Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2005, Qupperneq 114

Birna Lárusdóttir, Gavin Lucas, Lilja Björk Pálsdóttir and Stefán Ólafsson
parish priest in Siglufjörður, north
Iceland, in the mid-19th century it is
mentioned that the people in Siglunes,
which was an important shark fishing
station, suffered from the lack of peat for
melting the liver (SSE, 47). It can final-
ly be added that on a photograph that was
taken just east of Kúvíkur in 1939, at
least 7 or 8 large piles of dried peat can
be seen. This proves that peat was an
important fuel, even before there was a
shortage of imported coal during the
Second World War (Bárðarson 1993,418-
419).
In order to locate possible older
remains or other midden deposits some
coring was done in the main ruin area. It
was thought to be the most likely place
for buried remains as the best landing
place is just below it. About 2 m east of
Thorarensen's dwelling some midden
deposits and turf tumed up in the core. It
was decided to put another trench there to
observe the nature of those remains. The
surface was completely flat without any
visible wall remains and in fact the area
must have been levelled at some point.
The trench was T-shaped, 2.85 m long
and up to 1.35 m wide. Some unclear
remains of turf- and stone-built walls
were uncovered and between them flag-
stones had been laid out on a natural
gravel surface. The role of this flagstone
surface is not obvious as it does not
resemble a floor in any sense - rather a
foundation of some sort, possibly to flat-
ten out the gravel surface and make it
more stable. The trench shows that
archaeological remains can be expected
to be buried under the surface in Kúvikur.
At this stage it was not possible to deter-
mine what function this particular stmc-
ture had. It is clear, however, that it can-
not have belonged to the youngest phase
of settlement in Kúvíkur, the one that was
abolished in the 1950’s. The oldest finds
from this trench date to the early nine-
teenth century.
The Finds
The assemblage of fmds from Kúvíkur
was fairly large, counting some 2260
fmds of different types: Organic, metal,
glass, ceramics, stone and other, e.g.
plastics and battery cores. The vast
majority of finds was retrieved from
trench 1, a total of 2082. The fmds from
the midden will be discussed phase by
phase.
Phase I was relatively poor of
artefacts compared to the others and, in
fact, there is little evidence that this loca-
tion was used for disposal at that time.
This supports the aforementioned sug-
gestion - that there was a structure of
some kind on the bank of the brook
before it tumed into a midden. The most
interesting pieces were glass fragments
of vessels and one from a bottle.
Furthermore, a few window fragments
were retrieved, some brick fragments and
most notably, a number of ceramic roof
tile fragments, which are belived to have
been rare in Iceland. It is known that
roof tiles were imported from Denmark
in the late 18th century to use for a roof
of a stone church in Reykjavík
(Hannesson 1943, 226). The presence of
roof-tiles in Kúvíkur may well represent
the site's direct connection to Danish
merchants. The tiles may not necessarily
have been used as such in Kúvíkur but
simply reused as building material. One
piece of ceramic was found in this phase,
a glazed red earthenware tripod cooking
pot which could date to anytime from the
17th to the early 19th century.
There is a clear transition in
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