Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2011, Page 61

LANDSCAPES OF BURIAL: CONTRASTING THE PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN
PARADIGMS OF BURIAL IN VIKING AGE AND MEDIEVAL ICELAND
in support of all three scenarios. Christian
cemeteries, not known from other sources,
have come to light at a number of farms
with low valuation fígures. The best
studied of these is Keldudalur in
Skagafjörður where a partially preserved
cemetery has been fully excavated.
Keldudalur had a valuation of 20
hundreds, which is low in the local
context, and its cemetery seems to have
been shortlived as all the graves are from
before 1104 (Zoéga 2009). Radiocarbon
dates suggesting an 1 lth century date for a
Christian cemetery at Steinkirkja in
Fnjóskadalur, valued at 10 hundreds, have
also been reported (Hermanns-Auðardóttir
1995) but mostly finds of Christian burials
at farms where there is no other evidence
for church or chapel have not been subject
to controlled investigation and remain
undated. Significantly such finds are not
particularly common at farms with low
valuations, and certainly no more frequent
than at farms with middle-range or high
valuations. Of 24 farms where convincing
evidence of Christian cemeteries is the
only indication of a church or a chapel,
three are valued between one and 12
hundreds, 12 between 13 and 24
hundreds, five between 25 and 36
hundreds and four between 37 and 48
hundreds. These numbers are too small to
be statistically significant but if this does
reflect the actual distribution it could
suggest that in the 1 lth-13th centuries
there was a higher proportion of farms in
the 13-24 hundred category that had their
own cemetery than in the 14th century and
later. Looking at the even smaller number
of chapels mentioned in narrative sources
from the 12th and 13th centuries, again
just at those not mentioned in other types
of sources, a similar picture emerges. Out
of seven, one is at a farm valued at 12
hundreds, three in the 13-24 category; one
in the 25-36 category and three in the
37-48 hundreds group. It may be
significant that the chapel at the 12
hundred fann, Hvalsker in Patreksfjörður,
is mentioned because it had fallen out of
use by the closing years of the 12th
century (Sturlunga saga, 890). In so far as
the charter material allows assessment of
this it seems that there was general
stability in the number of chapels during
the 14th century but by the late 15th
century there are clear signs that the
system was in decay. A list of chapels and
annex churches for 30 ministries in the
northem diocese of Hólar reveals that out
of 126 annexes and chapels 50, or nearly
40%, were in min (Diplomatarium
islandicum V, 352-57). There is evidence
for seven chapels or churches in these
ministries but which are not included in
this list, suggesting that they had been
long abandoned by the 1480s. Again this
indicates that the late medieval figures can
be taken as a minimum and that there had
been a reduction in the number of
churches and chapels before the charters
become available.
The idea has long been entertained that
there was an intermeddiate stage in burial
custom, usually described as graves
aligned east-west without grave-goods but
not associated with a church and
frequently in locations which would be
unusual for such a structure while more
like that of pagan burials. Kristján Eldjám
(1964) suggested he had unearthed such
an early Christian cemetery at Jarðbrú in
Svarfaðardalur and this idea has also been
used to explain isolated finds of
apparently non-pagan burials (e.g.
BCristinsdóttir 1988, 95-97). A related
suggestion is that some churches were
originally built, if not on pagan burial
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