Report of Midden Investigations at Undir Sandmúla, Bardardalur, N Iceland (field report)

On August 3-4 2005 a midden team (Tom McGovern, Seth Brewington, Konrad
Smiarowski, Raymond Petit) collaborated with Fornleifastofnun Islands in the
investigation of an abandoned farm site at Undir Sandmúla (SDM). The site had
produced prior surface collections of Viking age artifacts, and has been visited by
several scholars over the past century. The site was very heavily eroded, with
most of the surface reduced to prehistoric till and boulder surface. Scatters of
bone in several areas resting directly upon this terminal erosion surface indicated
the presence of very extensive (and probably very rich) midden deposits once
existing around the surviving structures (1, 2, 3, see plan 1). Partially turf covered
mounds to the NW (4) and NE (5) of the main hall structure (1) also showed
associated bone scatters. It was hoped that these stab s might cover
midden deposits as at Hrísheimar and Sveigakot in Mývatnssveit. A
systematic coring transect (16 cores all carried to H3 prehistoric tephra) of the
larger area 5 unfortunately revealed only sterile, wind deposited banded natural
deposits 50-90 cm thick which extended down to either the LNS or the H3 tephra
without showing any signs of either cultural deposit or the many tephra
post dating the LNS. Similar results were provided by straightening of a 18 m
long natural erosion face that runs diagonally across the surface of area 5 (trench
1). The LNS could be followed fairly continuously acro the trench 1 profile,
though in places even this tephra was breached by eros wn to the H3 level.
Wind transported deposits visible in the trench 1 profile ranged in size from silt
up to 2 -3 mm diameter pebbles, suggesting the velocity and intensity of the
erosion events that have flayed the site surface down to prehistoric levels over
most of its surface. One of the cores near the S end of area 5 showed ca 5 cm
of cultural material, and a second test trench (4 x 4 m, trench 2) was opened
around this core. A small deposit of mottled grey ash with a heavy concentration
of calcined bone was found in an area extending ca 2 m x 0.75 m, with a
depth of deposit ranging from 2-5 cm. This midden material rested directly
upon the upper surface of the Landnám Tephra Sequence with no more than a
few millimeters separating the two layers. This small ving deposit was
collected as a total bulk sample for flotation. While the middens once surrounding
this highland site seem to have been almost completely destroyed by erosion,
the small remaining deposit does serve to suggest some very early occupation of
this site.