Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Blaðsíða 99

THE SVALBARÐ PROJECT
of occupation earlier than 1477 and
possibly earlier than 1300 as well. The
effect of þúfur on the meadow mound and
wall prvide an indirect indication that the
site predates conspicuous local cooling; in
the Svalbard midden frost wedge features
cut into the VI477 tephra, indicating that
cryoturbation processes in the region may
have been most active after 1477. Because
of its apparent age and the complexity of
its features, this humble site needs further
investigations and probably holds much
more interest than one would expect, as
did Þorvaldsstaðasel, a similarly humble
site.
A viking age burial or a sheep
herder's pastime, that is the
question
fn the summer of 2010, two strange stone
features were spotted on the way to
Bægistaðir. They are located on a high
terrace just north of the farm site. From
the terrace, the view is splendid; it
overlooks Bægistaðir and the Sandá
valley to the south and, to the east and
north, a huge, fine wet meadow lay
before the eyes. This wet meadow has a
complex irrigation or drainage system
and was used for both hay cutting and
peat extraction.
One of the structures on the terrace can
be described as a sub- rectangular stone
paving of flat stones measuring 1,7 m x 0,
7 m by the base. The other is a raised and
domed rounded stone structure about 2 m
in diameter. A 1 m wide trench was dug
through the flat sub-rectangular structure
and, as the exposed “paving” stones were
lifted, early 20th century ceramic and glass
sherds came to light. When the stones
Figure 18. A sheep herder past-time.
were lifted on the second structure,
absolutely nothing except silt was found,
with no visible cut or fill. Simpler and
much smaller “pavement” and “caim”
stmctures were also observed in other
exposed terrace areas around Bægistaðir
in 2011. With nothing more definitive to
work with, we propose that the pavement
stmcture is the work of children diverting
themselves whilst looking after sheep. The
other feature might well be a collapsed
caim. It is often said that when
archaeologists don’t understand
something they say it must be ritual but for
Icelandic archaeologists the refrain is
more likely to be 'this must be
sheep-herder’s work'.
Borg
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