Summary of Contents. 



A Dwelling of the Middle Iron Age, 



An important find belonging to the middle part of the Iron 

 Age (3rd to 6th cent. A. D.) was made in Jæderen during my 

 excavation there in 1907, undertaken for the Bergen Museum. The 

 district Jæderen is rich in remains of the prehistoric period and 

 has yielded many of the most important documents for the study 

 of ancient Norway. We have known for many years that traces 

 of old houses and farms existed in Jæderen in localities which are 

 now not cultivated. Mr. Helliesen, of the Stavanger Museum, 

 has published diagrams of some of these forgotten farms dating 

 back, most probably, to the Viking Age. In 1907 I came across 

 three house-grounds on the moors at Ævestad, above Vigrestad 

 railway station, in the parish of Haa, in the southern part of 

 Jæderen (fig. 1). They had a much more ancient appearance than 

 the said houses of the Viking Age, and from the excavation they 

 proved to be some centuries older. Each house consisted of one 

 oblong room; the walls seem to have been mere heaps of stones 

 and earth with no traces of a regular structure, but the inner side 

 of them must have had a steep facing of stones which had now broken 

 down over the floor of the room. The roof had rested upon beams 

 set upright, which had left distinct holes in the clay floor (see the 

 plans figg. 2 and 10)'; they were arranged in rows regularly along 

 each wall at a distance of 0.80—1 m. from the wall. Of the roof 

 itself nothing was left but a great quantity of birch-bark, found in 

 the interior of one of the houses. The fireplaces were paved de- 

 pressions in the middle of the floor (see section fig. 11) but fires 

 had been made also at many different places in the room. 



The houses were, as would be expected, very poor in antiquities ; 

 some complete and many fragmentary earthenware cooking pots 

 were found, and some grinding stones (see illustrations). 



