Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Page 117

Enduring Impacts: Viking Age Settlement in Iceland and Greenland
Pasture Area and Byre Floor Area
90 m2 (squear meters)
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0--------------------
w32W\5_w53c OW52A
W33D®n ° □ W54
W35n W53D
]W45
O Sandnes
W51
50 100 150 200 250 300
Pasture Area (Hectares)
350 400
Fig. 7. Byre area ví. Pasture area.
could have supported two to three 3rd or
4th rank farms the size of W53a, W35 or
W54 and five to six farms the size of
W48. Thus while the regular spacing evi-
dent in figure 6 is partly imposed by the
linear nature of the fjords and narrow gla-
cial valleys and is partly the mechanical
product of competition for pasture
resources, it is also the product of eco-
nomic and political decisions made at
some prior point by particular actors in a
particular historical context other options
were possible. Given the early dates for
sites like W48, W54, and GUS, the
model of a “naturally” expanding
Westem Settlement system gradually fill-
ing suitable sites seems less tenable than
the notion of a planned political/econom-
ic landscape, perhaps initially lightly
populated by a number of lonely subordi-
nates tied to a few centers later capable of
maintaining and enforcing an unequal
access to pasture resources through
enforced exclusion zones around sites
like W51.
A study by Keller (1991, see also
1989) of the distribution of known 14th-
15th century sites in the much larger and
more complex Eastern Settlement
demonstrated some patterns common to
the Westem Settlement including linear,
regularly spaced chains of farms along
fjords and glacial valleys. However,
Keller also documents two patterns
unlike anything observed in the Westem
Settlement: dense clusters of farms less
than 1 km apart in the Brattahlíð -
Qordlortup area and a very large exclu-
sion zone around the bishops’ manor at
Garðar. As he illustrates (Keller 1991,
131, Fig 1, see also Berglund 1991) the
densest concentration of both farms and
church sites in Greenland is at the head of
Eiríksfjörður centering on the site of
Brattahlíð, where an early hall and
churchyard have been excavated (Krogh
1986). An even earlier long-house of typ-
ical Viking Period design with curved
walls was later discovered in the nearby
fields, perhaps the fírst house on the site.
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