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Surtshellir: a fortified outlaw cave in west iceland
– June 22, 2014Posted in: Articles
Surtshellir: a fortified outlaw cave in west iceland
By Guðmundur Ólafsson, Kevin P. Smith and Thomas H. McGovern
The Viking Age: Ireland and the West – Proceedings of the Fifteenth Viking Congress, Cork, 2005, (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010)
Introduction: In recent years, c.500 icelandic lava caves have been
discovered, explored and mapped. more than 200 of these have produced
some form of evidence for human occupation or activities, dating from
the time of iceland’s initial settlement to the present day. While many
caves appear to have been used as animal sheds, archaeological remains
in others suggest that these were used for human occupation over longer
or shorter periods of time. Hidden entrances, fireplaces, sleeping
alcoves and middens suggest that some may have been temporary hide-outs
for outlaws. A smaller number have internal fortifications or other
structures that suggest larger, more permanent or more contested
occupations. Only two such caves had received some archaeological
attention prior to the investigations discussed in this paper.
Gísli Gestsson’s pioneering cave research at Hallmundarhellir, in the
inner reaches of the western icelandic Hallmundarhraun lava flow,
demonstrated the potential for intact and unusual archaeological
deposits to exist in the forbidding subterranean environments of
iceland’s lava tubes. At Hallmundarhellir, Gestsson recorded dividing
walls, partitions, hearths and a small assemblage of artefacts and bones
hidden behind a massive wall that blocked the mouth of this sand-choked
lava cave.
Further west in the Hallmundarhraun lava field, near its terminal
end, investigations in the Víðgelmir cave in 1993 documented ephemeral
features and a small assemblage of artefacts and faunal remains
suggestive of a short visit by a small number of occupants intent on
remaining hidden. These investigations, presented at the fourteenth
Viking Congress in 2001, also provided strong evidence that charcoal
from the settlement period, apparently gathered from very old standing
trees or well-preserved logs and branches, could be up to 200 years
older than the actual site they were taken from, providing an
explanation for mysteriously ‘old dates’ from the Settlement period of
iceland.
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