Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 51

Some Notes on Earthworks and Dykes in Iceland and in the North Atlantic
the pre-improvement period (i.e. the peri-
od before the first phase of severance leg-
islation in the 1820s) the so-called hill
dyke (ON utgardr) was the only kind of
fence used in both these regions
(Marwick 1939:2-3; Ronneseth
2001:102-114). In both cases, the hill
dyke separated the farms' and townships'
homelands, consisting of arable and
meadow, from the grazing areas outside
the fence. Still, the age of this system is
not at all clear, and the history and devel-
opment of dykes in the areas in question
is a rather complex one.
Some of the similarities between the
traditional farming landscape in Orkney
and Shetland and in W Norway stem
from the fact that both these areas were
located in the heath landscape so charac-
teristic of Europe's Atlantic coasts. Over
much of this region variants of the
infield-outfíeld system were present in
the medieval period. The infield was a
relatively restricted area of arable land
kept under permanent cultivation by the
liberal application of manure to it each
year (Fenton 1978; 0ye 2002). This sys-
tem was present wherever animal hus-
bandry predominated and there was
abundant land for grazing.
The farming systems in Orkney and in
W Norway were both variants of the
open field system. According to one def-
inition, the open field system consisted
basically of four elements: First, arable
land was divided into strips owned or
tenanted by various people each of whom
farmed a number of these scattered about
the fields. Then, both arable and mead-
owland were pastured by the stock of the
same farmers after the harvest and in fal-
low years. Thirdly, the pasture and waste
were used by the farmers for grazing
their stock, often with strict control on
the numbers of animals allowed. Finally,
all these activities had to be organised by
a formal meeting of the farmers, either at
a manorial court or at a village assembly
(Taylor 1975:71; cf. Dodgshon 1980). A
formal meeting of the farmers has recent-
ly been shown to have been an integral
feature also of W Norwegian multi-ten-
anted ('mangbolte') farms (Seland 1996).
Farming in the heath landscape of
Atlantic Europe required that an equilib-
rium was found and maintained between,
one the one hand, arable land, and on the
other, meadow land. It is this delicate
balance of forces that makes the hill dyke
'a line of fundamental importance'
(Thomson 2001:322). The hill dyke was
'not a fortress wall that encapsulated the
community, not a dividing line, but a link
between the elements of the township'
(Fenton 1978:89).
W Norway
In traditional W Norwegian farming,
there were no dykes in the 'innmark'
(homelands). Small, raised stones in each
end of the strip marked the divisions
between different farmers. In some areas
(i. e. areas where the stock was moved to
and from the byre each day) stone-lined
cattle-roads (geil) leading from the farm
buildings and to the hill dyke could be
seen. Outside the hill dyke, a number of
enclosures for tending animals might be
found. But, as a rule, dykes were not used
to separate different belongings. The
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