Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2011, Page 91

FARMSTEAD RELOCATION AT THE END OF THE VIKING AGE.
RESULTS OF THE SKAGAFJÖRÐUR ARCHAEOLOGICAL SETTLEMENT SURVEY
Viking Age household church. Like the
domestic buildings of the farmstead, the
church and cemetery are under the Hekla
1104 tephra, which covers the entire area.
The earliest traces of the relocated
fanustead lie at the bottom of a substantial
farm-mound at Upper Seyla that was
occupied until 1959 when the farmstead
moved to its current location near the main
road. Few elements of the early medieval
farmstead are visible on the surface. A cut
associated with a small canal has exposed
a long section of the farmstead on the
westem and northem sides and coring has
been used to trace the extent of the earliest
phases of the post AD 1100 farmstead.
Two test pits in the upper farmstead did
present evidence of a very small (i.e., 1
cm) layer of midden below the Hekla 1104
tephra layer. However, the depth of the
farm-mound and modem debris íforn the
upper farmstead make it diffícult to
systematically core to the earliest phases of
the mound.
Perhaps the most significant feature
tying the two farmsteads together is the
relocation of the household churchyard
from Lower Seyla to the new Upper Seyla
farmstead, in approximately the same
relative location and covering the same
size as the Viking Age churchyard
associated with the Lower Seyla site. Test
excavations in the upper churchyard
confinned its use as a cemetery between
the Hekla 1104 and Hekla 1300 tephras
(Zoéga and Sigurðarson 2010).
Glaumbœr
Compared with Lower Seyla, the Viking
Age farmstead at Lower Glaumbær was
relatively short-lived and appears to have
only one major sfructural phase. It consists
of a longhouse with multiple rooms
approximately 40 meters in total length.
Attached to the traditionally shaped skáli
are an ancillary room to the west, and
another ancillary room, possibly a pantry
or kitchen, connecting to another room at
the southem end of the complex (figure 3).
A 2009 excavation of the midden to the
east of the longhouse revealed a small
semi-subterranean structure at its base.
There may be a detached bam to the east,
but the dating is currently uncertain and it
may be a later stmcture belonging to the
medieval farm.
There is limited information on the
occupational history of the longhouse at
Lower Glaumbær. Large, open-area
excavations conducted at the site in 2005
to ground-truth geophysical interpretations
primarily exposed wall tops. Limited test
trenches from 2001 and 2002 left floor
layers largely intact so it is difficult to
judge the amount of accumulation in the
building although a difference in the style
of turf constmction that is seen in the
southem half of the longhouse suggests a
possible remodeling or extension to the
south of the skáli (Bolender 2007a). The
midden has approximately 80 centimeters
of ash, bone, and turf debris between the
Vj~1000 and Hekla 1104 tephra layers
(Shepard, et al. 2010). There is no
evidence of a domestic occupation at the
site post-dating the Hekla 1104 tephra. A
small test excavation in the midden
associated with the later Upper Glumbaer
fannstead (the current turf house museum
at Byggðasafn Skagfirðinga) shows that
refuse began to accumulate there
imnediately above the Hekla 1104 tephra.
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