Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2011, Page 79

DOUGLAS J, BOLENDER, JOHN M. STEINBERG AND
BRIAN N. DAMIATA
FARMSTEAD RELOCATION AT THE END OF THE
VIKING AGE. RESULTS OF THE SKAGAFJÖRÐUR
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SETTLEMENT SURVEY
Most of the Viking Age sites that have been excavated in Iceland are only
available for study because those farmsteads were abandoned or relocated to other
parts of the farm. While highland farm abandonment has been addressed in
multiple regional studies, the relocation of farmsteads has not been systematically
studied. Here we present some of the results from the Skagafjörður
Archaeological Settlement Survey (SASS) that examined 22 lowland farms in and
near Langholt in Skagafjörður. Of those farms, two were clear examples of
relocated farmsteads, Glaumbær and Stóra-Seyla. In both cases the relocation
occurred toward the end of the Viking Age in the second half of the 1 lth century.
All of the other farmsteads continued at the same location where they were
originally established until modem times. The Viking Age components of the two
relocated farmsteads could be excavated without substantial medieval
overburden. While it is difficult to compare these relocated farmsteads with their
more spatially stable neighbors, they are both relatively large farmsteads. We
address some of the possible causes of relocation and suggest that the bias towards
excavating these sites may affect our understanding of the Viking Age in Iceland.
Douglas J. Bolender, Department of Anthropology. The Field Museum,
Chicago, USA
Email: dbolender@fieldmuseum. org
John M. Steinberg, Fiske Centerfor Archaeological Research, University of
Massachusetts Boston, USA
Email: john.steinberg@umb.edu
BrianN. Damiata, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA
Email: damiata@ucla.edu
Keywords: settlementpattern, site selection bias, farm-mound, Glaumbcer,
Stóra-Seyla, Iceland
Icelandic archaeology has had a strong
bias toward Viking Age sites, which have
made up the bulk of excavations
(Vésteinsson 2004). Almost all of these
Viking Age sites represent a special
category of Icelandic farmsteads: ones
that were either abandoned or relocated
toward the end of the Viking Age often
leaving the remains visible on the surface
and easily accessible to archaeologists.
Orri Vésteinsson (2010) has recently
explored the question of how
farm-mounds develop and why they
appear to be common in North Atlantic
ARCHAEOLOGIA ISLANDICA 9 (2011) 77-101