Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2010, Page 30

ORRI VÉSTEINSSON
/ 1 1 1 1 1 ' 1 | —A ■ 1 j 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 B
wall floor wall
0 1 2
meters
10. Schematic cross-section of an Icelandic turfhouse showing the volume of floor and wall
material left in at rebuilding. Drawing by Stefán Olafsson.
lems. Unchecked the floor will begin to
accumulate up against the wooden infra-
structure of the house, roof-bearing posts,
panelling and fíttings like benches or
beds. Becoming embedded in earth
would then increase the likelihood of rot
in the wood, which could conceivably
endanger the structural soundness of the
building. A measure against such a devel-
opment which can frequently be seen in
Icelandic fann-house ruins are high post-
pads, stones supporting the posts and
other wooden structures, often lifting
them high above the floor levels, 30 cm
or more. When postholes do occur the
posts seem as a rule to have been protect-
ed - at least to a degree - by stones, set in
the sides of the holes. It is only in the very
earliest buildings, such as Hofstaðir from
the 10th century, where posts were origi-
nally set directly into the soil and no visi-
ble measures seem to have been taken to
protect them from rot. That this was not a
viable strategy in the long term is sug-
gested by the fact that many of the post-
holes were later filled and capped with
post-pads (Lucas 2009, 68). Although
this may in part be a reflection of the
development of excavation techniques it
seems that un-lined postholes are prima-
rily a feature of Viking age architecture
in Iceland while in later periods posts are
as a rule supported by stones.
Placing wooden infrastructure on
stone pads may then exacerbate the build-
up of the floor levels; it removes the prin-
cipal reason for keeping the floors in
check as the floors can accumulate
around the post-pads without causing
serious damage. If they are allowed to do
so the post-pads will sooner or later
become submerged, requiring either a
mucking out or a raising of the posts. If,
say, in a house with 30 cm high post-pads
the floor levels had risen by 30 cm by the
time a rebuilding had become necessary,
it will have been simpler and easier to
leave the old post-pads in the ground and
build the new structure on the level of the
old floor. Post-pads submerged in floors
were frequently observed in Stóraborg
(Mjöll Snæsdóttir pers. comm.). Even
though it is on a flat coastal plain with no
stone sources closer than 3 km away, it
was clearly deemed easier to leave the,
often carefully selected, post-pads
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