Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Side 129

Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Side 129
Enduring Impacts: Viking Age Settlement in Iceland and Greenland Hvanneyri in Iceland) or tight clusters of farmsteads (Brattahlíð area in Greenland, the two clusters in Hjaltastaðaþinghá in Iceland) and the Icelandic evidence allows a related category of large simple settlements to be identified, as a rule occupying the next-best land. It is tempt- ing to suggest that this group is repre- sented in Greenland by sites like W45 and possibly W23 and W29. The less favorable areas, where the conditions for cattle raising are less ideal and where there is less opportunity to subsidize the production by a wide variety of natural resources, are in both countries dominat- ed by regularly spaced nriddle sized or small farmsteads. On this basis a model of the landnám process can be suggested. It is reason- able to assume that the first arrivals occu- pied those areas where there was easy access to meadow, plenty of pasture in both winter and summer and access to a variety of wild resources. It seems that later on this sort of settlement could develop either into a single estate, pre- sumably belonging to powerful men, chieftains, which could then maintain a large exclusion zone around it or that this sort of domination was not established and the settlement was divided up into several holdings of more or less equal size. In both scenarios it is reasonable to imagine that a number of households made up the original settlements, possi- bly even occupying the same site (Orri Vésteinsson 1998, 12-17) but that later on they were either reduced to one prin- cipal household which became the center of a great estate, usually with a church attached to it, or became split into sever- al holdings at different sites but within short distance of each other. In either case we must see these complex settle- ments as the representatives of the fírst successful colonizers and those which dominated the subsequent developments. After these most favorable spots had been occupied in each region there was still room for new arrivals to establish their own independent settlements. These were by necessity smaller than those of the early arrivals as they had to make do with the next best settlement locations. It is however also possible that these large simple settlements represent settlements of the same age as the com- plex ones but that they were less success- ful. Both sorts of settlements occupy land which will have been reasonably accessible at the time of the landnám and will therefore have been occupied rather quickly, possibly in a matter of years. Shortage of human labor and shortage of domestic livestock were probably the most immediate blockages to rapid set- tlement expansion. It makes sense that after an initial rush to claim easily acces- sible land the colonizers had to concen- trate on consolidating their settlements and increasing their herds. The settle- ment pattems do not support a scenario where there was a sufficient landnám period population to occupy all farmable land in a short space of time. Instead it seems that the forest clearing and settle- ment of less favorable land was effected from the large settlements generally found on the coast or along major river courses. Helgi Skúli Kjartansson (1997, 23-28) has suggested that as it was no doubt difficult to transport live animals 127
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