Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2009, Page 69

Note on barley found at Reynistaður
Iron pan
Tephra Layers
------»00------
—1+04-
-+000-
I: Humus
2: Organic layer (similar to 5) no clay lenses
3: Clay and turf
4: Red peatash
5:Compressed organic lenses (6 bands)
-each about 3 cm think
-separated by 3 cm think layer of clay
6: Clay lenses(mottled)
7: Sand and ash with some charcoal (1000 within)
8-10: Banded layers with charcoal
I I: LNL with organic lenses
12: H3/H4 tephra
13: River sand
14: Unknown white tephra
Figure 4. Southem profile at Reynistaðw:
remains. A four-liter sediment sample
from each of the layers was processed
with a froth flotation device, and floating
materials were captured in fme mesh
cloth. Both the light and heavy fractions
of the lowest cultural layer of the midden
in the southern profde, Layer 11, was
examined under 10 - 40x magnifícation
with a Bausch and Lomb dissecting
microscope, and identifications were ver-
ifíed by comparison with reference col-
lections housed at the Fiske Center
Paleoethnobotany Lab and with pub-
lished sources (Hoadley 1990; Martin
and Barkley 1961; Montgomery 1977).
Results
From Layer 11, we recovered charred
and uncharred seeds, charred and
uncharred.dung, and charred and partially
charred wood (Table 1). A 20-piece sam-
ple of the charred wood yielded birch
(Betulá), willow family (Salicaceae),
conifer, and an unidentified diffuse
porous wood, possibly rowan. Among
the seeds, we found hulled six-row barley
(Hordeum vulgare). These remains
included charred and partially charred
rachis fragments, the part of the plant that
holds the kemel to the spike or ear. We
also recovered seeds from herbaceous
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