Primary and Secondary Icelandic Farmsteads

在国家科学基金会的支持下，John Steinberg博士、Douglas Bolender博士、Brian Damiata博士、Paul Durrenberger博士和他们的同事将在冰岛北部的Skagafjordur进行为期三个季节的考古田野工作。田野调查的目的是比较大的和小的维京时代的农庄，以便了解较小的农庄是如何以及为什么明显地从早期和较大的农庄中细分出来的。这一细分似乎是造成后期北欧和中世纪冰岛严重经济不平等的重要组成部分。这项研究是对三个成功的NSF资助项目的后续研究：研究人员利用高风险奖开发遥感方法来发现深埋的建筑；为期两年的项目，利用这些方法在Skagafjordur定位以前未知的海盗时代遗址；以及为期一年的拨款，研究人员发现，探地雷达(GPR)在勾勒出海盗时代的草皮结构轮廓方面是有效的，为详细挖掘做准备。这项工作继续与冰岛国家遗产局和Skagafjordur民俗博物馆密切协调。这项工作还将为研究生和本科生的研究提供大量的研究机会。直到公元874年，冰岛才开始无人居住，当时酋长和富有的农民以及他们的家庭随从开始乘坐他们的敞篷小船到达冰岛。关于定居点和由此产生的主要社会的描述是以半历史传奇的形式给出的。然而，这些传奇故事在几个关键的社会经济问题上是模棱两可、相互矛盾的，或者是沉默的，这将帮助学者们理解为什么这个主要是维京时代的社会稳定了这么长时间，以及为什么它最终变成了中世纪的庄园国家社会。对聚落的考古调查可以通过提供关于农庄经济状况的信息来帮助学者了解这种社会变化。不幸的是，冰岛的考古是自相矛盾的：在肥沃的沿海低地，早期的考古遗址很难识别。相反，一旦发现，这些遗址的保存往往很出色。挖掘保存完好的草坪结构是出了名的困难和耗时。PI发现，遥感(浅层地球物理技术)使他们能够解决这一悖论。除了冰岛的北欧海盗考古之外，该项目还具有方法论和智力方面的影响。为了有效地挖掘草坪结构，该项目将进一步开发各种浅层地球物理技术，这些技术在过去几年被证明是有效的。方法学的发展将使学者们有能力为埋藏的草坪建筑制作准确的地下地图。这些同样精致的技术可以在美国和世界各地的许多情况下应用。在冰岛，它们将对考古实践和保护产生具体和有利的影响：冰岛的大片地区正受到开发的威胁，获得准确的考古沉积物地下地图的方法将有助于负责历史保护的机构对受影响地区进行环境评估。这一应用尤其重要，因为斯坦伯格博士的研究团队过去的工作表明，许多最早的遗址无法在地表被识别出来。

With support from the National Science Foundation, Drs. John Steinberg, Douglas Bolender, Brian Damiata, Paul Durrenberger and their colleagues will conduct three seasons of archaeological fieldwork in Skagafjordur, Northern Iceland. The goal of the fieldwork is to compare large and small Viking Age farmsteads in order to understand how and why the smaller farmsteads were apparently subdivided from earlier and larger farmsteads. This subdivision appears to be an important part of the creation of substantial economic inequality of later Norse and Medieval Iceland.This research follows up on three successful NSF-funded projects: a High Risk award with which the investigators developed remote sensing methods to find deeply buried structures; a two-year project with which those methods were used in Skagafjordur to locate previously unknown Viking Age sites; and a one-year grant with which the researchers found that Ground Penetrating Rader (GPR) is effective at outlining Viking Age turf structures in preparation for detailed excavation. The work continues to be closely coordinated with both the National Heritage Agency of Iceland and the Skagafjordur Folk Museum. The work will also provide substantial research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate research.Iceland was uninhabited until AD 874, when chieftains and wealthy farmers, along with their household retinues, began to arrive in their open boats. Accounts of the settlement and of the resulting chiefly society are given in semi-historical sagas. However, these sagas are ambiguous, contradictory, or silent on several critical socio-economic issues that would help scholars understand why this Viking Age chiefly society was stable for so long and why, in the end, it finally turned into a medieval manorial state society. Archaeological investigations of the settlements can help scholars understand this social change by yielding information on economic status of farmsteads. Unfortunately, the archaeology of Iceland is paradoxical: in the fertile coastal lowlands early archaeological sites are difficult to identify. Conversely, once found, preservation at these sites is often outstanding. Excavation of well-preserved turf structures is notoriously difficult and time-consuming. The PI's have found that remote sensing (shallow geophysical techniques) allows them to solve this paradox. This project has both methodological and intellectual implications beyond the Viking/Norse archaeology of Iceland. To efficiently excavate turf structures, the project will develop further various shallow geophysical techniques that have proven effective during the past years. The methodological developments would give scholars the ability to create accurate subsurface maps of buried turf architecture. These same refined techniques could be applied in numerous situations in the US and around the world. In Iceland they would have a concrete and beneficial effect on archaeological practices and preservation: substantial areas of Iceland are under threat from development, and a methodology for obtaining accurate subsurface maps of archaeological deposits would help agencies in charge of historical preservation with their environmental assessments of impacted areas. This application is especially important since the past work of Dr. Steinberg's research team has demonstrated that many of the earliest sites cannot be identified on the surface.