 Fall/Winter 99 | |
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Tracing Viking Settlers in Iceland Combining Archaeological Techniques with Information from the Icelandic Sagas to Study Early Viking Age Society Mosfell>> |
Iceland was settled between 870 and 930 AD by Norse settlers in search of new farmland. At that time, Iceland was a few degrees warmer than it is now and the settlers and their animals thought they had found paradise-which they began to divide among themselves. The first settlers claimed huge territories that were subdivided, over the sixty years of the landnám(settlement period), as new immigrants arrived. Some of the settlers who were particularly adept at making alliances became the chiefs. They would represent groups of farmers at the Althing, the earliest parliamentary body in the world. We know this from the Icelandic sagas, a set of writings that not only document the settlement of Iceland-as well the later settlement of Greenland and the exploration of the area of North America now called Newfoundland-but also detail the daily life of the settlers and their descendants. Iceland is a key example of settlers moving into an uninhabited land and designing a new society. Written sources are helpful, but they do not tell us all we need to know about the distribution of land, animals, and trade goods so that we can begin to understand the inner workings of this unusual society. With these questions in mind, work began in Mosfell in 1993 with the objective of using both written and archaeological sources to investigate Icelandic society in the early Viking Age. Unfortunately, the Icelandic environment is not very conducive to archaeology. Elevations above 500 meters have suffered severe erosion and there are almost no remnants of settlement there. Much of the soil eroded from the upper regions has covered the lower coastal regions, completely burying early farms. In addition, Icelandic houses from the early Viking Age are built primarily of turf, making them virtually indistinguishable from the surrounding windblown soil. Before we could start on our lofty goal of combining archaeology and sagas, we had to determine whether it is possible to identify early Viking Age sites on a consistent basis. Crew looks on as the geologist studies the volcanic layers In the summer of 1999, funded by a "High Risk, Experimental Research" grant from the National Science Foundation, a crew from UCLA and Northwestern University went to Iceland with as much remote sensing equipment as the budget allowed. For three weeks in August, we tried to locate preserved sites in the Mosfell Valley. We concentrated on one particular farm called Hrisbru, toward the entrance of the valley and along the old road to northern Iceland and the Althing. The farm is mentioned in Egil's Saga as the home of Egil's favorite relative, Thordis, and the place where Egil, a great saga hero, spent his last days. The more recent adventures of the farmers of Hrísbrú have been chronicled by Iceland's Nobel Prize-winning writer, Halldor Laxness, who grew up in the valley.
After some experimentation, we discovered that phosphate testing and electrical conductivity seemed the best methods for identifying promising areas. Phosphates move slowly through soil; the activity of humans and domestic animals tends to concentrate phosphates at sites. Electrical conductivity measures how well or poorly an electrical current moves through the soil. Stones (found at the base of turf houses) are poor conductors while water is a very good one. With these methods, we surveyed the upper field of Hrisbru. Based on results of the survey, seven locations were chosen and trenches were dug with a backhoe to assess both the prospecting methods and the archaeological preservation. One of the trenches yielded a structure and a hearth, built sometime after 900 AD. Another trench revealed the cross section of a ditch dug sometime before 1500 AD. A few of the other trenches showed signs of early human activity and also indicated widespread human-induced burning from about 900 AD. Dating Icelandic structures is relatively easy. Every so often a volcano erupts, depositing a distinctive layer of ash that can be dated. In the Mosfell Valley there are such layers from 900 AD (called the landádnmlayer), a layer from about 1300 AD, and a large black one from 1500 AD. Sometimes these ash layers are incorporated into the turf used in house construction. The ability to identify Early Viking Age sites in Iceland, where there are no visible surface remains, is a great step forward. We are now preparing for a two–year field project where we will use these methods and others to understand the inner workings of the Mosfell Valley as well as other regions in Iceland. |
   
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