Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2011, Page 85

FARMSTEAD RELOCATION AT THE END OF THE VIKING AGE.
RESULTS OF THE SKAGAFJÖRÐUR ARCHAEOLOGICAL SETTLEMENT SURVEY
signifícantly affected our understanding of
land claim, land division, and the creation
of hierarchies among farms. They also
provide an opportunity to consider why
some farmsteads relocated while others
stayed in the same place as originally
established.
Farm abandonment versus
farmstead relocation
Farm abandonment has received
considerable attention in archaeological
investigation and discussion, much of it
related to highland environmental
degradation toward the end of the Viking
Age (Dugmore, et al. 2007; Einarsson
1994; Rafnsson 1977; Stenberger and
Roussell 1943; Sveinbjamardóttir 1992;
Vilhjálmsson 1989). Farmstead relocation
has received considerably less attention. In
sorting out the difference between farm
abandonment and relocation it is important
to make a conceptual distinction between
the farm and the farmstead. The farm, as a
property that supports social and economic
reproduction, consists of a central
concentration of turf structures, the
immediately surrounding infields, the
outfields, pastures, and other resource
locations that are owned by a specific
fanuer (Amorosi, et al. 1998; Urbanczyk
1999). In this sense the farm is
simultaneously a physical and social entity
tied to one or more households (Bolender
2007b). These properties are difficult to
reconstmct for a variety of reasons: they
are extensive and consist of diverse land
use and activity areas, their boundaries
may be unmarked or have changed, some
parts of the property may not be
contiguous, and they may have been
organized differently in the past (Aldred
2008; Berson 2002; Einarsson, et al. 2002;
Jónsson 1993, 2002; Jónsson and
Dýrmundsson 2000; Júlíusson 2000; Milek
2006). We use the term farmstead in the
more restricted sense to refer to the cluster
of buildings central to the operation of the
farm, including the domestic residence of
the fanuing household. Farmsteads,
because of their circumscribed nature, are
much easier to identify, define, and date
than the larger farm and therefore, we used
the farmstead as our basic archaeological
unit in the survey.
Following from the distinction
between the farm and the farmstead, farm
abandonment refers to a fanu that no
longer is the residence and primary
production site of a household. Farmstead
relocation assumes the continued
occupation of the farm as a physical and
social entity while the core buildings and
central activities that make up the
farmstead - in other words the key
archaeologically identifiable elements of
the farm - are moved ífom one place to
another on that land. Relocation assumes
that spatially and temporally distinct
fanusteads, in fact, belong to the same
farm.
Archaeologically, farm abandonment
is indicated by the abandonment of all
domestic stmctures and the cessation of
domestic midden development anywhere
on a fanu property. Farmstead relocation,
as seen in archaeological survey, is
suggested by the movement of domestic
stmctures and midden development to a
spatially discrete but nearby location,
within what is inferred to be the same
farm property.
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