Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Page 80

Ole Guldager
Nationalmuseets 2. afdeling (Medieval
Department at the National Museum of
Denmark), commencing the period of
classical excavations in the country.
Within two decades, several excavations
were carried out at the major Norse farm
sites, both in the Eastem and the Westem
Settlement. In 1921, Poul Norlund exca-
vated the churchyard at Ikigaat
(Herjólfsnes) (Norlund 1924) and in
1926 the Episcopal seat at Garðar
(Norlund 1929).
In 1932, Norlund carried out excava-
tions in Qassiarsuk, at the presumed farm
of Eric the Red (Norlund & Stenberger
1934). It was a big year for (Danish)
research in Greenland with many excava-
tions and investigations. This may have
been caused by the dispute of sovereign-
ty over Greenland, which had risen
between Denmark and Norway in these
years (see Keller 1989, 85 & 103). A bet-
ter year for excavating Brattahlíð could
probably not have been chosen, and the
large research activity in these years cer-
tainly influenced Haag-dommen (the
Haag verdict) that gave Denmark full
ownership rights of Greenland in 1933
(Haag-dommen 1933). Not surprisingly,
the research activity fell after this crucial
year, and was, naturally, brought to a halt
during the second world war.
Norlund's excavations in Qassiarsuk
revealed a large medieval farm with a
church but no real news about Brattahlíð.
At one point though, Norlund seemed to
doubt the location of Brattahlíð because
his team had located two unknown
churches further inside the ljord, at
Qorlortoq (Norlund & Stenberger 1934,
14-17). Norlund ended up defining three
criteria for determining the location of
Brattahlíð. These were: 1. The most
favourable location, 2. The largest farm,
and 3. The presence of a church.
Even though the farm site in Qorlortoq
appeared to fulfill the criteria better than
the site in Qassiarsuk, Norlund conclud-
ed that Brattahlíð was in Qassiarsuk,
because the church found there was larg-
er (Norlund & Stenberger 1934, 17).
Since Norlund, the location of
Brattahlíð has not been a subject for liter-
ary discussions even though continuous
surveys have provided a large amount of
new farm sites, and improved the infor-
mation on already known sites consider-
ably.
In 1941, Aage Roussell published
Farms and Churches in the Mediaeval
Norse Settlements of Greenland
(Roussell 1941). At this time, the number
of known Norse sites in the Eastem
Settlement had increased to 179, and
Roussell was the fírst to attempt a classi-
fication of the farms, in order to describe
the social stratification of the society.
Following Norlund's criteria, Roussell
described a hierarchical society, with
Garðar (Igaliku) and Brattahlíð
(Qassiarsuk) at the top, closely followed
by the other farms with attached church-
es, apparently because of the larger size
of these places.
Roussell has later been sharply criti-
cized by Christian Keller (1989,169),
who considers the classifications to be
highly unreliable - and with the new, and
more detailed material available today, it
is clear that Roussel's view on the social
structure is outdated. So far, only
Thomas McGovern (1981, 1985, 1991)
78