Metallurgical findings from a Viking Age chieftain’s farm in Iceland |
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| Authors: | Sebastian KTS Wärmländer Davide Zori Jesse Byock David A Scott |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Anthropology, University of California in Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA 93106, USA;2. Division of Biophysics, Arrhenius Laboratories, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden;3. The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California in Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA 90095, USA;4. The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology & Scandinavian Section, University of California in Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA 90095, USA;5. The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA/Getty Conservation Programme, University of California in Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA 90095, USA |
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| Abstract: | The metalworking, metal import, and use of metal in medieval Iceland is still little understood. When the Scandinavian settlers colonized Iceland in the 9th c. AD, the island was found to contain no useful metal deposits save for bog iron, and the deforestation that followed the settlement resulted in a scarcity of wood. Only in the last decades have archaeological excavations begun to unravel how the first Icelanders dealt with this lack of resources. This paper presents the metallurgical findings from a Viking Age chieftain's farmstead at Hrísbrú in the Mosfell valley, located just outside Iceland’s present-day capital Reykjavik. The excavated metal objects had all been crafted with good workmanship employing technology similar to that used in mainland Scandinavia. However, most excavated metal finds show evidence of re-use, which together with the second-grade metal in some of the objects indicates a shortage of raw material that prompted the Icelandic colonizers to improvise and make do with whatever material was at hand. |
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| Keywords: | Archaeometallurgy Corrosion Conservation Science Viking studies X-ray diffraction X-ray fluorescence |
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