Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Page 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.
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