Karen Milek

A reinterpretation of the great pit at Hofstaðir, Iceland using sediment thin section micromorphology

The site at Hofstaðir in northeast Iceland has been central to the debate on pre-Christian Norse temples and temple-farm complexes throughout the Scandinavian world. Critical to an understanding of the site have been the various and conflicting interpretations of the great pit feature, which have included the hypotheses that it was intentionally made for the disposal of rubbish after temple feasts, that it was a cooking pit for large-scale food preparation within a temple–farm complex, and that it was the location of a rubbish tip for ordinary farmstead waste materials. In this article we test these competing hypotheses using the technique of thin section micromorphology. These analyses represent the first application of micromorphology to questions of archaeological site formation processes in Iceland, a volcanic island with commonly occurring Andisols. Although this soil type poses new challenges to archaeological soil micromorphology, it was found that pedofeatures, microstructures, and anthropogenic inclusions provide a basis for interpreting site formation processes on Andisols as on other soil types. We conclude that the pit feature had its origins as a sunken-featured building and that the hollow created by the buildings abandonment and collapse was later filled with domestic farmstead waste.

The palaeoecology of a high status Icelandic farm

Abstract Written sources indicate that the farm of Reykholt in Borgarfjörður, Iceland was built on the land of the original settlement farm, and that it had acquired the primary status in the valley by the early 12th century. Archaeological evidence suggests that the farm together with a church may have been established as early as ca. 1000 AD, which is when Christianity was adopted in Iceland. The site became one of the countrys major ecclesiastical centres, growing in wealth and stature, not least during the occupancy of the writer and chieftain Snorri Sturluson in the first half of the 13th century. Long-term excavations included a palaeoenvironmental sampling programme aimed at the investigation of the economy and environment of the farm. This paper focuses upon the results of the palaeoecological analysis and places them into the historical context of the farm.

The Roles of Pit Houses and Gendered Spaces on Viking-Age Farmsteads in Iceland

Abstract THE SMALL SEMI-SUBTERRANEAN buildings (jarðhús) with slab-built ovens that have been found on many Viking-Age farmsteads in Iceland (late 9th–11th century) have been subject to wide-ranging interpretations, from short-lived, expedient dwellings to saunas, women’s workrooms, the houses of Slavic settlers and in one case a cult building. This paper tests these hypotheses by making a thorough revaluation of pit-house dates, architectural forms, internal structural features and artefacts, and presents new geoarchaeological evidence from the pit house at Hofstaðir, NE Iceland. This lends strong support to the interpretation that they were women’s workrooms, primarily for the production of woollen textiles. Their abandonment in the later 10th and 11th centuries may be interpreted in the light of changing religious beliefs and social structures, the growing importance of homespun cloth as a valuable export commodity, and the rise in status of the women who made it.

Woven Cultures: New Insights into Pictish and Viking Culture Contact Using the Implements of Textile Production

THIS PAPER PRESENTS A new approach to Pictish and Viking culture contact in Orkney using the material culture of everyday life, focusing in this case on implements used in textile production. The production of textiles was a major component of everyday life between the 5th and 12th centuries and the tools of production have survived well in the archaeological record. This paper uses a study of the implements used in textile production from six Viking and Pictish period sites on Orkney to assess the nature of textile production at this time and investigate whether or not it was affected by the arrival of Scandinavians. The results demonstrate that significant changes took place at the beginning of the Viking Age, with different thicknesses of thread being spun and woven, new materials and styles of artefacts being used, and new types of tools employed for particular tasks. The early Viking Age (9th–10th centuries) produced a great variety of textile tools, representing both Pictish and Scandinavian practices, suggesting a time of transition in which both Pictish and Viking styles were accommodated.

Early medieval shellfish exploitation in Northwest Europe: investigations at the Sands of Forvie Shell Middens, Eastern Scotland, and the role of coastal resources in the First Millennium AD

ABSTRACT Coastal shell middens represent a well-known element of the archaeological record of island and coastal regions across the world and shellfish have been an important resource for subsistence since the mid Holocene. However, the factors that influence shellfishing remain poorly understood and in many regions investigations into the role of shellfish gathering often have remained focused on prehistoric examples to the detriment of shell middens of later dates. This article reports on the emerging evidence for large-scale exploitation of shellfish during a hitherto understudied period for shell midden archaeology in northwest Europe: the first millennium AD. The article includes a review of a series of previously unknown large mussel-dominated middens in eastern Scotland, an outline of their chronology and character, including Bayesian modeling of dates, and a synthesis of the emerging evidence for shellfish gathering in northwest Europe during the first millennium AD. The research represents the first investigation of large-scale early Medieval middens in Britain and the first review of their international parallels and the important new information they can provide for the early Medieval economy.

Early Medieval Shellfish Gathering at the Sands of Forvie, Aberdeenshire: Feast or Famine?

From 2010 to 2014, extensive shell middens were excavated at the Sands of Forvie, Aberdeenshire, and the wider landscape explored through a programme of soil and geophysical survey. The middens were dated to the 1st millennium ad and appear to represent intensive gathering and cooking of shellfish, particularly mussels. To date, few middens of the scale of the Forvie examples have been identified in Scotland, but the middens share some parallels with similar examples found in a broader North Sea context. This article reports on the findings of the excavations, provides an outline of the chronology of the middens, including Bayesian modelling of dates, and a brief review of the growing evidence for shellfish gathering in 1st-millennium ad Scotland and the wider north-west European context.

