Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1991, Page 23

PROBLEMS CONCERNING THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT . . .
27
ved from myth to science.21 Sverri Dahl
was not only an excavator; his humanist
intellectual constitution made him also a
historian, and a man of culture in the bro-
adest sense of the term. With him Faroese
archaeology became professionalised,
even if he, in so many senses of the word,
was a self-made man. His intuition, his
talent, cannot be doubted.
From the beginning Sverri Dahl was in-
fluenced by A. W. Brøgger,22 who fully
accepted Dicuil’s and Zimmer’s theories
when stating: »There can be no doubt that
Irish hermits had been in the Faroe Islands
before the Norsemen came.«23 Also Dr
Jakob Jakobsen had already, perhaps
under the influence of Sophus and Alex-
ander Bugge,24 taken Zimmer as an un-
questionable authority when speaking of
»the famous celtologist, Professor Zimmer
in Germany«,25 concluding from his philo-
logical reflection and by analogy (especi-
ally papa-words in Shetland and Iceland,
and historical sources, Dicuil and Icelandic
sagas) that a pre-Viking settlement in the
Faroe Islands was more than likely.26
In his dissertation Professor Christian
Matras was much more sceptical as to
Celtic-Gaelic linguistic influence than he
became later.27
Thus, Sverri Dahl had many »authorit-
ies« to rely on, and this must make it diff-
icult for him to reject the possibility that
cross-slabs showing clear Celtic-Irish inf-
luence might be relics of a »Papa« period.
He also found some support among archa-
eologists28 and historians.29
After Sverri Dahl, and after him, others
continued the work, only to mention Arne
Thorsteinsson, Símun V. Arge, Knud
Krogh, Torben Diklev, Ditlev Mahler and
Steffen Stummann Hansen.30
Botany
Until recently natural sciences, such as bo-
tany, have not been regarded as historical
disciplines. Today, all historians and
archaeologists are fully aware of the sci-
entific interaction between the humanities
and natural sciences, if only in terms of
dating historical relics.
To me the problem is that we are not
able to control each other, perhaps the hi-
storians and the archaeologists to a certain
degree, from our own situation of work.
Historians and archaeologists are not cap-
able of being burglars into natural scienc-
es.
From a scientific point of view we are,
so far, lookers-on or listeners. Historians
and archaeologists. In the last resort, all
science is a question of common sense, not
of prejudice and fanaticism. So, we must
listen to all who can contribute to our
understanding of the past, particularity
concerning the problems in question. A
scholar can never feel too secure. His atti-
tude to his subject must be a humble one.
The Historians
Since the earlies editions of Dicuil’s work,
the first of them nearly two hundred years
ago,31 historians have put much confidence
in his account of the islands north of
Britain. As allued to earlier, his source of
information, the islands of which he gives
descriptions related to him by others as
»semper deserta« cannot be Shetland, can-
not be Iceland (which has a separate des-
cription); they can only be the Faroe Is-
lands. Consequently, since Dicuil first be-