Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Page 78

Ole Guldager
unknown. The once thriving farms were
left behind and forgotten. Eventually
they tumed into insignificant and anony-
mous piles of rocks and turf, still visible
in the landscape today.
But exactly where was the renowned
Brattahlíð? For more than a century now,
it has been a generally accepted fact
among researchers that the remains of the
farm are to be found in Qassiarsuk, situ-
ated in the Tunulliarfík f]ord of South
Greenland (Figure 1).
A lot of new material has appeared
during the last 100 years, however.
Excavations and extensive surveys have
been conducted, providing a much deep-
er and more detailed understanding of the
settlement and the lifestyle of the
medieval Norse Greenlanders.
With this more extensive material at
hand, it seems that the old theory con-
ceming the location of Brattahlíð has to
be seriously questioned. A new, and more
likely candidate is a very large farm site
found in Qinngua, only 10 kilometres
from the old location of Brattahlíð.
Recent years' surveys also raise ques-
tions about the theories of the settlement
structure itself. It was previously
believed that the farms with churches
were the centres of the settlement and the
places where the chieftains lived. It now
seems as if the social stmcture was some-
what more complex, each region having
both a large chieftain farm and nearby,
another farm with a church. This division
of the prominent farms probably reflects
a unique development of the Greenlandic
society in comparison with the other
Nordic countries - a society where the
chieftains remained in control of both
churches and their lands.
A Historical Review
Research into the Norse settlements in
Greenland was initiated in the early 18th
century, beginning with the arrival of the
Danish/Norwegian priest Hans Egede in
1721. This recolonisation of Greenland
was the first succesful venture of many
attempts to re-establish contact with the
lost colony in the North Atlantic Ocean,
and the purpose of Egede's joumey was
mainly to bring christianity back to the
Norse Greenlanders (Egede 1738). Even
though Egede visited quite a number of
abandoned farms on his joumeys, he did
not succeed in finding any living Norse
Greenlanders. Nevertheless, he chose to
remain in the country, and built a mission
in the vicinity of the old Western
Settlement on the west coast of
Greenland.
The hope of finding living Norsemen
was not given up however, since the his-
torical records stated that there used to be
two colonies in the country, both an east-
em and a western settlement. Logically, it
was assumed that the Eastem Settlement
was situated on the inaccessible east
coast of the country. Consequently quite
a number of expeditions were carried out,
with the hope of fínding the lost Eastem
Settlement (Egede 1738, Walloe 1787,
Graah 1832, Holm 1889). None of these
expeditions were successful, though -
simply because the so-called Eastem
Settlement was situated on the south-
western coast of the country, and was vis-
ited by Egede as early as 1723.
This was realised by Heinrich Peter
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