Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1998, Page 221

MANNAÁRIN í TJØRNUVÍK í FØROYUM
227

the settlement horizon is hampered by a ra-
diocarbon plateau, despite the stratigraphic
precision with which the material for dating
was taken. However, the four dates from
the settlement horizon at this site are shown
to be consistent, and the recovery of the
‘Landnám’ tephra above the cereal cultiva-
tion supports the early radiocarbon dates. A
series of AMS dates on terrestrial plant
macrofossils, in combination with geo-
chemically defined microtephra horizons
for comparison with the ice cores to estab-
lish calendar age in ice core years BP, will
lead to a more precise chronology. The
Tjørnuvík site is unsuitable for such a se-
ries as it has a rather uneven sedimentation
rate and possibly mixed microtephra hori-
zons. During the course of field work, sev-
eral other, potentially more promising sites
were discovered and sampled. An infilled
lake site at the village of Eiði on the north-
ern island of Eysturoy, and a mire fringing
a lake close to the village of Sandur on the
island of Sandoy show the best potential to
achieve these aims, as they have more sta-
ble sedimentation conditions while captur-
ing the details of first settlement. At these
sites, the multidisiplinary approach should
help resolve the question of the timing of
the first settlements on the Faroe Islands.
Acknowledgements
We thank Richard Bradshaw for help during fieldwork,
for making the original, uncalibrated Tjømuvrk radio-
carbon dates available to us from the GEUS archives
and for commenting on the manuscript. Sincere thanks
also to John Lowe, Nick Branch, Dorete Bloch and Ais-
ling Goodbody. The financial support of the Joint Com-
mittee of the Nordic Council for Humanities, NOS-H, is
gratefully acknowledged. Stefan Wastegárd’s contribu-
tion was funded by a post-doctoral fellowship from the
Swedish Natural Science Research Council (NFR).
Microprobe analyses were undertaken at the NERC
Electron Microprobe Facility, Department of Geology
and Geophysics, University of Edinburgh, with the sup-
port of Peter Hill.
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