Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2011, Page 47

A NOTE ON THE REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF PAGAN BURIALS IN ICELAND
two for each quarter and one,
Borgaríjörðui', that straddles the boundary
between the southem and westem
quarters. The regional division mostly
follows later county (sýsla) boundaries
except in the West where the northem
border of Borgarfjörður is set at Langá
(bisecting modem Mýrasýsla) and the
southem border of Vestfirðir is set að
Þorskafjarðará (bisecting modem Austur
Barðastrandarsýsla).
Figure 3 gives a much more nuanced
picture of the distribution but also needs
some qualifícation. The proportion of
pagan burials to farms is clearly highest in
the Northeast and in Rangárvallasýsla in
the south. The high fígure for
Rangárvallasýsla is however undoubtedly
an effect of soil erosion which has
misproportionately ravaged that region
over others and is responsible for three
quarters of burial finds there. Everywhere
else it is half or less (Eldjám 2000, 259)
suggesting that actual burial frequency in
Rangárvallasýsla is significantly less than
in the Northeast, although still substantial.
Within the Northeast there is only one
burial site on the eastem seaboard
(Austfirðir) suggesting that the proportion
for Fljótsdalshérað is even higher,
although the reduction in farm numbers
between c. 1100 and 1311 probably means
that it was no higher than in Eyjafjörður or
Þingeyjarsýsla. The most surprising figure
in this set is no doubt the very low
proportion of burials in Ámessýsla,
Gullbringu- og Kjósarsýsla. In part this is
again due to zonation splitting the region;
Figure 4. Burial sites as a proportion of tax-paying farmers by region in 1311.
45