Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1998, Page 229

LANDSLØGILANDNAMSTIÐ: FLOGSAÐFRØÐILIG OG 235
GRÓKORNFRØÐILIG PRÓGV AV TOFTANESI
byre refuse; the minerogenic may comprise
stream-borne deposits laid down in times of
flood. Two further samples correspond to
samples S1563 and S1622 which were tak-
en for entomological study and come from
outside of house II, and the supposed floor
layer of the byre at the end of house II re-
spectively (Table 3). Pollen samples were
prepared using standard NaOH, HCl, HF
and acetolysis procedures (Faegri and
Iversen, 1989) and concentrates were
mounted in silicone oil of 12,500 cSt vis-
cosity. Pollen data expressed as percent-
ages of total land pollen (TLP) are present-
ed in Figures 3 and 4. Pollen nomenclature
follows Bennett (1994) and plant nomen-
clature is based on Flora Europaea as ex-
emplified by Stace (1997) and informed by
Hansen (1966) and Jóhansen (1985). Mi-
croscopic charcoal was measured by the
point count method of Clark (1982).
The contexts of samples for palaeoento-
mological study are summarised in Table 3
together with the archaeological interpreta-
tion of the sample layers. Six five litre sam-
ples have been analysed so far, and these
were processed using the standard tech-
nique of disaggregation and paraffin flota-
tion (Coope and Osborne, 1968). The re-
sulting insect remains were identified using
modern reference material and the identi-
fied taxa are listed in Table 4.
Pollen analysis
The first thing that needs to be said about
the pollen data from Toftanes is that they
cannot be interpreted like a normal pollen
profile from a peat or lake profile. The de-
posits from the site are assumed to repre-
Pollen Con-
sample text Description
i BC Light green gravel layer with many cobbles.
2 BB Compact yellowish-brown homogenous peat layer containing wood and wood chips.
3 AZ Green-brown gravel layer with cobbles.
4 BA Homogenous. moist humus containing plant remains, yellowish-brown.
5 DØ Dark greenish-grey compact gravel layer containing cobbles.
6 FY Gritty gravel layer, brownish-yellow in colour.
7 FX Sandy moss layer containing some wood, dark greyish in colour.
8 GH Compact grey gravel
9 GE Moss layer containing wood, teeth and burnt bone, dark brown
10 GG Moist moss/peat layer, dark brown in colour.
Table 2. Contexts for polten samples from between building I and house 11. Talva 2. Sambandið millum flogsáð-royndir millum hús I og hús II.
sent a mixture of materials from the habita-
tion site, the infield and the outfield. By the
same token, the pollen will derive from
these potentially spatially and chronologi-
cally varied samples. It cannot be assumed
that the pollen component from normal aer-
ial deposition, contemporaneous with the
settlement and coming from on- and imme-
diately off-site vegetational sources, will
predominate. Combine this with pollen car-
ried on feet and hoofs, and it will be appar-
ent that archaeopalynology is fraught with
taphonomic difficulties (Dimbleby, 1985).
Short of radiocarbon-dating every sample
(which itself would be a suspect activity
given the possible mixed materials from
within each context), then a strong note of
caution must qualify any interpretations of
the pollen. The taphonomic problems of the
insect fossils are somewhat different
(Buckland et al. 1991), with faunas living