Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Side 91

Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Side 91
THE SVALBARÐ PROJECT snow scattered around in low places, and frost was visible in the cleaned back sections. The soil core hit frozen earth at 40 cm below the surface. Such conditions make one wonder how the residents of Bægistaðir dealt with the exceptionally cold springs and summers of the 14th and 18th centuries. Bægistaðir is fírst mentioned in the land register of 1712, (JÁM, 362) It had been deserted since about 1670 but was in 1712 exploited by the Svalbarð farm as shieling and for harvesting hay. Bægistaðir is also listed in a 1777 directory of abandoned farms with the generic comment that it had been deserted in the plague in the 15th century (01aviusl965:83). There are traditions about a single man who lived in Bægistaðir for a single year and lost all his sheep during that stay. This story may refer to the 17th century occupation recorded in the Jarðabók (JÁM, 362). But apart from this there are no indications in written sources about occupation of Bægistaðir until 1830 when a new farm was established which lasted until 1928 (Elentínusson 2003, 463-64). The Bægistaðir site consists of well-preserved turf boundary walls, ditches, several turf outbuildings and a substantial farm mound about 50 m long and 15 m wide, strung out along a stream draining into the nearby Sandá river. The farm mound comprises the well-preserved ruins of a complex of turf buildings, with wood, dry stone masonry and a small amount of metal debris. The fields have not been levelled by machinery. The site was tested with a soil core and the westem edge of the mound, where it is undercut by the stream, was cleaned back to expose stratigraphic sections. In the eroding sections, layers visually identified in the field as the H1300 and V1477 tephras were observed and there is clear evidence for the sporadic occupation at the site. A midden or floor deposit and a schistose whetstone, a Norwegian import, was Figure 12. A sketch map of Brekknakot and location of soil core tests. 89
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Archaeologia Islandica

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