Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Page 82

Ole Guldager
vegetation, climate and soils are essen-
tial. Even though such studies exist (see
Christensen 1989, 1991, McGovern
1985, 1991, Thorsteinsson 1983, Hansen
1991), the information has not yet
reached a level of detail which allows its
usage in overall discussions of the settle-
ment structure. Besides, both landscape
and vegetation may have changed con-
siderably since the 15th century due to
land submersions, climatic changes and,
naturally, modem activities, making this
approach difflcult. Thus, it seems that
using the churches and the farm sites is a
more obvious and reliable approach, in
order to determine the central sites, since
we already have detailed information on
these.
To this day, 17 churches with sur-
rounding churchyards have been located
in the Eastem Settlement (Krogh 1976,
1982a, 1982b, Vebæk 1953, 1966, 1991).
The largest ones probably served as
parish churches, defined not only by their
size, but also by the presence of a square
church dike. A group of smaller churches
with circular church dikes have also been
found. These were probably private
prayer houses, or chapels (bænhús),
belonging to the larger farms. All of these
churches have been found in connection
with a farm site. It is obvious that these
farms have had a central role in the set-
tlement, and these places have been the
prime targets for investigations so far.
In addition to the church farms, there
exist a number of other impressive farm
sites without churches. This was noticed
already by Roussell (1941, 54-64), who
described some of the larger sites known
at the time. Roussell used the number of
single mins as an indicator of so-called
large sites (op. cit., 64) - an approach that
has later proved unreliable, since the con-
figuration of the farms may differ consid-
erably (see for instance Albrethsen 1982,
270). Some of the farms consist of only a
few (but very large) ruin complexes
whereas others have a large number of
smaller ruins on the same site.
A better method would be to use the
total floor area of all mins on any site,
and compare these numbers in order to
determine the largest places. This
approach has been suggested by Keller
(1989, 118) as the best way of analysing
the settlement pattem, but has not been
attempted so far on a large scale. Today,
however, very extensive material can be
used for analysis, even though certain
measures of insecurity may influence the
results.
First of all, the site descriptions vary
considerably in quality, affecting the total
floor area considerably.
Secondly, some areas have undergone
intense surveys in recent years whereas
other parts have not been investigated
since Bruun's surveys in 1894. New sur-
veys will surely reveal the existence of
several large farms in these relatively
unexplored regions.
Last, and probably most importantly,
is the lack of site dating. Since we are
dealing with a period of almost 500 years
of settlement, it is far from certain that all
the ruins on the farm sites are contempo-
rary. At some sites, there seem to be both
an early and a late phase of settlement
(Guldager, Stummann Hansen and Gleie
2002). The early phase mins, however,
are quite indistinct and easy to distin-
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