Paleoenvironment Chapter, Hofstadir Monograph

Chapter on the paleoenvironment for the Hofstadir Monograph.

Until recently very little was known about the history of environmental change in Myvatnssveit, although many other parts of Iceland have been investigated in some detail, beginning with the work of Sigurður Þórarinsson in the 1940s and Þorleifur Einarsson in the 1950s. Notable multi-disciplinary research at the landscape scale, associated with archaeological excavation, has taken place and is still continuing in Reykholtsdalur in western Iceland (Buckland et al. 1992; Smith 1995; Dixon 1997) and in Eyjafjallsveit in southern Iceland (e.g. Buckland et al. 1991; Dugmore and Buckland 1991; Mairs et al. 2005). A similar body of paleoenvironmental evidence is now beginning to accumulate both from the site of Hofstaðir itself and from the surrounding landscape, capable of illuminating the nature of the Norse and early Medieval site and placing it within a context of a complex and dynamic landscape.