Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Side 83

Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Side 83
Brattahlíð reconsidered guish from the later ones. Keeping these insecurities in mind, it is still believed, that the otherwise quite uniform and intact farm sites can be com- pared with relatively reliable results, even though some "noise" must be expected. At least, this approach by far outweighs the alternative, namely Roussell's outdated classifications. As noted, the total survey material includes almost 450 sites, or ruin groups, in the Eastern Settlement. Only about half of these are actual farms, the rest represents small sites and saeters (shiel- ing). The distribution of these is shown in figure 2. The demarcation of the individual farms is simple, since most sites are situ- ated two to six kilometres apart. In some cases, more than one site is found within a smaller area. In this test, these are regarded as being holdings of the same farm (see Keller 1989, 113). The calculations of the total floor area are based on extemal measurements, since this is how the ruins are described in the survey material. Dikes and pens are discarded, as they are roofless struc- tures. The floor areas of the churches are not included either, which makes all the farm sites more equally comparable. However, this has no significant efifect on the calculations. When studying the survey material, it appeared that there was no clear demar- cation between larger and smaller farm sites, as already noted by Roussell (1941, 30). A dividing number had to be chosen to limit the number of farms in the test and a 2000 square metre limit appeared to be a good choice. A total of 37 farm sites qualified for the test, having either a church or a total floor area larger than 2000 square metres. The farm sites, arranged according to size, are shown in fígure 3. Due to the insecurities of the test, the succession of the sites should not be taken too serious- ly. On the other hand, the test shows some obvious, yet also unexpected results: 1. The farms with parish churches are generally not among the largest in the settlement. A number of other farms without churches are considerably larger. These farms seem to be better situated too, when studying the sites in detail. Furthermore, in most cases byres and dwellings are larger on these sites as well. 2. Roussell’s model of the social struc- ture, placing Garðar (0 47) and Brattahlíð (0 29/29a) at the top closely followed by the other church farms, should no longer be trusted. These farms do not form a seperate class of major farms. The social structure must be more complex than this. 3. The largest of all the Norse farm sites was not any of the classical sites, but a rather anonymous site (number 0 39) sit- uated in Qinngua in the Tunulliarfik fjord - the former Eiríksfjörður. Could it be possible, that Jónsson and Norlund were mistaken, when placing Brattahlíð at Qassiarsuk? 81
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