almost 5 m long was recorded. The eastern part of the longhouse may have contained a
byre. Added to the southern wall of the longhouse was a small structure with a floor
space of c. 12 m^2. Its western gable end was probably a wooden wall. On the northern
side of the long dwelling house, there was a building, 13 m long and 4 m wide. Its walls
were constructed from only a single built dry-stone wall and no turf. Its function has
preliminarily been interpreted as an outhouse.
A small building, 5 m long and 3 m wide, was located close to the northern side of
the longhouse. The side walls were constructed similarly to the walls of the dwelling
house, while the gable wall to the west was probably a wooden wall; the eastern end was
eroded by a stream. The floor was paved with flat stones, and covered with thick layers
of ashes and charcoal, and with a small stone-built ember pit in the eastern end. The
building was interpreted as a firehouse (Stummann Hansen 1991 ).
As in other farmsteads known from this period, the buildings were basically con-
structed of wood, but had thick insulating outer walls of stone and earth. Even though
building timber was scarce, the wooden stave-building tradition based on Norwegian/
Scandinavian architecture was employed with modifications to suit local conditions
(Stoklund 1984 ; Stummann Hansen 1999 ).
The artefact record is of great interest. This consists of a large number of objects of
steatite, for example fragments of bowls and saucepans, but also spindle whorls and line-
or netsinkers for fishing, as well as hones and querns of schist. As steatite is not a local
material these objects must have been imported, apparently from Norway. Only a few
artefacts of local material, such as basalt and tufa, were found. There were huge numbers
of well-preserved wooden objects such as bowls, spoons and staves from barrels. A large
group of the wooden objects consists of cords of twined juniper branches which no doubt
were used as handles for the barrels and as ropes for the roof stones. While the afore-
mentioned stone artefacts may have been imported from the east, the artefact record also
includes imported goods and jewellery originating from and indicating links to the
south, the Irish Sea, for example two ringed pins of Hiberno-Norse type and a jet
bracelet (Larsen 1991 ; Stummann Hansen 1993 ). The settlement at Toftanes has been
dated to the ninth–tenth centuries (Vickers et al. 2005 ).
ArgisbrekkaAmong the place names to whose existence philologists paid special attention from early
on were names containing the Celtic name-element ærgi. It had possibly become inte-
grated into the Norse language during the ninth century, and it was assumed that the
place names meant something like summer grazing pastures or shielings for cattle
(Matras 1956 ). Archaeological surveys of the eighteen localities retaining such place
names – all but one situated in the outfield – ascertained that at several of these localities
were the remains of small ruins. From the archaeological excavation of one of these
localities, Ergidalur on the island of Suðuroy, it was concluded that this was a Viking
Age summer or seasonal settlement (Dahl 1970 : 362 ).
Due to the damming of Lake Eiðisvatn, located in the northernmost part of the
island of Eysturoy, extensive archaeological excavations were initiated at the site of
Argisbrekka during 1983 – 7 (Mahler 1991 , 1998 , 2007 ). The locality is in the outfield
of the village of Eiði, at an altitude of 130 m above sea level. It was possible to divide the
archaeological remains on the plain west of Argisbrekka into roughly two settlement
–– chapter 42 ( 1 ): The Faroe Islands––