Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2010, Page 119

ON the precipice: aerial archaeology in iceland
might be familiar to those in Europe the
situations and the conditions under which
it was created, are perhaps somewhat
different. The most common type of
archaeological site is by far earthworks,
and even if they may be amorphous in
form they often contain common
characteristics that help determine their
particular functions. For example, early
sheep houses have a different shape, in
general, to later ones, and Viking period
long-houses are quite distinct from other
types of domestic structures.
Many of the farms that were
established in the earliest settlement of
Iceland are still occupied and the general
assumption is that many of these lie on
top of the earliest structures that are
contained within a farm mound, which
might be compared to a small Middle
Eastem tell. This fact of continuity is
often assumed, but little is really known
conceming localised settlement shifts,
which in many parts of Europe are quite
common.
Although many of the first
generations of settlers in Iceland seem to
have chosen locations for their farms that
have (to our present knowledge)
remained stable throughout the centuries,
some of the early locations of settlement
seem to have been abandoned, either
because of social or environmental
factors. In these cases settlement remains
of earlier centuries can be seen on the
surface and are not buried beneath later
farm mounds. As Iceland became more
densely populated, the edges of
settlement moved closer to the highlands.
In later times as the climate deteriorated
and the population decreased these
marginal settlements receded and were
abandoned, particularly in the innermost
parts of valleys or side-valleys or up on
the edges of the highlands. Many such
areas were never re-settled and thus
remain undamaged by later activity.
From the late-nineteenth century, but
especially since the mid-twentieth
century, Iceland, like other countries in
Europe, experienced rapidly changing
settlement pattems. Large parts of a once
flourishing countryside were abandoned
through migration to newly emerging
urban centres. Unlike many mral areas in
Europe, mechanisation did not happen on
a large scale in Iceland until the second
half of 201*1 century. Consequently,
those farms that were abandoned during
this period often have home fields that
have not been levelled by machines, and
often old turf and stone stmctures are
well preserved. This kind of
abandonment and relocation are among
the main reasons for the preservation of
visible ruins in Iceland. After the
introduction of agricultural machinery,
the levelling of home fields has damaged
a large proportion of mins on those farms
still lived on. In these places the best
surviving archaeology is, with few
exceptions, found outside the home field,
in the remains of shielings, shelters and
sheep folds, tracks, caims, boundaries
(both property boundaries as well as land
use partitioning) and quarries (such as
peat or turf cutting areas). Other factors,
such as natural erosion have also
contributed to the destruction of
archaeological remains, especially
desertiflcation, and while urban and
industrial development have had a much
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