Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2011, Page 43

ORRI VÉSTEINSSON
A NOTE ON THE REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF
PAGAN BURIALS IN ICELAND
Comparison of the distribution of pagan burials in Iceland with medieval
information about the number of farmers in different parts of the country allows a
division of the country into three zones of low, medium and high frequency of
pagan burials relative to the number of settlements. Possible explanations for these
differences are briefly explored. This paper is a product of the project Death and
burial in Icelandfor I150years and sets out some of the problems it aims to solve.
Orri Vésteinsson, Department of Archaeology, University of Iceland, Reykjavík.
Email: orri@hi.is
Keywords: Viking Age, Burial sites, Distribution, Regionality
It is a well known aspect of the Icelandic
corpus of pagan burials that there are
signifícant differences in their
geographical distribution (fig.l). In some
regions there are many while in others
there are few or none. There are two
schools of thought to explain this. One
holds that the difference is primarily an
effect of discovery (e.g. Eldjám 2000,
257-61), that burials are more likely to
come to light in regions where soil erosion
has been active and in landscapes where
roads are liable to built in locations where
pagan cemeteries were situated. The other
suggests that the differences reflect real
variation in burial practice: that pagan
burials are few in some regions because
pagan burial rites were not practiced there
to the same degree as elsewhere (e.g.
Einarsson 1989; 1994, 40-67).
My aim here is not to take sides in this
debate but rather to point out that its
premise is not as straightforward as it has
been made out to be. The observation that
there are differences in the numbers of
burials between regions is obviously
correct and significant but it fails to take
into account that there were differences in
the number of settlements, and hence
population levels, from one region to the
next. Consideration of these leads perhaps
not so much to a solution to the problem
as it has been defmed by earlier debate,
but rather to a more nuanced appreciation
of what such points on the map may
imply, whether in terms of belief systems
or settlement pattems.
The number of settlements is not
known for the pagan period but the
relative carrying capacity of each region
can be gauged from later evidence. This is
not straightforward however and each
type of evidence comes with its own set of
problems. The earliest comprehensive
survey of farms in Iceland is from
1695-96 (Lámsson 1967), complemented
ARCHAEOLOGIA ISLANDICA 9 (2011) 41-49