Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Page 81

THE SVALBARÐ PROJECT
tenancy. Given the middling quality of
most of Svalbarð’s land (which is mostly
higher than 30m asl and/or boggy or
hummocky ground), environmental
changes, particularly climatic instability
and degradation ffom 13th to the 19th
century, (see Grove 2001; Ogilvie and
Jónsdóttir 2000; Ogilvie and Jónsson
2001) can be suggested as likely
contributors to the causes of settlement
abandonments.
Previous zooarchaeological studies of
animal bones from the Svalbarð midden
(Amorosi 1992, 1996) suggested that the
stock raising practices and subsistence
economy of the central farm saw ongoing
transformations and stress during this
period, as witnessed in a conspicuously
high rate of early mortality amongst
lambs and decrease of cow herds relative
to sheep. An increasing reliance upon
marine resources (fish, seals and other
marine resources such as shellfish) for
foodstuffs may also indicate that the
dairying economy was less and less
capable of providing for the subsistence
of Svalbarðstunga's inhabitants, although
it is also possible that increased marine
utilization represents a real increase in
production. These economic trends took
place while more frequent accumulations
of spring sea ice in the northern
extremities of Iceland, including the
coast near Svalbarð, are noted in
historical records, events which had
impacts on the snow melt, the growing
season and growth rates of grasses and
hence the productivity of pastures and
hay-fields (Amorosi 1992; Ogilvie 2001,
Ogilvie and Jonsdottir 2000).
The effects of episodes of cold, drift
ice accumulation and volcanic eruptions
on the rural economy of northem Iceland
after the 17th century were certainly
profound. For example Svalbarðshreppur
was greatly affected by the Laki eruption
(Móðuharðindin 1783-1784) and the
environmental degradation that followed;
in 1769 124 persons lived in the hreppur,
but only 35 residents were recorded in
1785. Brekknakot, Flaga, Hjálmarvík,
Kúðarsel (Kúðá) and Svalbarðssel were
abandoned at this time, five farms among
a total of eleven abandonded farms in
Svalbarðshreppur (Þormóðsson 1971,
113-114). Nevertheless, the episodic
reoccupation and re-exploitation of
Svalbarð’s “hinterlands” also took place
during a period when populations were in
a phase of growth across Iceland during
the 19th century (see Ingimundarson
1995: 54 for a similar argument applied
to the Commonwealth period). The
population in Svalbarðshreppur was in a
state of rapid growth until the late 19th
century; in 1880 the population
numbered 312 people only to fall once
again to 236 in 1890 (and 223 in 1948
and 108 in 2008, see Árbók Þingeyinga
2010, 63). The new wave of farm
abandonment (in the late 19th century) is
linked to the emigration of households
living interior farms to other places in
Iceland and, notably, to the Americas
(Þormóðsson 1971, 125-126).
The wave of colonisation and
abandonment associated with the modem
nýbýli movement was profound, and
affected both the interior countryside and
coastal farms as well. It was clearly not
the first such episode however, as we
have illustrated above and through
79