Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Page 22

AGUSTA EDWALD AND KAREN MILEK
building indicate the location of stalls in
the byre and the presence of shelving or a
box in the kitchen (see Figs 5 & 6). The
wealth of artefacts found in the occupation
surfaces, in turf collapse and wall packing
in the building and from the midden
deposits add greatly to the narrative of life
at Hombrekka and activities related to
keeping house where a series of material
culture changes took place in the period
represented in the excavation, for example,
with the introduction of pottery for daily
use, kerosene lamps, tables and chairs.
Keeping House
Dining practices and the elaboration of the
dining table with matching ceramic sets
and side dishes has been widely studied in
archaeology (see e.g. Wall 1991, 1999,
2010; Rotman 2009). Dining is believed
to have been one of the main ways that
people communicated their status through
the consumption of the right food ffom the
correct vessels. Evidence of matching
ceramics and vessel forms such as side
dishes and gravy boats that indicate a set
table are thus commonly interpreted to be
indicative of improved households. Leone
(1999) has, furthermore, argued that
ceramics were essential in the teachings of
discipline and time keeping associated
with capitalist ideologies and Matthews
has similarly argued that changes in
ceramic use illustrate a ‘very deep
influence of capitalism’ (2010, 72), and
that eating of matched ceramics was a way
families installed individuality in children,
replacing ideas of kinship and cooperative
behaviour for individuality and
competition.
This development is not noted in the
ceramic assemblage at Hornbrekka.
However, that cannot be interpreted as a
deliberate resistance to a growing
capitalist market as the change ffom using
homemade wooden receptacles to
purchasing and using industrially made
imported ceramics is clearly a sign of the
households being a participant in global
market relations. Bjamason (1892), who
grew up in the same district as
Hombrekka discussed the produce
farmers used to get from the local
merchant in his youth. On the purchasing
of ceramics he states that the women
never grew tired of buying sundries, one
or two cups a year, or one or two plates or
bowls for special occasions such as when
the priest visited. The variety of wares and
decoration at Hombrekka, indeed, suggest
that the ceramics were not bought in large
sets but were more likely acquired in
small quantities (Fig 7). Lucas has
speculated that the variety of ceramics
found at Icelandic 19th -century sites
suggest that the practice of every person
owning their own receptacle, as was the
case with the wooden asknr, may have
continued after ceramics became widely
available (Lucas 2007). Different pattems
and decoration may thus have been
preferred so people could easily identify
their bowls. Several sherds recovered
from the excavation showed signs that the
^ According to the excavation the drain in the cattle byre had been filled in and the passage from the kitchen and the byre
blocked up before Hólmffíður’s family moved to the farm. It is likely that the byre Hólmfríður spoke of was next to the
kitchen, possibly attached to the ruined bam, which is to the north of the min.
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