Land in Landscapes Circum Landnám: An Integrated Study of Settlements in Reykholtsdalur, Iceland (original) (raw)

The creation of a propertied landscape: Land tenure and intensification in medieval Iceland

2006

The Creation of a Propertied Landscape: Land Tenure and Agricultural Investment in Medieval Iceland Douglas J. Bolender Iceland was first settled in the late 9 th century by Norse colonists who established independent farmsteads. By the 17 th century, 95% of Icelandic households were lived on tenant properties. Thus, Iceland provides an ideal opportunity for exploring the emergence of social complexity, from uninhabited island to class stratification. This work takes advantage of unique aspects of the Icelandic landscape to explore this transformation and the relationship between property status and agricultural intensification. In Iceland farmstead location was dispersed and highly stable; most of the farmsteads remained in the same place over their 1000 years of occupation. In addition, periodic volcanic eruptions resulted in ash layers which allow archaeological deposits and relict field systems to be dated. These features were used to reconstruct the history of changing intensification practices at individual farmsteads through excavation, extensive soil sampling and geochemical analysis. These archaeological histories can be related to medieval documentation on property status to examine how land investment at individual farmsteads changed based on the status of the farming household. Traustadóttir, the entire household at Minna-Mosfell, Guðrún, Valur, Hanna Lilja, Sigga, and Siggi, and most of all Gúðrún Þóra Gunnarsdottir.

The archaeological landscape of northeast Iceland: a ghost of a Viking Age society

2011

Some 40 per cent of Europe is farmed and 47 per cent forested. The future of the majority of Europe's archaeological sites therefore depends on rural land uses that lie outside the spatial planning and development control systems of its various nation states. This volume, produced by the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) and Europae Archaeologiae Consilium (EAC) Joint Working Group on Farming, Forestry and Rural Land Management, examines the challenges posed by agriculture, forestry and other rural land uses in terms of the long-term conservation of Europe's archaeological sites and the management of its historic landscapes.

Unfamiliar landscapes: infields, outfields, boundaries and landscapes in Iceland (2008)

This paper provides an overview of land allotment and boundaries in Iceland, with special reference to their place in the landscape. It focuses on the nature of the material evidence itself, such as the types of boundaries, providing some explanations for the variations seen between different locations and periods of time. As a result some general observations and remarks are presented connected with current research and archaeological approaches to the study of land allotment and boundaries in Iceland.

Cartography and Culture in Medieval Iceland

Imago Mundi, 2015

While previous studies of the medieval Icelandic world maps have tended to be cursorily descriptive, and focus on their roles as representatives of the geographical information available to medieval Icelanders, this thesis directs attention towards their manuscript contexts. Rather than narrowly approaching the maps as vehicles for geographical information, the chapters assembled in this thesis explore their relevance to other areas: pan-European histories of astronomy and the computus (chapters 1 and 2), Icelandic literary history (chapter 4), and the history of the Icelandic Commonwealth (chapter 5). Ultimately, this thesis attempts to rehabilitate the Icelandic maps as sources for the cultural history of medieval Iceland, and demonstrates that they connect with more textual worlds than has previously been supposed. Chapter 1 presents an examination of the Icelandic hemispherical world map, preserved in two manuscripts: the encyclopaedic fragments in Copenhagen’s Arnamagnaean Inst...

Iceland's geodetic settlement pattern.pdf

Einar Palsson [1] saw the myths of foundation for Iceland's settlement (in 930) had Pythagorean roots. This manifested as a geometric connection between places on the landscape, especially on the south-western region near Reykjavik, its only city. Coherence was established through organising space according to centres (things), circles and their diameters, the circles punctuated with places and alignments to other places, horizon events or cardinal directions. This paper extends John Neal's analysis of Palsson's landform geometry in its connotation as being a model of the mean earth radius and circumference.

The vegetation and land use histories of two farms in Iceland: settlement, monasticism, and tenancy

Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 2021

Palaeoecological research in Iceland has rarely considered the environmental consequences of landlord-tenant relations and has only recently begun to investigate the impact of medieval monasticism on Icelandic environment and society. Through the medium of two tenant farm sites, this investigation seeks to discern whether or not monastic landlords were influencing resource exploitation and the land management practices of their tenants. In particular, sedimentary and phyto-social contexts were examined and set within a chronological and palaeoecological framework from the late 9th century down to the 16th century. How this relates to medieval European monasticism is also considered while the prevailing influences of climate and volcanism are acknowledged. Palaeoecological data shed light upon the process of occupation at the two farms during the settlement period, with resources and land use trajectories already well-established by the time they were acquired by monastic institutions. This suggests that the tenant farms investigated were largely unaffected ecologically by absorption into a manorial system overseen by monasticism. This could be a consequence of prevailing environmental contexts that inhibited the development of alternative agricultural strategies, or simply that a different emphasis with regard to resource exploitation was paramount.