Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2011, Page 35

A FIREWOOD EXPERIMENT AT EIRÍKSSTAÐIR: A STEP TOWARDS QUANTIFYING THE USE OF FIREWOOD
FOR DAILY HOUSEHOLD NEEDS IN VIKING AGE ICELAND
period Iceland could have sustained the
basic fuel needs of ordinary households,
or if the introduction of other sources of
fuel such as peat, turf and dung at some
sites were primarily adaptations to a
deforested environment.
For ease of calculation and comparison
the focus was on a unit of 100 kg of birch
and sub-units of 20 kg and the aim was to
establish for how long this would suffice
as firewood and what the likely rate of
buming would be. The reconstmcted
fireplace of the hall measured 2 x 0.6 m
and was made with stone slabs. The wood,
local Icelandic birch, Betula pubescens,
was provided cut, split and dried by the
Icelandic Forest Service. While a complete
study of Viking Age deforestation also
needs to allow for the use of willows (Salix
spp.) and possibly even the shmb (Betula
Figure 2. Plan of the full-scale replica house in Eiríksstaðir showing the locations of the
thermometers (including four positions of thermometer 1). Plan of the house made and
provided by ARGOS ehf, Arkitektastofa Grétars ofStefáns. Authors: Grétar Markússon and
Stefán Örn Stefánsson.
33