Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2009, Page 16

Adolf Friðriksson
Houofgraves
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1 rP 1 .
Oto 2 3to 5 6to 9 10to12 13to15 16to19
Dist.mce m cs
Figure 3. The number of incidents
of distance between graves. The
figures are based on measure-
ments from edge to edge, of the 76
best recorded examples.
of 4 burials as well.5 It is thus tempting to
assume that the typical and most com-
mon size of the Icelandic grave field is at
least c. 4-5 graves.
What does the size of cemeteries tell
us about ancient Icelandic society? Were
certain locations, such as those with a
single individual interred, symbolically
more specifíc than other burial places?
Did that symbolism vary in time? To
what extent does the size and location of
a grave fíeld reflect aspects of social
organisation, such as the development of
settlement household and the structura-
tion of the new society on the island?
Given the nature of the evidence at hand,
it is impossible to assert that the single
grave site did not exist at all, but, it is
equally clear that they are not necessarily
the most common type of burial site in
Iron-Age Iceland. It may be that single
graves and their location did have a dif-
ferent role to the larger communal or
household grave field. It would certainly
be interesting to explore further whether
such differences may be reflected in
other aspects of funeral arrangement,
such as the grave goods or fumishings,
5 Kumlholt and Ingiríðarstaðir in N-Iceland.
but that is beyond the scope of the present
paper.
Space
The second variable which can be exam-
ined at most of the sites which have two
or more graves, and regardless of other
limitations of the data, is the distance
between graves (Fig. 3).
As the graph in figure 3 indicates, a
space of c. 3-5 m between a grave and its
nearest neighbour is by far the most com-
mon arrangement. In fact there is only
one case of a grave with less than lm in
between, and that happens to be a child
burial, buried some 60 cm away from an
adult woman's grave. Grave space
exceeding 10 m is not only rare, but all
known occurrences are on sites which are
either seriously damaged or remain to be
properly investigated. In any case, for the
purpose of outlining the main character-
istics of these remains, it is satisfactory to
know that in 70% of known cases the
distance between any two graves is c. 2-7
metres.
Is there significance to the spacing
between graves? It is at least clear that in
the Iron Age there was a dominant prefer-
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