Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Page 120

Orri Vésteinsson, Thomas H. McGovern, Christian Keller
of actual settlement pattems. Mostly the
burials can only be used to confirm early
settlement at particular locations, but this
of course can be helpful as an indicator of
what sort of environment was favored by
the first generations of Icelanders.
Mostly the distribution of heathen burials
confirms indications discussed above
that all lowland areas and a surprisingly
large part of marginal areas was occupied
in one way or another in a matter of
decades after the beginning of the land-
nám.
Medieval settlement patterns in
Iceland are therefore to a large extent a
matter of inference and informed guess-
work based on a variety of evidence.
Such conclusions are of course strength-
ened by clear parallels provided by the
relic landscapes of late-medieval
Greenland. Conversely the Greenlandic
settlement patterns can be more fully
understood in light of the Icelandic evi-
dence which adds actual property bound-
aries, associations of ownership and use
(i.e. what is a sheiling and what is a farm)
to the pattems of archaeological sites.
Research into early settlement patterns in
Iceland (Orri Vésteinsson 1998, 12-23)
suggests that the farms and estates in the
country can be grouped in three principal
categories each of which reflects a partic-
ular stage in the landnám-process.
There is a reasonable argument
(developed by Helgi Skúli Kjartansson
1997) that there was an initial stage of the
landnám-process where the first arrivals
lived primarily from hunting, at least as
long as it took for sizeable cattle and
sheep herds to become established.
There are areas in Iceland where small
groups of people could easily survive on
fishing, seal and bird hunting, gathering
of eggs and wild plants. Among these are
areas like the Westman Islands off the
south coast and the Mývatn area in the
Northeastem interior. In each of these,
an early site has been investigated,
Herjólfsdalur in the Westman Islands and
Sveigakot by Mývatn. However, in both
cases it is apparent from the zooarchaeo-
logical collections that the economy,
although heavily subsidized by wild
resources, was firmly based on cattle and
sheep. In Herjólfsdalur two substantial
byres have been excavated, attesting to
the importance attached to dairy produc-
tion at the site (Margrét Hermanns-
Auðardóttir 1989, 12-13, 15-16, 109-10).
While it remains perfectly possible that
there was an incipient phase where peo-
ple survived mostly on hunting, no
archaeological evidence has been found
to support this and it looks as if the earli-
est settlers were bent on establishing
dairy farms from the very outset and that
they considered hunting only as a means
to subsidize the livestock economy.
The early emphasis on cattle rather
than sheep is an important clue to our
understanding of the location of early
settlement sites. In much of southem
Iceland sheep and goats can be grazed
almost throughout the year with a mini-
mal fodder subsidy to keep them alive
through late winter/early spring. In
coastal areas sheep can be grazed
throughout the winter, and forest will
provide shelter from snow and bad
weather as well as additional fodder in
leaves and bark.
Unlike sheep, cows can not be grazed
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