Pushing back the boundaries of Icelandic history

From Oldest Viking settlement possibly unearthed in Iceland by Tom Metcalfe.

Archaeologists have unearthed what may be the oldest Viking settlement in Iceland.

The ancient longhouse is thought to be a summer settlement built in the 800s, decades before seafaring refugees are supposed to have settled the island, and was hidden beneath a younger longhouse brimming with treasures, said archaeologist Bjarni Einarsson, who led the excavations.

"The younger hall is the richest in Iceland so far," Einarsson told Live Science. "It is hard not to conclude that it is a chieftain's house."

Longhouses were large wooden halls, up to 250 feet (75 meters) long and 20 feet (6 meters) wide, covered with turf and thatch and used as communal habitations throughout the Norse lands during the Viking Age.

They were divided into rooms and could be shared by several families. Fires were built in stone hearths along the center, and farm animals could be stabled there to protect them from cold.

Both longhouses were found at Stöð, near the village and fjord of Stöðvarfjörður in the east of Iceland. The younger structure dates to around A.D. 874 — the commonly accepted date for Iceland's settlement by people, who, according to Icelandic lore, were escaping the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair. It contains one of the most valuable hoards of ornamental beads, silver and ancient coins ever found in Scandinavia, Einarsson said.

Among the finds: Roman and Middle Eastern silver coins, and "hacksilver," which are cut and bent pieces of silver used as bullion or currency by the Vikings and other ancient peoples.

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Hidden beneath the treasure-filled longhouse was an even older structure. Chemical and other analysis suggest this buried longhouse was built in the 800s, long before the permanent settlement of Iceland, Einarsson said.

He thinks it was a seasonal settlement or camp, occupied only during the summer and maybe into the fall, by workers in the area.