Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 80

Orri Vésteinsson
of several outhouses, including two
sheep sheds, the only such excavated in
Iceland until 1998 (Fig. 1.). In 1949
Eldjám began excavations at Gjáskógar,
another highland cottage, and in the same
year he made short shrift of excavating
the hovel of Sandártunga which had been
abandoned in 1693. The political impli-
cations of this excavation are revealed by
the report published already in 1951
(jointly with Foma-Lá) where Eldjám
explains that the Sandártunga farmhouse
"reflects the period of deprivation it dates
from and is therefore important as culture
historical evidence." (Eldjám 1951, 114).
By the 1950s Eldjám's views had
become more fully developed and these
were to shape the fieldwork policy of the
National Museum in the coming decades.
To Eldjám Icelandic material culture was
a testimony to the resilience, resourceful-
ness and quiet heroism of the common
Icelander through the centuries. In the
absence of monumental architecture, rich
hoards or fine art, archaeology revealed
the amazing endurance and dignity of the
Icelandic people in the face of an incred-
ibly hostile environment. It was there-
fore not only permissible, but downright
necessary, to excavate sites of variable
social status and from different periods.
This is clearly reflected in the choice of
sites excavated by the National Museum
in the following decades. In the 1950s
Gísli Gestsson excavated Gröf, a 14th
century farm, in the 1960s Þorkell
Grímsson excavated the 16th century
farmhouse Reyðarfell and in the 1970s
Gestsson excavated the 15th century
farm Kúabót. The largest project of all,
Stóraborg, was started in this spirit in
1978 and it is fair to say that to this day
the concems developed by Eldjám in the
1950s remain a powerful force in
Icelandic archaeology.
A new trend in fieldwork began in the
1960s which was to dominate archaeo-
logical debate in Iceland during the
1970s and 1980s. This is an emphasis on
initial settlement, the investigation of the
farms of the first generation of
Icelanders. In the first half of the 20th
century this had not aroused much inter-
est, no doubt primarily because most
archaeologists felt that this process was
very adequately described in the rich
medieval records. From the 1940s
diminishing faith in the historicity of
these records, not least those dealing with
the remotest past, the beginnings of set-
tlement and Icelandic society in the 9th
and lOth centuries, created the conditions
for archaeologists to claim this subject as
their own. The National Museum's exca-
vation of Hvítárholt in 1963-67 may
reílect this change but the issue of land-
nám, and in particular its dating, only
became to the fore with the excavations
in Reykjavík and Herjólfsdalur which
both begun in 1971 - both as a result of
intensive local lobbying for many years.
The dating of the landnám was to domi-
nate theoretical debate within Icelandic
archaeology for more than 20 years and
from it sprang the current emphasis on
the landnám as a social and economic
process, typified primarily by excava-
tions of farm sites in North East Iceland,
including Sveigakot and Hofstaðir in
Mývatnssveit.
In the 1980s an important develop-
ment took place where large excavation
78