Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Page 55

MAGNUS HELLQVIST
PROBLEMS AND POSSIBILITIES WHEN USING
BEETLE REMAINS (COLEOPTERA) FOR
INTERPRETATION OF POST-MEDIEVAL
SETTLEMENTS IN THE INTERDISCIPLINARY
HÓLAR PROJECT, ICELAND
The interdisciplinary project at Hólar has been operational since 2002, in parallel
with several other excavations in Skagaljördur area, e.g. at Kolkuos and
Keldudalur. The excavation at Hólar has so far revealed many houses and a trash
midden that developed through time in a complex system with renewed and new
buildings on top of old ones. Samples for macrofossil insect remains (beetles,
Coleoptera) and plant macrofossil analysis are collected continuously. Analysis of
subfossil insects faces both problems and possibilities in the interpretation of
different rooms of houses, and the results from the time period 2002-2003 from
house floors of post-medieval houses illustrate these interpretative challenges. On
the one hand, the main problem is the low diversity and poor material, while on
the other hand the advantage is the high quality of information received from the
identification of single species and, when available, higher numbers of
individuals of species providing much information on both the indoor and outdoor
environments. This study also tested different sampling routines in former
buildings in order to evaluate sampling technique
Magnus Hellqvist, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University,
Villavágen 16, 752 36 Uppsala, Sweden.
E-mail: magnus.hellqvist@geo.uu.se
Keywords: Subfossil insects, beetles, Coleoptera, house floors,
Post-Medieval, Hólar.
Introduction
One important aim within the Hólar
project (Hólarannsóknin) is to develop
interaction between archaeological,
historical, and literature research and
different scientific methods, for example
from geology (e.g. sediment and
tephrachronology) and palaeoecology
(e.g. insect and plant remains) in order to
create a multidisciplinary approach.
Methods connected to these different
disciplines are used in the project and
some analyses are implemented at the
same time as the excavation is mnning in
an established fíeld laboratory at Hólar.
The ongoing excavation work at Hólar
(Fig. 1) spans over many years. The Hólar
site creates both a common working and
meeting place and a field laboratory, and
the researchers involved have the
possibility of raising questions and
changing strategy while working there.
ARCHAEOLOGIA ISLANDICA 10 (2013) 53-68