Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 98

Orri Vésteinsson
the basis of saga references and place
names, often supported by local tradi-
tions. The sites considered in this way
were all supposed to be from the saga
period (Viking age), but are in fact usual-
ly difficult to date as dating evidence was
as a rule not found in these excavations.
The dating, from literary reference, sup-
ported by place name and local lore, was
the reason for, not the outcome of, such
excavations.
When uncovering became the main
method of excavation the aims of the
archaeologists had become more scientif-
ic in the sense that the excavations were
meant to produce new evidence, if only
new evidence to support established
hypotheses. Their aims can broadly be
classified as illustration on the one hand
and comparative analysis on the other,
with a wide degree of overlapping. Some
excavations (e.g. Bergþórshvoll,
Bólstaður) were explicitly started to
unearth pictorial evidence to illustrate
saga texts and works of history. In this
field the development was away from the
particular - the actual farm of a certain
personage - to the general - a typical
farmhouse of a certain class/region/peri-
od. Advances in excavation techniques
were to a large degree prompted by a
concem to provide increasingly detailed
information to accompany the text based
history writing. Comparative analysis
emerged as an independent aim of
archaeological excavations in the 1930s,
principally with the goal of defining a
typological lineage for Nordic farmhous-
es from prehistory to present times.
While the evolutionist theory behind this
approach is now considered obsolete, it is
important to recognise that this was the
first tentative step by Icelandic archaeol-
ogy towards creating its own discourse,
more or less independent of historical
sources.
The introduction of the section reflects
not only a significant methodological
advance but also a sense of empower-
ment among Icelandic archaeologists.
They felt empowered to engage in much
more complex excavations than previ-
ously attempted but also to question long
held assumptions based on historical evi-
dence, in particular the dating of the
landnám, the initial settlement of Iceland.
Dating was to become the principal issue
in Icelandic archaeology in the 1970s and
1980s with a small but vociferous group
of archaeologists claiming that their sci-
entific methodology made them much
more qualified than historians to pro-
claim on such issues as the dating of the
landnám.
While the dating of the landnám
emerged from this debate pretty much
unscathed its main effect was that by the
1990s Icelandic archaeologists felt liber-
ated from the yoke of the historical
record (see Einarsson 1994b and
Friðriksson 1994 who both reflect this in
very different ways) and were no longer
only concemed with illustrating, proving
or disproving ideas from the historical
sources. Several lines of independent
inquiry were beginning to emerge, and
relating to excavation methods these
have all required a greater emphasis on
site formation and more complete recov-
ery strategies.
As for the usefulness of the available
archaeological evidence on Icelandic
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