Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2005, Page 76

James Taylor, Guðrún Alda Gísladóttir, Andrea Harðardóttir and Gavin Lucas
Figure 4. Excavation area.
Boundaries of the homefield and the
location of the midden, areas D and E.
Trench D, 10x2 m, was located at the
base of the southwestem comer of the
visible remains. It was orientated north-
west-southeast. The trench was dominat-
ed by an east-west orientated wall mn-
ning along the northem edge of the
trench. From east to west it ran for
approximately 6.2 m before retuming
south, spanning the width of the trench.
Although the northem extents of the wall
were obscured by the northem limit of
excavation, it seems likely that the width
of this length of wall was probably the
same as that of the retum (c. 0.6 m).
Morphologically, the wall had a rough
stone face on its intemal side, consisting
of large uneven boulders. These were
supported by a deposit which may well
represent a degraded turf core. The
southem retum of this wall also had on
its westem side a line of well-preserved
wooden posts, which clearly represented
a fence line.
Trench E, 5x2 m, was located
on the west side of the memorial statue
base. It was oriented north-south. This
trench was characterised by clear evi-
dence of midden activity, defíned by a
sequence of obvious dump layers (peat
ash, charcoal, cmshed shell, etc.), all of
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