Geochemical analysis of the truncated Viking Age trading settlement of Heimdalsjordet, Norway

Abstract

Single and multielement archaeological geochemistry has been applied to research and rescue projects for many decades to enhance our understanding of the past use of space. Often applied on one contextual plane, this ignores the complex palimpsest resulting from past occupation and soil processes. Furthermore, many important sites are now heavily truncated by plowing, leaving little more than negative features below the homogenized topsoil. These challenges require new approaches to archaeological geochemistry to gather information before these sites are lost to modern land use. The research presented here applied coring as a sampling method on a truncated site, the sample locations guided by high‐resolution ground‐penetrating radar data and excavation, before using portable X‐ray fluorescence directly on the core samples to understand the phase by phase composition of the deposits and thus past human occupation. The results suggest that even in truncated and secondary contexts, such as the case study of the Viking Age trade settlement of Heimdalsjordet, Norway, archaeological geochemistry can give insight into the chronological and spatial development of the site, and is especially relevant for detecting nonferrous metalworking activity.

Mapping an archaeological site: Interpreting portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) soil analysis at Boroughgate, Skelton, UK

“…The rarity of precious metals in soil means that detecting traces in burial environments with no naturogenic source may indicate anthropogenic activity (Wilson et al, 2008;Holliday, 2004). For example, Cannell et al (2020) observed substantial leaching of elements relating to metalworking in the later phases of Heimdalsjordet, Norway, and elemental maps of precious metals by Sylvester et al (2017) delineated around the known areas of metalworking at St. Algar's Farm, Somerset UK. However, the small size of jewellery compared to the burial environment, and low volume of trade and metal working at Boroughgate, means that detecting traces of gold and other precious metals from the soil survey was unlikely.…”