Skagfirska kirkju- og byggðasögurannsóknin og Byggðasafn Skagfirðinga bjóða íbúum Hegraness og öðrum áhugasömum á fyrirlestur og umræðufund um fornleifarannsóknirnar sem nú fara fram í Nesinu. Sigríður Sigurðardóttir, safnstjóri, John Steinberg og Guðný Zoëga, fornleifafræðingar munu segja frá aðdraganda rannsóknanna og fyrstu niðurstöður verða kynntar. Fyrirlesturinn verður í félagsheimilinu í Hegranesi fimmtudaginn 3. mars kl 20.00.

Public Presentation on Preliminary Results from the 2015 Archaeological Research – Hegranes Community Center Thursday 3 March at 8:00 PM

Guðný Zoëga, Sigríður Sigurðardóttir, & John Steinberg will give a public presentation on the preliminary results from the the Skagafjörður Church and Settlement Survey (SCASS) archaeological work on Hegranes.  The presentation: “Why Hegranes”  is sponsored by the Skagafjörður Heritage Museum. The results from the archaeological survey and excavations will be discussed and put into context with other work from around Skagafjörður and Iceland.  The lecture will be in the Hegranes community center Thursday  March 3^rd at 8:00 PM

Kathryn “Kat” Catlin has a wonderful write up in the Polar Field Services Newsletter about her NSF funded dissertation work.    Polar Field Services (a subcontractor to the giant CH2M HILL) provides logistical support to NSF funded projects in the Arctic.  They do not currently support our work in Iceland, but they do support a lot of interesting archaeology. The author, Alicia Clark has done a lot of very good articles about arctic field research and also works for NOAA.

Here is the link:

Looking in the Margins for Clues About Economic Inequality and Environmental Change in Medieval Iceland

Doug & John talking about the research in Skagafjörður

In Iceland tonight at 7:50 PM on TV  Channel 2 is a show on the Settlement that may feature a few scenes from the SCASS work in Skagafjörður.  I thought we might end up on the cutting room floor – but maybe not.

Here is the link to the teaser:
http://www.visir.is/section/MEDIA99&fileid=CLP43271%E2%80%8B

Coring in Northern Iceland

Kathryn Catlin’s NSF award for work was recently posted on the NSF abstract list.   The title of her work is:  The Archaeological Investigation of Erosion and its Effect on Social Processes in the Arctic.

She is a UMass Boston Historic Archaeology grad, now a doctoral student at Northwestern.  The abstract is  well written.  Good work!

http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1523025

SCASS Team as viewed from the drone

Vettvangsvinnu Skagfirsku kirkju- og byggðasögurannsóknarinnar er nú lokið þetta sumarið. Við viljum þakka íbúum Hegraness fyrir að hafa tekið svona vel á móti okkur, Sveitarfélaginu Skagafirði fyrir allan stuðninginn, öllum sem veittu okkur leyfi, aðstoð eða fjárstuðning og svo auðvitað þeim sem komu og heimsóttu okkur í sumar. Jói og Þórey í Keflavík fá sérstakar þakkir fyrir að leyfa okkur að grafa stóra holu í túninu hjá sér! Við mætum svo aftur næsta sumar í Hegranesið en höldum að sjálfsögðu áfram að setja efni á Fésbókarsíðuna eftir því vinnst úr rannsóknargögnunum.

The archaeological fieldwork of Skagafjörður Church and Settlement Survey has wrapped up for the summer. We would all like to thank residents of Hegranes their permission and hospitality. We are also grateful to the Skagafjörður Municipality for their in-kind and financial support. We are so pleased that so many of you came and visited us during the summer fieldwork. Special thanks go to to Jói and Þórey at Keflavík for allowing us to dig such a big hole in their grass field. We will be back again next summer to continue to learn more about the Hegranes region. For everyday in the field, it takes several days in the lab to process and understand the excavations and their content.   As reports and other information become available we will post updates and links in this space.

Joe’s feet at Keflavík Cemetery

After several weeks of clearing fill, aeolian deposits, and more recent turf layers, the Keflavík cemetery excavation team finally began excavating. Investigating the burials has contributed to the project’s understanding of interment rituals over time, the eventual retiring of cemeteries. We have located a total of 14 graves, most of which have been identified as cuts into an in situ AD 1104 Hekla tephra layer. A smaller number of graves have been cut into older turf that was used to cover the cemetery. These graves date to the cemetery’s earlier internment events, prior to AD 1104.

The grave that I personally investigated was right next to the church and partially under a more recent expansion of the church wall. The boundaries of this grave have not been determined, and contained AD 1104 tephra despite it likely being an older grave below the in situ AD 1104 tephra layer. I encountered a variety of stratigraphic complications and questions as the boundaries seemed to shift. Another member of the crew uncovered an infant burial partially overlapping the grave I was excavating, at a shallower depth, more than 40 cm above the bottom pit. When I finally reached the bottom of my own excavation (well over a meter down from the layer of removed turf), I found most of the remains of a coffin. Though it was not in good shape, the recovery of such a find may allow for analyses of the kinds of wood being used for coffin making, as well as for possible radiocarbon dating. While the actual skeleton had been exhumed (probably when the cemetery had been retired), the grave offers plenty of opportunities to answer questions about the practice of moving graves to functioning cemeteries. By studying the makeup of the grave fill from the exhumation and the cuts into the grave, we may learn when the cemetery was finally closed, and create a tighter chronology of this site!

— Joe Trebilcock

Eric and Cee Cee started a test pit at a midden at Garður.  They were joined by the livestock.

This farm is right next to the Hegranesþing (Hegranesþing is the land of  Garður).  This research is the complement to the geophysical survey at Hegranesþing.  Hopefully this excavation will give us some idea how old  farmstead is at Garður.

UMass Boston has put a photo of some of the crew up in their rotating front page photo.  it is   It looks like it is the 3rd or 4th picture in the rotation.  The photo was taken after climbing  up to a pagan grave on the farm of Hróarsdalur after coring.  The picture has, from Left to right, Ramona Steel (Historical Archaeology Graduate Student, UMass Boston) Collen Lenfest (incoming Freshmen, UMass Boston), Shala Carter (Recent Graduate, UMass Boston), Allison Carlton (Historical Archaeology Graduate Student, UMass Boston) and Grace Cesario (CUNY Graduate School).

The test pit at Hróarsdalur suggests that the farm is very old.

The drained bog near Hátún.

The bog at Melkot

The bog at Holtsmúli

One of the important activities that took place this field season was the extraction of tephra and plant material from bogs.  We are trying to get better dates for some of the dark tephras between Hekla 3  and Hekla 1  (this is the AD 1104 we know quite well).  The bogs took us to some wonderful locations.

In phase from CMD Explorer

We now have some initial results from the survey we talked about last week.  Here is the In Phase component of the CMD explorer results. In the center right is the round church yard. Many of the booths are also visible.    This image does not add a whole lot to what is visible on the surface.  However, this and some of the other components may suggest where a farmstead might be located.