Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Blaðsíða 12

AGUSTA EDWALD AND KAREN MILEK
Fig 1 Location of Hombreakka
Fig 2 Aerial photo of the ruin at Hornbrekka
(Fig 1). It was created from the
subdivision of a larger farm, Brekka, in
the early 18th century and was the home
of a series of families, farm labourers and
paupers until it was abandoned in 1937
(Jarða- og Búendatal í Skagafjarðarsýslu
1781-1953, 13). The farm was valued for
10 hundreds in 1709 and 1847
(Magnússon & Vídalín 1709; Johnsen
1847) and would have been at best an
average farm in a good year, never
prosperous, often poor.
The farm ruin at Hombrekka was
partially excavated in the summer of 2009
by a team of archaeologists led by Agusta
Edwald and Karen Milek from the
University of Aberdeen in Scotland. The
t Kjartansson (1977) divides farms in Skagafjörður into small tbat are valued at 10 hundreds or less, medium, valued at
11-18 hundreds and large, valued above 18 hundreds..
2 Households are here defined by the replacement of an entire household by another, i.e. when a descendant takes over a
farm from his/her parents it is considered to be occupied by the same household.
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