Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2006, Page 20

OSCAR ALDRED
abandonment from excavation and docu-
mentary evidence, the figures illustrated
a progressive pattern of settlement change
through time. However, the detailed inter-
pretation of the variation in patterning
was not explained, though there are clear-
ly specific local influences that have dic-
tated the settlement and abandonment of
farms, particularly in Eyjafjallasveit
(Guðrún Sveinbjarnardóttir 1984, 48-49
(fig 8), 52-53 (fig 9)). The study was a
pioneering one for Iceland developing
further the ideas outlined in pan-Nordic
study and, it is argued, established the key
research questions that have dominated
Icelandic archaeology in recent years:
environmental change and human
responses to it and their impact on the
landscape (Gissel, S et al. 1981).
Increasing diversity in approac-
hes to landscape research characterise the
work after Guðrún Sveinbjarnardóttir’s
study. Following a similar theme, though
testing the relationships between environ-
mental conditions and society was the
arable fields project, a study on the early
agricultural evidence in Iceland (Garðar
Guðmundsson et al 2004). It contextual-
ised the archaeology by introducing the
historical information on arable agricul-
ture and assessing this in relation to the
assumptions that by the fourteenth centu-
ry arable farming ceased to continue due
to deteriorating climatic conditions. The
field work approach combined historical
research (especially through place name
evidence) aerial survey, field survey and
limited excavation with palynology. The
conclusions of the project suggested that
although climatic factors were important
in the decline of arable farming it was
soil and land management that were criti-
cal limiting factors in early grain produc-
tion.
Another landscape study, per-
haps in the tradition of Brynjúlfur Jóns-
son’s and Stenberger’s Þjórsárdalur is the
Landscape of settlements project (Adolf
Friðriksson et al 2005). This was an
extensive but detailed study on Viking
and Medieval settlement in the Mývatn
environs that used an inter-disciplinary
approach. The excavations at Hofstaðir,
Sveigakot, Hriseimar and Höfðagerði,
formed the primary archaeological evi-
dence, as well as several smaller evalua-
tions of other sites in Mývatn. The exca-
vation work was integrated with other
related research being carried out in the
region, in particular the assessment of
animal bones found at these sites and
others in Iceland, as well as the environ-
mental research that assessed climate,
soils and the ecology. Due to continu-
ing work in the region, the archaeologi-
cal data from each investigation has yet
to be fully synthesised, though several
emerging landscape pattems are appar-
ent. Within a changing and deteriorating
climate between the ninth and fourteenth
centuries there were shifts in the econo-
mies of the local inhabitants, particularly
in food sources, as well as settlement
change, both on sites and between them.
There also seems to have been a more
than expected regulation and manage-
ment of grazing land, particularly around
the Hofstaðir site (Simpson et al 2004).
This project’s results are of particular
interest to the study of past landscapes,
especially as the information has been
collected over a long period and includes
a range of source material collected
using modern techniques (scientific dat-
ing, tephra analysis, palynology) which
broadens our understanding of landscape
that is a regional in its perspective.
Bjarni Einarsson’s study of the
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