Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2010, Page 37

ON FARM MOUNDS
represent the greater part of their volume.
In Stóraborg there are cases of rooms
being rebuilt with stone walls lining the
inside of earlier stone walls, suggesting
that the earlier wall was not dismantled or
repaired, just covered on the inside and
probably topped up on the outside (Fig.
16). At this stage in the development of a
farm-mound it is possible that the rate of
increase is slowed down as rebuildings
require less and less new turf to be
brought on site.
Conclusions and discussion
This then is my hypothesis: farm-mounds
are made primarily of turf but what cre-
ates them is the build-up of floors, which
results in large volumes of turf being left
in the ground at rebuilding. With more
rooms the effects of this increase expo-
nentially. I also think that as farm-
mounds grew in volume so other
materials would have had a greater
chance of accumulating on site, but also
that there may have come a point when
the rate of increase slowed down with
increasing re-use of older walls.
There are still many unanswered
questions. While it is certain that farm-
mounds would not have formed unless
people had stopped digging out floors I
have not adequately explained why peo-
ple stopped digging out their floors. I am
sure it has something to do with the
rhythm of building maintenance and
changes in habitus among the first gener-
ations of Icelanders but this is clearly an
area where more research can be done.
Similarly there are many unresolved
problems about the development of
house types and building technology:
16. A rebuilding of a late-medieval house at
Stóraborg where a new wall-face has been
built inside an earlier wall. Photo: Mjöll
Snœsdóttir.
when did the stofa become common and
what was it really for? When do double
turf walls with cores of loose material
replace the solidly constructed turf walls
of 10th century structures like Hofstaðir
and Aðalstræti? And why? There are
many more and hopefully this essay will
stimulate further research into the issues
left unresolved here.
It remains however to reflect on the
question about what triggered farm-
mound accumulation. As I have shown it
is an effect of the combination of turf
architecture, earthen floors which are not
dug out and the development of multi-
celled structures. Without any one of
these factors the accumulations are likely
to have been much more limited. Of these
it seems that the development of multi-
celled structures was most significant in
that it provides a solid practical reason
for why people would have continued to
live on the same spot for centuries: the
farmhouses were never torn down and
rebuilt in their entirety so people contin-
ued to live in them even while major
rebuilding took place. I do not believe
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