Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Page 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