Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2009, Page 21

SOCIAL AND SYMBOLIC LANDSCAPES IN LaTE IRON AGE ICELAND
Figure 11. Sílastaðir Cemetery, N-Iceland
(from Eldjárn 1956).
mined by the topographical setting.
Clusters, for instance, are not predomi-
nantly found in locations such as at land-
ing sites on the seashore, where “the
route” was the ocean. Some of the most
impressive linear grave fields are found
on the coastline. What is the difference
between the two? It may be that the many
examples of Icelandic grave sites show in
fact different stages of development of
cemeteries, from the beginning of settle-
ment, to the end of the pagan period.
Large cemeteries do perhaps present suc-
cessful settlement groups, while small
ones either reflect an early abandonment,
or perhaps are the burial grounds of the
late-comers in the final phase of coloni-
sation. Equally, different sizes may reflect
dissimilarhouseholds, i.e. different social
groups. But one must be careful not to
make oversimplified statements about
these differences. A small cemetery may
be that of a family with powerful mem-
bers, whose political and economic posi-
tion allowed them to extend their occupa-
tion in the surrounding area, establishing
new farms and new cemeteries at the turn
of each generation. Equally, a small
household, of powerful neighbours, may
not have had the option of expansion, and
thus used a single cemetery for genera-
tions. Therefore, the four average ceme-
teries in Berufjörður could represent the
former group whilst the large cemetery in
Ytra-Garðshorn reflects the latter.
Unfortunately, all the graves at the
Beruíjörður cemeteries and Ytra-
Garðshorn had been plundered prior to
excavation. To continue an enquiry along
these lines we need more complete
records of representative burial grounds,
big and small, with better preservation of
skeletal material and grave-goods.
Being able to trace the development of
an Iron Age cemetery, from one grave to
the next, is of course a fascinating pros-
pect, but the dating of individual finds is
poor, and does not offer sufficiently high
resolution. C-14 dating of horse bones
from graves are giving hope for more
accurate dating of burials in Iceland
(Ascough et al. 2007), and recent work
on strontium isotopes extracted from
human skeletons is giving indications as
to the geographical origins of the people
in these graves (Price and Gestsdóttir
2006). In Iceland there is yet another
method available which could yield bet-
ter dates and even establish the inner
chronology of events within a cemetery,
namely tephrachronology. In some areas
of Iceland, tephra layers from the Iron
Age are abundant, and may help to break
down the period of c. 800-1100 into
smaller units. The Hrífunes find is an
excellent case in point: at this site in
SE-Iceland, close to some of the most
active volcanic areas of the island, a
burial ground was found almost 2 m
below the modern surface. The graves
were dug into and covered by volcanic
ash. Close stratigraphic observation
revealed that the graves had been dug
after the c. 870 tephra fell. One grave was
covered by the c. AD 934 Eldgjá tephra,
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