Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Page 118

Orri Vésteinsson, Thomas H. McGovern, Christian Keller
This site was traditionally identified as
the seat of Eirik the Red, the leader of the
Norse landnám in Greenland, and later
contemporary written sources clearly
identify Brattahlíð as the lawspeaker’s
(assembly head, civil leader) farm in the
later Middle Ages (Gad 1970). What are
apparently full farms (with cattle byres
and human living areas as well as sheep
and goat pens) are clustered together in a
pattern somewhat reminiscent of the elite
site at the Brough of Birsay in Orkney
(Morris ed. 1996). The Qordlortup valley
region just to the north of the Brattahlíð
complex was intensively developed, with
a densely woven system of both lowland
and upland farms and sheilings estab-
lished by the time of fmal abandonment
in the mid to late 15th century
(Albrethsen & Keller 1986).
The bishop’s manor at Garðar was the
other major center for power in the
Eastern Settlement, and its managers
would appear to have created a local set-
tlement pattem diametrically opposed to
the dense cluster of holdings in the
Brattahlíð area. Several scholars have
noted both the large size of the farm
buildings associated with the cathedral
church and bishop’s manor and of its
exceptionally large homefields served by
a complex irrigation system (Krogh
1974) and surrounding pastures
(Norlund & Stenberger 1934, McGovern
1992a). However Keller (1991, 134-
135) made use of a systematic modem
pasture quality assessment (Ingvi
Þorsteinsson ed. 1983) to argue for an
exclusion zone of unusual proportions
and quality surrounding the Garðar
manor, demonstrating a surplus of pas-
ture vegetation relative to settlement den-
sity in the entire district around the epis-
copal site. Instead of a cluster of hold-
ings, the managers at Garðar seem to
have favored one large household, which
included enough manpower to service
the 100-150 cows stabled in the byre
complexes (the contemporary 14th-15th
c. byres at the main farm at Brattahlíð
would have held 30-40 cattle). The
Brattahlíð strategy seems to have been to
effect a full utilisation of natural
resources by erecting new holdings in the
vicinity of the original settlement, hous-
ing free or dependent labor in multiple
nearby farms. If Brattahlíð was initially
claimed in a broad Skallagrímr strategy,
this approach was subsequently replaced
by a very different economic landscape
with a number of more or less equally
sized farms. Quite opposite to this, the
strategy at Garðar seems to have been
successful in at least maintaining a large
piece of undivided land supporting an
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