Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.1998, Page 152

Ritdómar
of blood-grouping. In his article Ólaf-
ur Jensson gives a clear and concise
overview of genetic evidence for the
origins of particular populations,
pointing out the pitfalls in interpreta-
tions of this sort of evidence without
taking any sort of position on the ori-
gins of the Icelanders. This is in con-
trast to the following article by Stefán
Aðalsteinsson on the origins of Ice-
landic domestic animals which he
traces directly and unequivocally to
Norway — rehearsing his views pub-
lished earlier in different places.
Guðrún Larsen deals extensively
with tephrochronology in her article,
explaining the basis of the meth-
odology before going into detail re-
garding the dating of the so-called
Landnám tephra, which is found
immediately below many early archae-
ological deposits, and of the E-1 teph-
ra from a slightly later eruption, but
these two tephras are extremely useful
in the dating of the landnám process.
This is a useful overview of the sub-
ject, especially as comparable intro-
ductory texts on tephrochronology
have not been available in Icelandic.
As Guðrún Larsen mentions towards
the end of her article, trace elements of
the landnám tephra have since been
found in the Greenland ice cap all-
owing its dating to AD 871 ±2, a
result which puts the whole debate
about the dating of this tephra firmly
to rest. The next article, by Árný
Sveinbjörnsdóttir, is a purely met-
hodological text-book-like summary of
radiocarbon dating. It is clearly writt-
en but does not have a single word
concerning the settlement of Iceland.
Margrét Hallsdóttir discusses pollen
analysis as evidence for the landnám
and the settlement process. She discus-
ses the methodological basis for her
discipline and then gives a useful sum-
mary of her own previously published
conclusions on vegetation change as a
result of the introduction of humans
into the Icelandic environment shortly
before 900. The implications are that
the change in vegetation cover was
swift and drastic and she adds the
results of a more recent study which
indicates that already before 920 the
tree cover in the South had reached the
low level it would stay at for centuries.
Unlike most of his natural science
colleagues in this volume Sturla Frið-
riksson has little interest in meth-
odology but is all the more keen to
present a general picture of the settle-
ment process based on all the available
evidence. Sturla Friðriksson is equally
at home with documentary evidence as
ecological data and is in fact the only
contributor to this volume who makes
use of later settlement and ownership
patterns to throw light on the land-
nám period. Adding this to a keen
understanding of the dynamics of the
Icelandic pre-industrial economic sys-
tem and its ecological setting he is
able to conjure up a compelling pic-
ture of the landnám. Although there is
much informed guesswork and some
wild assumptions — much of which has
appeared elsewhere — Sturla Friðriks-
son’s informed and insightful rather
152