Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2010, Page 118

OSCAR ALDRED, ELÍN ÓSK HREIÐARSDÓTTIR AND ÓSKAR GÍSLI SVEINBJARNARSON
smaller and more discrete sites was
limited to the constraints of the
photograph resolution (Oskar Gísli
Sveinbjamarson 2007).
Archaeology on the edge?
Besides the few projects mentioned in
the previous section, aerial photographs
have thus not been used as an
independent tool to a large extent in
Icelandic archaeology. The reason might
partly be due to the fact that
archaeological remains in Iceland are in
some respects different from the kind of
archaeology most often targeted by aerial
archaeology in continental Europe. On
the one hand, the density of
archaeological sites in Iceland is less
than in most other European countries,
and on the other, many of the
archaeological remains are actually very
well preserved as surface features.
Iceland was colonised de novo in the late
ninth century. However, while Viking
age buildings are still visible as
earthworks in some places, the majority
of what is visible on the surface are from
later periods. The archaeological
landscape of Iceland is in some ways
similar to other countries in Europe but
in terms of its environmental variability,
Iceland’s archaeology is extreme. The
human impact on the landscape, coupled
with fluctuating climatic conditions, has
resulted in rapid changes in land cover
and created the conditions for large areas
of soil erosion (Edwards et al. 2005). So
although a part of Iceland’s archaeology
Figure 3. Western part of the Öxney island in Breiðafjörður (west Iceland), looking west. The now
abandoned farm lies in the centre, with its surroundmgfield boundary and drainage ditches, and
several outlying buildings (taken by Garðar Guðmundsson, Fornleifastofnun Islands in 2007 as
part of the Community of islands project).
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