Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2010, Page 115

ON THE precipice: aerial archaeology in iceland
cartographic process, but they are also an
invaluable resource for research on the
state of the landscape, tracking its
transformation over 60 years.
The fírst Icelander to take aerial
photographs to any extent in Iceland was
Ágúst Böðvarsson. He worked as a guide
for the Danish who were surveying
Iceland in the 1930s and later studied
surveying and cartography at the Danish
Cartography Institute. For decades he
was the leading authority on aerial
photography in Iceland and held the
position of Managing Director of the
National Land Survey of Iceland from
1959 to 1976 (Þorvaldur Bragason and
Magnús Guðmundsson 1988). The
National Land Survey of Iceland
(Landmælingar íslands - NLSI) was
founded in the 1950s and part of its
programme from the onset was to
systematically take and collect vertical
aerial photographs of the country. The
NLSI continued this work until 2000
resulting in a vast collection of
photographs from all over the country; a
collection of over 150,000 images.
However, today this annual coverage has
been replaced by systematic satellite
imagery coverage (SPOT 5) for the
whole of Iceland, though NLSI curates
older photographs such as the Danish
survey images and military aerial
photographs. Since 1990 private
companies have also started to build up
an aerial photographic archive,
particularly Hnit ehf and Loftmyndir ehf
who have near national coverage of
vertical shots in digital format. Both
companies mainly take vertical (colour)
aerials at 1400 to 8000 meters in altitude.
Archaeology and aerial
photographs
Archaeological research in Iceland has
generally focused on the earliest periods
of Iceland’s history, in particular places
that are associated with the Sagas. This
dictated the research agenda for many
years as well as generating the general
public’s perceptions of archaeology. In
the last 30 years or so the agenda has
widened and more recent periods and
archaeological themes besides early
settlement, human burials and Saga sites
have become more popular.
The fírst practical use of aerial survey
specifically for archaeology in Iceland
took place in the late 1970s and early
1980s and was done by Sveinbjörn
Rafnsson. He used oblique aerial
photographs as an integral part of his
survey of deserted valleys in the east of
Iceland. Rafnsson used both conventional
and infra-red images. However, the flights
were largely directed at previously known
sites in order to get a basic record, and no
detailed transcription mapping was
involved (Sveinbjöm Rafnsson 1990). In
the 1980s, Guðrún Sveinbjamardóttir
conducted regional studies of farm
abandonment in Iceland which formed the
basis of her doctoral thesis. In her research
she made occasional use of aerial
photographs, although this was hampered
due to the high altitude of the photographs
and the difficultly in recognising distinct
features (Guðrún Sveinbjarnardóttir
1992). In the 1990s, the Institute of
Archaeology (Fomleifastofnun íslands)
began extensive field surveys in which
they initiated aerial survey fly-overs with
Garðar Guðmundsson taking many
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