAL
This fourth issue of Archaeologia
Islandica runs as a special edition on the
archaeology of the Westfjords, the north-
westem peninsula of Iceland. In the past
few years, the amount of archaeological
research in this region has gone from
practically nil to a developed research
initiative as part of a larger package pro-
moting the cultural heritage of this tradi-
tionally marginal part of the country.
The papers in this volume reflect the
diversity of work that has taken place and
the potential of íuture research. Apart
from the one paper by Krivogorskaya et
al on the midden at Gjögur, all the work
reported here has taken place within the
last two years, mostly as part of individ-
ual research programmes. In this respect,
it is important to highlight the work of
Ragnar Edvardsson, who as part of his
doctoral studies, has been tireless in his
promotion of the region and two of the
papers here reflect key aspects of his
research.
The culmination of this new interest
has been the development of a major
multi-disciplinary project "Vestfirðir á
miðöldum" (The Westfjords in the Middle
Ages), a collaborative enterprise involv-
ing local communities, historians and
archaeologists. The project is chaired by
Dr. Torfí Tulinius of the University of
Iceland who has also written the intro-
duction to this special edition of Archae-
ologia Islandica. The scheme is, among
other things, funding the archaeological
investigations at Vatnsfjörður, as a joint
research project and field school.
The papers presented here span many
periods, from the settlement to the 20th
century, and the role of fishing is clearly
a recurrent theme. However, other more
general issues are also discussed which
have wider relevance and an important
point to come out of all these papers is
that the potential of archaeology to
explore the history, especially of a per-
ceived marginal region, is immense. It is
hoped that this volurne of Archaeologia
Islandica will, in some small measure,
add to the momentum of research now
being conducted and give readers a
flavour of this important work.