Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Page 75

THE SVALBARÐ PROJECT
certain decades of the 17th and 18th
centuries (Ogilvie and Jónsdóttir 2000).
Cold years, and especially those
associated with summer pack ice brought
about severe hardships to northern
Iceland, including the Svalbarðshreppur
region. Spring pack ice shortens the
growing season leading to more limited
hay crops which in turn results in
declines in livestock herds and milk
yields (Amorosi 1992, 1996, Amorosi et
al 1998; Dugmore et al. 2000; Ogilvie
and Jónsdóttir 2000; Ogilvie 2001;
Ogilvie and Jónsson 2001). Hardships
such as these may have been accentuated
by the density of initial settlement, which
left much of Iceland’s most useful land
occupied and intensively exploited from
early on (Vésteinsson 2000 and
Vésteinsson et al. 2002) limiting
opportunities to find altemative grazing.
Volcanic eruptions also seem to have
exacerbated the impacts of cold phases.
This is well documented for the 18th
century and may also have applied to
major emptions in the 14th and 15th
centuries. Responses to such
environmental challenges may have
included changing husbandry strategies
(notably the increasing emphasis on
sheep relative to cattle), increased
reliance on marine exploitation (fish,
mainly cod, and in some regions seals
and sea birds) and the abandonment of
some more vulnerable farms or their
appropriation and transformation into
seasonal herding installations by more
well-supplied neighbours (Dugmore et
al. 2006; Sveinbjarnardottir 1992;
Vésteinsson 2000). All such changes will
have had complex causes, both in the
short, medium and longer terms and
teasing out a balanced view of the
reasons, the particular conditions in
specific localities as well as supra-local
forces of change, is the challenge of the
Svalbarð project.
The midden of Svalbarð in
1988 and again in 2008
The first archaeological research in
Svalbarð was carried out in 1986 and 1988
when tests and then a large-scale
excavation (40m2) were made in a deep
stratified midden associated with the
Svalbarð farm. The project was part of the
research program of the Iceland
Palaeoeconomy Project (IPP) (Amorosi
1992, 1996). Those initial investigations
yielded one of the largest faunal
collections yet recovered in Iceland, the
initial analysis of which was instmmental
in the development of methods and models
of reconstmcting palaeoeconomies,
landscape history and human environment
interaction in the North Atlantic region.
The identification, evaluation and
sampling of the Svalbarð midden deposits
was the backbone of those local
environmental and palaeoenvironmental
studies (Amorosi 1992,1996; Zutter 1992,
1997). Analyses of the very important
collection of animal bone remains from the
site (Amorosi 1992, 1996), provided an
original detailed description of an
Icelandic farm’s economy. The results
indicated that at landnám, the farm had a
very mixed economy; herds included cattle
and (mostly) sheep, while wild species
exploited included (mostly) fish, birds and
common seals. Cattle rose in importance in
the mid 12th to mid 13th century. During
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