Update and lots of pictures!

This was our dinner for the Fourth of July:



It was delicious. We also had a dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence and sang The Star-Spangled Banner. And we took a group picture.

( update and lots of pictures )

Archaeology Update

Today's our day off! Some people have taken the cars off to various other towns, but I'm wandering Sauðarkrokur. I climbed up the hill behind the town and I've found a picnic table where I can sit and write about Viking archaeology!

I haven't decided yet if I'll post this on the official blog. Hmm.

Icelandic dating is easy, in some ways, because of the tephra layers. If we can find tephra, we always know how old things are - or at least what dates they fall between. In some ways this is unfortunate, though, because diagnostic artifacts such as a dated coins are rare in Iceland, so there is no good way to date finds if we can't find tephra to place them in context. Iceland is volcanic - formed by volcanoes and plagued by volcanoes - and with each major eruption, the island was blanketed in a distinctive layer of ash. When we're out in the field taking soil cores, we're looking for anything cultural, of course, and we're also looking for tephra. I'm not wonderful at distinguishing them, but I'm getting to the point where I can make a reasonable guess. Sometimes they're obvious, and sometimes not so much.

The most recent layer that we usually see is from 1766, and before that, 1300. Both of those are usually characterized by thin black lines in a stratigraphic profile. Next are eruptions at 1104 and around 1000, also called H1 and H2, represented usually by thin white lines. Below those we'll find the landnam layer - landnam is the Icelandic word for land-taking, corresponding to sometime in the late 800s, when Vikings were first beginning to colonize the island - there's an obvious change in soil color and texture before vs. after landnam. Landnam tephra is a layer of greenish-black, usually found with several centimeters of really colorful stripy soil. Finally, H3 and H4 are prehistoric tephra layers, and are very thick and white. Full sequences are really pretty - I'll try to get a picture before the end of the summer.

( more about tephra, cores, and turf )

Unrelatedly, if you guys would like pictures of anything in particular from Iceland, let me know and I'll do my best!