Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Qupperneq 61

A CONTRIBUTION TO the Study of the Medieval Icelandic Farm: the Byre
research. The first task is to increase the
reliability of the data by opening new
excavations of byres, not least in the
north part of Iceland where no byres have
yet been investigated by excavation.
Such investigations would need to throw
light on all the issues raised here, i.e. the
form of the byre, its relationship with the
bam and other buildings, its location in
the home-field and its development
through time. The last issue could be
dealt with through small scale investiga-
tions on some of the sites already exca-
vated, as many of the Þjórsárdalur byres
are still accessible and it would take only
minor trenching to establish if they are
indeed single phase buildings or not. A
fuller understanding of the Þjórsárdalur
data compared to a detailed study of a
region in the North would undoubtedly
go a long way to resolve some of the
issues raised here, as well as generating
new questions.
As mentioned above the detailed analysis
of faunal assemblages at intensively
investigated sites like Hofstaðir pose
many questions about herd sizes, herd
management and grazing strategies,
some of which could be illuminated if the
animal shelters can be found. The col-
laboration of zooarchaeology and exca-
vation of byres is therefore very impor-
tant. Zooarchaeological analysis present
data on the relative numbers of different
animal species present in the archaeolog-
ical deposits. Such results immediately
gain more meaning when they can be
compared to the buildings the animals
were housed in. At Herjólfsdalur, which
is the only Icelandic site which has both
byres and an analysed faunal assemblage,
the cattle to sheep/goat ratio was about
1:1, indicating a heavy emphasis on cat-
tle raising, supported also by the large
and elaborate byres. Does this mean that
those farm-sites which have large byres
were equally dedicated to cattle raising
and that at sites like Hofstaðir where the
ratio is more like one head of cattle to 5
or 6 sheep or goats, the dairy farming
was so marginal that we should not
expect to fmd a purpose-built byre. Or
does it only mean that Hofstaðir had so
much many more sheep?
In order to better understand the econom-
ic and social structure of medieval
Iceland we need to understand better
these sort of questions. Livestock
formed the base of the Icelandic econo-
my and without paying attention to the
structural evidence for its keeping we
will not be able to appreciate its role in
the economy, and without such an under-
standing our grasp of medieval Icelandic
society will remain poor.
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