Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Page 10

Gavin Lucas
ceptions of site formation processes in
Icelandic archaeology.
If there has been a bias toward excavat-
ing upstanding ruins, this might also be
more specifically characterised in terms
of the types of ruins which are usually
investigated. While Horsley and
Dockrill's paper is very much method-
ological in its focus, two others discuss
more substantive research issues and
seek to challenge other conceptual bias'
in past archaeology. At the micro-scale,
Bruno Berson's paper on byres, while
providing a much needed synthesis of
examples, also shows how little is known
about such structures. As well as citing
issues of identification, he also raises
other pertinent points about their mor-
phology (such as rebuilding, size) and
their relation to the farmstead, in particu-
lar whether byres could have been shared
between farms. At the macro-scale,
Einarsson, Hansson and Vésteinsson's
paper addresses the issue of linear earth-
works in the landscape, with particular
reference to a well-preserved group in
the north-east of the country. In describ-
ing and interpreting their formation, their
role as property boundaries (as well as
possibly also doubling as thoroughfares)
is convincingly argued and they raise a
critical research issue about the date of
their establishment. Undoubtedly such
earthworks will comprise many phases of
establishment and re-establishment but
the issue of chronology is vital because it
will clearly link into arguments for why
such major boundaries come to be built
and maintained.
Both the paper on byres and that on
earthworks are clearly attempts to move
archaeological investigation away from
its prior focus on the farmhouse and
dwellings and outward to a wider per-
spective, whether it is non-domestic
structures on the farmstead such as for
livestock, or the larger layout of farms
and the boundaries and routes associated
with them. Such perspectives will help us
to understand the development of farms,
their inter-connection and thus broader
landscape settlement patterns in the
region. The final papers in this issue dis-
cusses just such themes. Ole Guldager's
contribution uses a more theoretical
model to uncover socio-economic differ-
ences within the Norse Greenland settle-
ment pattem by ordering farms according
to size. He also uses this method to iden-
tify the possible location of the farm of
Erik the Red, Brattahlid. Guldager's
approach is just one, and employs basic
data (building area), but if more work on
other, previously marginal aspects of
farmsteads such as those discussed in this
issue are conducted, the potential for
more empirically rich interpretations of
settlement pattems and their relation to
socio-economic structures will be possi-
ble. The paper by Vésteinsson,
McGovern, Keller and Amorosi attempts
just this, drawing on a wide range of evi-
dence including archaeological, palaeoe-
cological and historical data. They
examine the dynamics of colonisation
and settlement in Iceland and Greenland,
focusing on the economic, political and
ecological dimensions of settlement in a
temporal perspective arguing that the
socio-economic structures established
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