Adolf Fridriksson

University of Oslo · Museum of Cultural History

Mortuary customs frequently provide the principal archaeological evidence for religious identity. Such customs are often seen as a direct reflection of religion and therefore a change of religion should be expected to result in a change in burial rite. There is growing evidence that the relationship is not so straightforward. In this paper we repor...

Floodplains have been the cradle of some of the earliest and richest civilizations in history. While most floodplain management systems tend to be near sea level, there is a unique system in the mountainous Lake Mývatn region in Iceland, the only community that has persisted in that elevation in Iceland since settlement c. 1100 years ago. These flo...

A report of the 2013 excavations at Skútustaðir. A long term farm in Mývatn, northern Iceland.

The offshore islands of the North Atlantic were among some of the last settled places on earth, with humans reaching the Faroes and Iceland in the late Iron Age and Viking period. While older accounts emphasizing deforestation and soil erosion have presented this story of island colonization as yet another social–ecological disaster, recent archaeo...

Minjar um þinghald í héraði eru merkar heimildir um samfélagslega þróun á Íslandi sem lítið hafa verið kannaðar til þessa. Nokkrar athuganir hafa verið gerðar á alþingisstaðum við Öxará og á flestum vorþingsstöðum fornaldar. Mjög lítið er vitað um leifar þingstaða sem stofnaðir voru í hverjum hrepp á landinu á miðöldum og voru við lýði um aldir. Fl...

Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios (d 13 C and d 15 N) have been used widely in archaeology to investigate palaeodiet. Sulphur stable isotope ratios (d 34 S) have shown great promise in this regard but the potential of this technique within archae-ological science has yet to be fully explored. Here we report d 34 S, d 13 C and d 15 N values...

The Place of the Dead. Viking Pagan Burial in Icelandic Cultural Landscape Résumé La place du mort is a topographical study of pagan burials from the late Iron Age in Iceland. The aim of this work is to investigate where burials are located, and explain the reason behind the choice of place. The results are based on a critical revision of all avail...

Human bone collagen from a series of Icelandic human pagan graves was radiocarbon (14C) dated to aid understanding of early settlement (landnám) chronologies in northern Iceland. These individuals potentially consumed marine protein. The 14C age of samples containing marine carbon requires a correction for the marine 14C reservoir effect. The propo...

Presenting a long-term view of the numerical development of cemeteries in Viking age and medieval Iceland this paper argues that although there are distinct differences between the pagan and Christian burial paradigms those differences mask more fundamental processes reflecting the gradual consolidation of community as the primary reference for per...

Lake Mývatn is an interior highland lake in northern Iceland that forms a unique ecosystem of international scientific importance and is surrounded by a landscape rich in archaeological and paleoenvironmental sites. A significant freshwater reservoir effect (FRE) has been identified in carbon from the lake at some Viking (about AD 870–1000) archaeo...

Lake Mývatn is an interior highland lake in northern Iceland that forms a unique ecosystem of international scientific importance and is surrounded by a landscape rich in archaeological and palaeoenvironmental sites. A significant Freshwater 14C Reservoir Effect (FRE) has been identified in carbon from the lake at some Norse (c.870-1000 AD) archaeo...

The Unknown Country. Pre-christian burial topography in Iceland Iceland was the last big landmass of Europe to be settled by humans, in c. 870 AD. Therefore, it offers a rare opportunity for the study of the late Iron Age Europe, the final chapter of European prehistory. In Iceland, the first settlers came to the shore of an unknown country. They e...

Land, its organisation and management as well as its intrinsic quality are little understood aspects of the settlement process in Iceland. Yet an understanding of the concept and significance of land is vital if we are to recognise the way in which environmental resources were used to create and maintain social structures, the role of management de...

This paper examines two potential sources of the 14C offset between human and terrestrial mammal (horse) bones recovered from Norse (c.870-1000 AD) pagan graves in Mývatnssveit, North Iceland. These are the marine and freshwater 14C reservoir effects that may be incorporated into human bones from dietary sources. The size of the marine reservoir 14...

This paper examines 2 potential sources of the radiocarbon offset between human and terrestrial mammal (horse) bones recovered from Norse (~AD 870–1000) pagan graves in Mývatnssveit, north Iceland. These are the marine and freshwater ¹⁴C reservoir effects that may be incorporated into human bones from dietary sources. The size of the mar...

This paper examines 2 potential sources of the radiocarbon offset between human and terrestrial mammal (horse) bones recovered from Norse (~AD 870-1000) pagan graves in Mývatnssveit, north Iceland. These are the marine and freshwater 14C reservoir effects that may be incorporated into human bones from dietary sources. The size of the marine 14C res...

A thousand years ago Viking age voyagers crossed the grey waters of the North Atlantic, colonizing the Faroes, Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland between AD 800 and 1000. However, early transatlantic migration was not to have the historical impact of the later European re-discovery of North America, and by the 16th century the Scandinavian North Atlan...

Early settlement in the North Atlantic produced complex interactions of culture and nature. A sustained program of interdisciplinary collaboration focused on ninth- to 13th-century sites and landscapes in the highland interior lake basin of Myvatn in Iceland and to contribute a long-term perspective to larger issues of sustainable resource use, soi...