Review of 'Fertile Ground. Papers in Honour of Susan Limbrey (Symposia of the Association for Environmental Archaeology No. 22)' by Smith, D. N., Brickley, M. B. and Smith, W. (eds). 2005.

Cappers, R. T. J. 2006. Roman Foodprints at Berenike. Archaeobotanical Evidence of Subsistence and Trade in the Eastern Desert of Egypt (Berenike Reports 6.) Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California. 229 pp. ISBN: 1 931745 27 7. £30.99 (paperback). Berenike is situated on the Egyptian Red Sea Coast just south of Ras Banas. It was founded around 275 BC and abandoned by the Romans at the beginning of the 7th century AD prior to the Arab invasion of Egypt. It operated as one of the major ports for the Roman Empire. Spices and other goods such as cotton textiles were imported from further down the African coast south of the Sahara, Arabia and India for the wealthy of the Roman Empire with wheat and other products from the fertile Nile Valley being exported. The work presented in this book is the results of excavations undertaken jointly by the University of Delaware (USA) and Leiden University (the Netherlands) between 1994 and 2001. The eight chapters are entitled: Introduction, Rome’s Eastern Trade, Natural Vegetation, Living in the Desert, Archaeobotanical Research, Peaches in the Desert, Interpretative Summary and Conclusion and Catalogue of Taxa. These are followed by the bibliography, index to scientific plant names, general index and a colour plate section. The first two chapters basically cover the history of research and exploration in the area of Berenike and also considers the usefulness of historical texts such as the Alexandrian Tariff which was issued by Marcus Aurelius between AD 176 and 180 and the Periplus Maris Erythraei which dated between AD 40 and 70 and describes in great detail the trade routes from Myos Hormos and Berenike to India (Casson 1989). The Introduction goes into some detail on how useful written texts are for aiding archaeobotanical research, and discusses the main stumbling blocks in using such sources. This is an excellent approach and should act as a warning to any student of archaeobotany who is tempted to use the written record as a short cut to interpretation. The second chapter describes the trade sea routes to India at that time as well those routes that linked Berenike to the Nile Valley. The sites investigated are described in this chapter including some other installations in the vicinity of Berenike. The two sites that compose the research in this volume are Berenike and Shenshef, located around 30 kilometres southwest of Berenike. The following chapter is also a good example of what every archaeobotanist should do when beginning to work on a new site, that is to study the present vegetation. This gives you some idea of what you might expect to find in your samples, especially the wild species. It also gives the researcher the opportunity to collect seeds and other plant parts to produce a modern reference collection, which of course no archaeobotanist should be without. Chapter 4, Living in the Desert, describes how the local nomadic people (The Ababda) cope with such a demanding environment. This again is good practice for an archaeobotanist as it will give you the feel of how people may have coped with this environment in the past. By far the largest chapter in the book is the one concerning the archaeobotanical research. Here, each species that has been identified from the trash deposits at Berenike and Shenshef is described in detail, and where they have been found on other Egyptian sites and elsewhere. The most outstanding find from Berenike was the large amount of black pepper (Piper nigrum L.). The chapter is well illustrated with, in most cases, very clear black and white photographs, which already have proved to be very useful to me. There are slight problems with this chapter with regards the processing of the samples. First, there is no mention of the actual sample size taken from the deposits. This information is of great use to other archaeobotanists who are lucky enough to find themselves working in similar conditions, as desiccated remains pose different problems to those preserved by other means. Therefore, some guidance to the sample size taken would have been of some use. Secondly, the smallest mesh size used was 0?5mm: some of the smaller seeds might pass through this mesh, such as those of Glinus lotoides L. There may only be a small number of species with such small seeds, but it must be regarded as information lost.

Environmental Archaeology and the Interpretation of Social Space

Smith et al. have presented a case study that demonstrates the value of integrating the analysis of archaeological, geoarchaeological, archaeobotanical and faunal material when studying the organisation of house activity areas. As such, their work continues a long and important tradition of methodological research designed to further the ability of archaeologists to find and interpret patterns among excavated materials. While microrefuse, archaeobotanical, magnetic susceptibility and chemical analyses have all been successfully applied to the spatial analysis of activity areas in the past (e.g. Marshall and Smith, 1999; Metcalfe and Heath, 1990; Middleton and Price, 1996), these techniques have rarely been integrated together into the spatial analysis of a single building. In their study of House 312, a Norse period longhouse at Kilpheder, South Uist, in the Outer Hebrides, Smith et al. very successfully combined a range of archaeological, bioarchaeological and chemical techniques in a highresolution spatial analysis that permitted the identification of activity areas and an internal partition wall within the house. The results of this particular case study, as well as other settlement studies carried out under the umbrella of the SEARCH project (e.g. Parker Pearson and Sharples, 1999a), demonstrate the benefits of integrating various environmental specialists into the research framework and sampling methodology at all stages of archaeological investigation.