Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Page 123

Enduring Impacts: Viking Age Settlement in Iceland and Greenland
not have been as accessible at the time of
the landnám until after the forests had
been cleared, but is in most respects good
farmland. As a rule these holdings had a
single large household and sometimes a
small number of cottages (1-3) located in
the peripheries of the holding. These
large simple settlements usually had a
chapel or annex church associated with
them, indicating high status but not nec-
essarily political influence or local domi-
nance. Where settlements of this sort
border on clusters of farms of the large
complex settlement type they do in some
cases have parish churches associated
with them.
Planned settlements.
A typical Icelandic countryside is a nar-
row valley or a fjord with evenly spaced
farms stretching out in rows, each having
similar access to sea or river and moun-
tain pasture. This type of land will have
been covered by dense forest at the time
of the Iandnám and usually does not have
good quality meadows although the con-
ditions for making improved hay-fields
are often quite reasonable. In other
words this was land that needed consid-
erable work put into it (forest clearance,
hay-field making) before it could support
independent farmsteads. These settle-
ments consist as a rule of a single house-
hold supporting a single family and a
small number of servants. This sort of
settlement only rarely had chapels asso-
ciated with it and was in later times gen-
erally occupied by tenants who we méet
in the medieval literature as the followers
and dependants of the chieftains in the
lowland estates.
In Hjaltastaðaþinghá which is a district
of some 20 farms on the seaboard of the
great valley system called
Fljótsdalshérað in Eastem Iceland, there
is no single large estate but two clusters
of settlements occupying large swathes
of wetland. This produced good quality
hay, although it is reported that the scyth-
ing was a difficult task and required a
large work-force if the meadows were to
be utilized to their full capacity. A num-
ber of pagan burials have been found in
both clusters but also in several other
places in the district suggesting an early
occupation of the whole area. The more
easterly of the two clusters is made up of
three principal farms which in later cen-
turies became subdivided into smaller
holdings, although the original farm-
steads retained their access to the moun-
tain pastures and the most valuable parts
of meadow land. It is interesting that
pagan burials have been found in two
locations within this cluster which were
to become cottages in later times. This
may indicate that the hierarchy of farms
in the cluster, known from the Late
Middle Ages is a reflection of later devel-
opments. If so, the sites of the three main
farmsteads are only those of the more
successful families while other farm-
steads became reduced to cottage status
at some later stage.
Bordering on this cluster is the small
estate Hjaltastaðir which became the site
of the parish-church and the district’s
political center. As a single unit this is
larger than any of the farmsteads in the
neighboring cluster but its meadows are
not of the same size and quality. Much
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