Dr. John Steinberg has been a Senior Scientist at the Fiske Center since 2005.

He has been directing the Skagafjordur Archaeological Settlement Survey (SASS) since 2000.  SASS is a multi-year project in Northern Iceland to understand the formation of property rights during the Viking Age and after (AD 874-1700).

SASS is studying a series of farms to understand the variation in building construction and the economic potential. Buildings from the Viking Age in Iceland were constructed out of turf and are now buried in deep wind-blown deposits, thereby making them almost impossible to identify, except using remote sensing. His work examines the demographic changes that took place in Iceland from its Viking Age settlement, through its Norse chiefly organization, and into a medieval state system. For more information, see the SASS web page.