Midden Investigations at Brenna, Mývatnssveit, N Iceland, 2002 (field report)

• Main Author: Hicks, Megan T.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: the Digital Archaeological Record
• Subjects: Data Recovery / Excavation; Site Evaluation / Testing; Brenna; Hamlet / village; Agricultural or Herding; Midden; Dating Sample; Fauna; Mývatn; Sandvatn; Dwarf birch; Iceland
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.6067:XCV8FJ2F4N_meta$v=1317070429347

During the 2002 field season of the (directed by Fornleifastofnun Islands with collaboration by the NABO cooperative) we visited the abandoned site of Brenna on the shores of Sandvatn (to the NW of Mývatn). A small farm site now much overgrown with dwarf birch and willow had clear boundary walls, several room depressions in a small farm mound, and a clear mounded midden deposit to the NE of the main structure. A small test pit had been dug some time in the past at the base of the midden mound, but this appears to have missed the main deposit and is mainly sterile. Three cores were placed in a line across the upstanding midden mound, and these demonstrated between 50 and 90 cm of deposit extending down to the distinctive local LNS. Fish bone, ash, charcoal, bird egg shell (in some quantity), and burnt mammal bone suggest that this is both a rich and an early deposit. Logistic problems are considerable however, and supporting or maintaining an excavation crew on site would be a challenge.