Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Page 130

Orri Vésteinsson, Thomas H. McGovern, Christian Keller
over the North Atlantic this was only
attempted by the very first colonizers and
that the late-comers made do with buying
or renting livestock from those who had
already arrived. Even if additional
domestic animals were regularly intro-
duced from abroad, the rapid natural
increase of early Icelandlic herds and
flocks feeding on meadows and wood-
lands never before cropped by terrestrial
grazing mammals would have put the
fírst settlers in an advantageous position
in terms of domestic animal production.
The absence of natural predators (in
Iceland) will also have helped speeding
up the production.
This possibility has implications for
our understanding of the planned settle-
ments. If people like Skallagrímr or
Blund-Ketill having claimed or bought
large areas then began to plant families
on their land, and were also able to sell or
rent them the necessary livestock it is
obvious that their economic and political
dependance must have been more or less
complete. Where access to marine
resources (birds, seals, whales, fish) was
critical to supplementing farm produc-
tion, sites without direct access to the sea
were likewise vulnerable to inflicted
dependence.
Judging from the early dates from
marginal sites in both Greenland and
Iceland it seems that the Skallagrímr
types were quite successful in filling
their landscapes with dependent farmers.
We do not know the manner of this
dependence; the smaller planned settle-
ments can have been run as out-stations
from the main farmstead or have been
rented out to self-sufficient households.
The general pattem observed in the ani-
mal bone collections that all the domestic
animals are represented in most site col-
lections (though in varied proportions)
rather seems to point to the latter altema-
tive. In either case it seems clear that the
leaders of the large early settlements put
emphasis on filling their surrounding
landscape with dependant farmers. It is
easy to see how forces of status competi-
tion can have started this sort of develop-
ment at a fairly early stage: a leader of a
successful settlement starts to import
families and helps them make clearings
in the woods, provides access to wild
provisions (cirtical in the first seasons
especially), provides advice on local sea-
sons and hazards, and sells or rents them
livestock. Such families will have been
dependent on him in a variety of ways
and looked to him for protection and
help. This was therefore a way to con-
solidate claims to land, a sort of settle-
ment by proxy, and it was probably more
importantly a means to increase political
influence. In this pioneering situation,
the social protections against violence
(enforced by extended kin group ven-
gence) would be weak, and rich holdings
not backed by numbers of able-bodied
dependants might become attractive tar-
gets for raiding. Land without workers
was useless, and wealth without retainers
could be dangerous. Without central
power to execute law and order, true
power rested with networks of kinship
and allegiance. Social and political sur-
vival depended on the number of allies
that could be mustered in times of con-
flict. So that once a Skallagrímr had
started expanding planned settlements,
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