| Summary: | This document is a preliminary report of archaeological fieldwork conducted at and around the farm of Svalbard, Svalbardshreppur, in June 2008. An initial evaluation of the archaeological potential of Svalbard was made by archaeologists of the Iceland Palaeoeconomy Project (IPP) in 1986, revealing the presence of deep midden deposits adjacent to the extant farm mound, on the bank of the bank of the Svalbarsa River. Test excavations and then large scale excavations of this midden were undertaken in successive projects in 1986 and 1988. The Svalbard project yielded one of the largest faunal collections yet recovered in Iceland, the initial analysis of which was instrumental in the development of methods and models of reconstructing palaeoeconomies, landscape history and human-environment interactions in the North Atlantic region. Since 1988, however, North Atlantic archaeology has benefited from ongoing developments in palaeoclimatology, palaeoenvironmental studies, tephrachronological dating, fieldwork methodologies and a tremendous number of new survey and site-oriented field projects which have brought new, data-rich regional perspectives on landscape change, subsistence and social movements. While north Iceland has seen particular emphasis in these new projects, the bulk of this work has been carried out in the Myvatn, Eyjafjordur and the Westfjords regions. Despite the ambitious start made by the IPP project, the northeasternmost extremities of Iceland (Thistilfjordur, Oxarfjordur and Melrakasletta) have seen little ongoing archaeological research and Svalbard remains the sole major site excavated the region. Due to its greater exposure and vulnerability to arctic climatic influences (air masses, currents and sea ice, for example) relative to other parts of Iceland, the extreme northeast remains an ideal region in which to examine human-environment interactions, such as Little Ice Age climatic impacts on subsistence economies. Furthermore, the diversity of economic activities based on the extraction or collection of local biological resources, ranging from stock raising and dairying, to cod fishing, to seal and sea bird harvesting practised at Svalbard possibly indicates an interesting capacity for diverse adaptations to environmental variations through employment of alternative economic strategies. With this in perspective, a new round of fieldwork was conducted at Svalbard in 2008, intending to refine the stratigraphy and dating of the midden excavated in 1987 and 1988, to gather new radiocarbon, geoarchaeological and ecofact samples to supplement landscape history and site formation reconstructions for the site and for the Svalbard region, and to identify potential locations for further archaeological archaeological research.
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