VSF 2010 Report - Nabo

EXCAVATIONS IN THE VIKING AGE AREA
Karen Milek
University of Aberdeen
Introduction
2010 was the seventh year of research in the Viking Age Area. After placing two
evaluation tranches in this area in 2003, Ragnar Edvardsson had excavated a tenth-century
house, or skáli (Structure 1), and a later, smaller building, which contained a large cooking
pit (Structure 2), in 2004. Eight outbuildings were then excavated in this area between 2005
and 2009: a smithy (Structure 3) with a small storage building next to it (Structure 6), a
small building with a stone pavement, which was probably used for storage or for drying
fish (Structure 4), a small building with had a grinding stone in it, which might have been a
workshop (Structure 5), a poorly preserved building on the slope east of the skáli, which
might have had a wooden floor (Structure 8), and two square buildings with several phases
of stone pavements and organic floor deposits, one of which had been built on top of the
other after a period of abandonment, which were probably Viking Age and Medieval
animal buildings (Structures 9 and 7). In addition, the outdoor surfaces between these
buildings was also excavated, revealing sheet middens, pathways, ephemeral outdoor
hearths, and three cooking pits. The 2010 field season saw the excavation of what was
believed to be the last remaining Viking Age building on the site, a small pit house
(Structure 10) (Figure 1).
Area 32
Area 1
Structure 1
Area 23
Structure 8
Structure 3
Area 6
Structure 5
Area 2
Structure 6
Area 14
Structure 10
Structure 4
0 10 20 m
N
Figure 1. Plan of the Viking Age area at Vatnsfjörður, showing the buildings (turf walls in brown), structural
features such as stones (grey) and post holes (black), and pits (red).
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