Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 45

ZOOARCHAEOLOGY, HlSTORYAND LANDSCAPE ArCHAEOLOGY AT FlNNBOGASTAÐIR IN THE 18tH CENTURY
larger sized cod and shark. They would
have had enough surplus products to
trade with other farmers or to sell at mar-
kets, acquiring the imported tableware,
tobacco, and other minor luxuries docu-
mented by the artifactual record.
Strategies for survival and for coping
with the environmental, economic, and
social stresses of the 18th century thus
varied among the different levels of soci-
ety in Ámes, but all involved intensifica-
tion of fishing and a notable flexibility in
combining terrestrial and marine
resources and negotiating the different
options and constraints of both the cash-
based and subsistence based portions of
local and regional economy. A combina-
tion of documents, artifacts, animal
bones, and locational archaeology
applied to landscape and seascape allows
us a glimpse of the complexities of the
coping strategies of the farmer-fishers of
early modem Vestfirðir, and may indicate
the potential productivity of such inter-
disciplinary research in Iceland.
Appendix
Finnbogastaðir
Farm value xvi hundreds.
King’s farm, one of the Strandasýsla
farms, which the lawman Lauridtz
Christiansson Gottrup holds for the king.
Jón Magnússon from Reykjanes rents
this farm.
Occupants are Sr. Bjarni
Guðmundsson one half, Brandur
Bjömsson the other half.
Rent of land is one hundred according
to proportion. Should be paid in official-
ly valued products to Jón Magnússon at
Reykjanes.
Hired livestock is iiii cow values, ii
with each occupant. Rents are paid usual-
ly in butter, sometimes with something
else.
No duties.
Timber for house building comes from
the driftwood rights, such as there is to be
had. Occupants have recently renewed
the hired livestock without getting any
compensation for it.
Domestic animals are, with Sr. Bjami
iiii cows, i young cow, xxiiii milk ewes,
xii castrated wethers, vii winter old, ii
lambs, ii horses. With Brandur are i cow,
v milk ewes. Of the priest's domestic ani-
mals there are i young cow and ix
wethers at Ámes.
The priest’s household consists of the
couple, their iiii children and iiii workers
(male and female). The household of
Brandur are the couple and their vi chil-
dren.
God enough peat is not to be had for
fuel. Seal hunting is sometimes success-
ful. Driftwood and stranding is of some
use. The church at Helgafell has a claim-
based on a charter of rights to the drift-
wood and stranding The rights are
between Skarð and the river estuary, half
of a whale stranding and also one third of
a half. Men do not think that the church
has ever received this, and people oppose
it. Limited beach-pasture for sheep in
winter occasionally. A home base is
there.
Sand damages the homefield.
Outfields are damaged by water, and
mudslides have destroyed parts of them.
The meadow-road is difficult to travel.
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