Meðlimir Rannsóknastofu í fornleifafræði við Háskóla Íslands

Alex's doctoral research explores the potential of community engagement as a management tool for Iceland's maritime archaeological sites. Given the universal challenges of managing underwater heritage, involving local communities, particularly sports divers, has shown promise elsewhere around the world. The research is focused on qualitative methods such as interviews, surveys, and workshops with various stakeholders in Icelandic archaeology. The main outcome aims to provide management recommendations to foster a collaborative environment in the future management of maritime sites.

Doktorsrannsóknin mín ber titilinn Nunnurnar í Niðarósi og fjallar um nunnuklaustur í erkibiskupsdæminu í Niðarósi á miðöldum, sér í lagi á Íslandi og í Noregi. Hún styðst við ritaðar og fornleifafræðilegar heimildir en markmið hennar er að skilgreina megineinkenni klausturmenningar kvenna á svæðinu og samfélagslegt hlutverk klaustranna. Rannsóknin leitast þannig við að auka hlut nunnuklaustra í klausturrannsóknum sem og þverþjóðlegra nálgana innan þeirra.

My PhD project, The Nuns of Nidaros, is a study of female monasticism in the medieval Archdiocese of Nidaros, with focus on Iceland and Norway. Combining archaeological and historical evidence, it seeks to define the shape that monastic ideologies and traditions took on amongst women’s religious communities in the area, and to understand their role in medieval society. The project thus aims to rebalance the part of women in monastic studies, as well as to contribute to the increasing literature of transnational approaches in the field.

In the research project “Millennium by the Atlantic Ocean” the scope is from a More-than-human and Rubber boots theoretical view of how humans and non-humans co-existed for a millennium in the seafaring town of Seydisfjordur, East-Iceland. The millennium of history (900-1900 AD) at one farm, Skálanes, and in comparison, 300 years (900-1100 AD) at the longhouse of Fjordur, will give insight into the living conditions and utilization of resources before and after the settlement and through the period of a millennium. Analyzis of 16s rRNA bacteria, targeted PCR of plants and animals from sedaDNA, are the research material, as well as historical evidence of living conditions, vegetation, landslides, weather conditions and utilization of resources.

Rannveig works with a research team at Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana. Rannveig’s main supervisor is Dr. Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir. Dr. Egill Erlendsson and Dr. Emmett Smith are also in the PhD supervising board.

Rannveig’s research has received funding from the University of Iceland Research Centre in East Iceland and PhD funding [nr. 2410163-051] from the Icelandic Centre for Research (Rannís) in 2024-2025. A SIE 2021 Scholarship grant was received by Thorhallsdottir from Soroptimists in 2021, and travel grants from Hagþenkir in 2023, HÍ in 2024 and the Letterstedska fund in 2025.

Haraldur's research aims to explore and understand the lives of past Icelanders whose bodies or mental faculties might have been considered disabled or disabling by modern perceptions. His research period stretches from Iceland's settlement (ca. 900) to 1936, when the first national law concerning disability was passed in Iceland's parliament.

The foci of the research are the individuals. Their skeletal remains are ostelogically and palaeopathologically studied, and the remains come from several sites in Iceland, which differ spatially, chronologically and religiously, Pre-Christian, Catholic and Protestant, sites such as Öndverðarnes, Skeljastaðir, Haffjarðarey, Skriðuklaustur and Bessastaðir. Each individual's locality, society and religious aspects are studied via the available contemporary literary sources, such as law books, church annals and censuses.

By understanding contemporary social and cultural perceptions and attitudes towards different-bodied people and intertwining that knowledge with data gathered from examinations of the individual's skeletal remains, Haraldur aims to reconstruct the lives of these individuals in the attempt to bring forth their own embodied experiences, emotions and attitudes towards their society and themselves.

Haraldur was a part of the interdisciplinary research project Disability before disability, which was led by dr. Hanna Björg Sigurjónsdóttir, prof. of disability studies at the University of Iceland.

All you can eat – Evaluating past diet In Iceland with Lipid analysis

Dietary habits in Iceland in the past have generally been investigated archaeologically through plant remains, zooarchaeological methods, studies on artifacts associated with foodstuff, and isotope studies on human remains. However, modern scientific methods have proven essential to our search and understanding of people in the past, alongside their diets, cultures, and ways of life, especially over the last 20 years. Lipid analysis, though not completely absent in Iceland, is a vastly under-utilised method and data source. The aim of the research project is to evaluate the potential of such analysis for archaeological research on dietary habits in past Iceland. The project is divided into four phases, each ending with a peer-reviewed article. In phase one, an archaeological experiment will be conducted, examining lipid preservation in various materials of known use in ancient Iceland. The second phase will be based on the results from the experiment, guiding sample selection and prepared from the archaeological collection. In phase three, a few well-documented archaeological sites in Iceland will be selected for comparison with other dietary data. Finally, the project aims to shed new light on past dietary habits in Iceland, according to the results and comparisons derived from the first three phases of the project.