Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2005, Qupperneq 12

Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2005, Qupperneq 12
Torfi Tulinius interior of the peninsula. From here, there are short and comparatively low mountain passes over to the south coast. ísaijarðardjúp, simply called ísafjörður in the Middle Ages, is by far the deepest, widest and longest of these fjords. It reaches right into the heart of the penin- sula. The farm of Vatnsfjörður, for sever- al centuries one of, if not the major power centre of the region is, not surpris- ingly, almost exactly at the centre of the triangle. ísafjarðardjúp is an excellent channel for communications with all of the fjords and bays that open into it. There are also mountain passes over to most of the other parts of the Wcstfjords peninsula, giving it access to other regions of the country as well as to the different resources available in the area. These resources are quite vari- ous. The region is mountainous and therefore farmland is comparatively scarce. However, there is good grazing in the fjord valleys and several of them have extensive flatlands where it is possible to grow hay to feed livestock during the winter months. Not surprisingly, power bases usually developed around areas such as these, for example the ecclesias- tical benefícium of Holt in Önundar- fjörður, the Reykjanes peninsula and Rauðisandur on the south coast, Hrafnseyri and Selárdalur in Arnar- fjörður, Mýrar and Núpur in Dýraijörður and, of course, Vatnsijörður. However, the raising of livestock, a dominant activ- ity in many parts of Iceland, is not the only - and probably not the main - resource of the Westijords area. Driftwood has already been mentioned. Whales seem also to have made a difference, since beaching of whales, especially in the Strandir and Homstrandir area was a common occur- rence. There is also evidence of whaling activities in the area. Fishing is, however, the most interesting of the resources of the Westfjords, because its changing role through the centuries has been a driving force behind economic and social change, not only in the region but possibly in the country as a whole. If we move now to the history of the Westijords, we see that it is docu- mented in varied sources which are to some extent quite rich. Conceming the earliest period, we have to rely on the same material as most other regions of Iceland, i.e. Landnámabók, the twelfth century account of how Iceland was settled, now only preserved in thirteenth and fourteenth century versions. Landnámabók devotes quite a lot of space to the area. The compilers of this history of the settlement of Iceland seemed to have had at their disposal a significant amount of knowledge about the settlers of each part of the peninsula. Sometimes it is just a name and a list of descendants, occasionally reaching all the way down to people living at the time of writing, in the thirteenth or early four- teenth century. Often, however, there is information about where the settlers came from, as well as a few anecdotes, sometimes quite substantial, conceming settlers or their immediate descendants. This information is of course to be taken with reasonable suspicion, since several centuries elapsed between the actual set- tlement and the composition of Landnámabók. It is perhaps wiser to con- sider the book as a snapshot of oral tradi- tion conceming the settlement seven to ten generations after it took place. Though information such as this is inevitably modified by oral transmission, it gives an image of what should have 10
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Archaeologia Islandica

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