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Introduction
The firm dating of the landnám-tephra to the
870s, with reference to annual snow-melt in the
Greenland icecap (Grönvold et al. 1995, Zielinski
et al. 1997), liberated Icelandic Viking age archaeology
from its fixation on the date of the start of
colonization. For Kristján Eldjárn (1956), who laid
the foundations for modern research into Viking age
material culture inIceland, determining the timing
of the initial colonization was a primary concern.
It was also for his critics, most notably Margrét
Hermanns-Auðardóttir (1989, 1991), who claimed
a 7th-century date for the settlement of Iceland. As
the contested archaeological deposits all post-date
the tephra, the dispute evaporated with its definite
dating. The resolution of this matter therefore effectively
closed a debate that had occupied center-stage
in Icelandic archaeology until then.
This result coincided with a resurgence in Viking
age archaeology in Iceland that has, in the past twenty
years, produced great quantities of new data and,
perhaps more importantly, several new lines of inquiry
which are gradually changing our perceptions
of this period in fundamental ways. One of these
is the study of strontium isotopes in human bones,
which allows immigrants to be distinguished from
people born and bred in Iceland (Price and Gestsdóttir
2006, in review [this volume]). This research has
profound implications both for our understanding
of the rate and nature of immigration, and hence the
colonization as a process, and for the value of burial
data for demographic reconstruction. These themes
are interlinked, and each needs to be considered
to suggest plausible interpretations. Here we will
start by discussing the evidence for immigration to
Iceland in the 9th and 10th centuries before turning
to the burial record. On this basis, it is possible to
begin to piece together a more nuanced picture of the
colonization as a social process where population
movement is considered as one component in a story
involving identity formation, community building,
and political developments in a new society.
Dating the Migration to Iceland
In traditional scholarship, the chronological
parameters for the colonization of Iceland were not
in doubt: the first settlers arrived in A.D. 870 or
874, and the process was completed by A.D. 930
when a new chapter began with the establishment
of the Alþing as the cornerstone of a new constitutional
order. This formulation derives from Ari fróði,
whose short chronicle on the history of Iceland,
Íslendingabók, written in the A.D. 1120s, has long
provided the framework for our understanding of
the first 250 years of settlement in Iceland. All other
written sources relating to this period are later, and
none of them contain traditions that contradict or
diverge from Ari’s account. The 13th-century and
later Íslendingasögur (Sagas of Icelanders) and
Landnámabók (the Book of Settlements) add a great
quantity and variety of often colorful detail, but their
concept of the colonization process is the same as
Ari’s: there was a sixty-year period in which new arrivals
could claim lands. There is a sense that those
who came later within that period sometimes had
to make do with less desirable land or oust earlier
settlers from lands already occupied, but apart from
that there is no conception in the medieval records of
the settlement as a structured process; it was gradual
for sixty years and then it ended. Those who came
later could only acquire land through inheritance or
purchase (Friðriksson and Vésteinsson 2003).
This conception was first challenged by Ólafur
Lárusson in an important paper published in 1929.
Based on his examination of historical references to
The Colonization of Iceland in Light of Isotope Analyses
Orri Vésteinsson1,* and Hildur Gestsdóttir2
Abstract - A review of the mounting archaeological evidence for the colonization of Iceland suggests that the whole country
was occupied within a couple of decades towards the end of the 9th century AD. Analyses of strontium in human bones
show, however, that immigrants continued to arrive in Iceland throughout the 10th century. Here we discuss this apparent
contradiction, suggesting that while continued immigration may have been needed to sustain the population, these patterns
arise also from biases within the burial data. We argue that formal burial, of the kind that allows isotopic analyses, reflects
growing affluence and the emergence of an indigenous gentry that sought to legitimate its power through association with
the perceived homeland and its upper class.
Viking Settlers of the North Atlantic: An Isotopic Approach
Journal of the North Atlantic
1Department of Archaeology, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland. 2Institute of Archaeology, Reykjavík, Iceland.
*Corresponding author - orri@hi.is
2016 Special Volume 7:137–145
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O. Vésteinsson and H. Gestsdóttir
2016 Special Volume 7
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settlements in a valley in West-Iceland, he argued
that whatever constitutional watershed may have
been reached in 930, the actual occupation of the
land took much longer and farms were being established
throughout the 10th century, with the last foundations
occurring as late as the 12th century (Lárusson
1929:334–342). Although he did not elaborate
on this, it seems that Ólafur thought that there had
not been enough immigrants coming between A.D.
870 and 930 to establish and maintain the ~4000
farms attested in later records. The post-930 foundations
were therefore the result mainly of a natural
increase in the already existing population, although
he also reckoned with some immigration.
Ólafur Lárusson’s thesis, although intellectually
sound, was never influential; however, it gained
importance as a foil to archaeological evidence
beginning to emerge in the late 1990s. In contrast
to Ólafur Lárusson’s model, the archaeological
evidence suggested a remarkably rapid and complete
occupation of the Icelandic landscape in the late 9th
century (Vésteinsson et al. 2002:105–106). In recent
years, more evidence has been coming to light supporting
this picture.
The most solid piece of evidence comes from the
site of Sveigakot in the region of Mývatnssveit in
northeastern Iceland, where extensive archaeological
investigations have been underway since the early
1990s (overview in McGovern et al. 2007). Sveigakot
is a low-status site located on marginal land that
can never have been an ideal place to settle. Not only
was the land poor—some wet meadow but mainly
bare lava field—but also quite small, judging
from distances to nearest neighbors with Viking
age dates (see reconstruction in Thomson and
Simpson 2007). The limited access to resources
is reflected in the small size of the dwellings
at the site. Sveigakot is the sort of place which
common-sense, as well as Ólafur Lárusson’s
model, would have dictated was established at
the very end of the settlement process. It probably
was, only this process seems to have taken
place extremely fast. In Sveigakot, a tephra layer
dated to ~A.D. 930–940 AD with reference to
sedimentation rates in Lake Mývatn (Sigurgeirsson
et al. 2013) overlies the earliest phase of
settlement. This phase consists of a byre, which
could have sheltered as many as 16 head of cattle,
and a small sunken dwelling, measuring 4 m x 5
m with an adjacent outdoor activity area with two
fireplaces. Both structures were abandoned and
completely collapsed when the ~A.D. 930–940
tephra fell, suggesting that the abandonment
occurred decades rather than years prior to the
eruption. The dwelling had seven different floor layers
and saw significant structural modifications in its
long lifetime (Fig. 1). The midden associated with
this earliest phase began to form directly on top of the
landnám tephra of A.D. 871 ± 2. Taking all this evidence
into account, it has been estimated that occupation
cannot have started in Sveigakot much later than
ca. A.D. 880 (Vésteinsson 2010).
If Sveigakot was settled so early, it stands to reason
that practically all other sites in the country must
have been too (see Vésteinsson and McGovern 2012
for an elaboration of this argument). This assumption
is supported by recent results from attempts to date
other sites in Mývatnssveit. So far, archaeological
deposits predating the ~A.D. 930–940 tephra have
been found at six sites. Importantly, these include
all site types, from un- or intermittently manned
sites like shielings and small enclosures to small
and middling farms and major estates. At two sites
towards the upper end of the social scale, Hrísheimar
and Þorleifsstaðir, archaeological deposits have
been found directly on top of the landnám tephra,
just like in Sveigakot, suggesting that Sveigakot was
no anomaly regarding its early occupation. There
are more than 20 other sites in Mývatnssveit with
Viking age dates, but at only one, the feasting hall
at Hofstaðir (Lucas 2009), are the features thus far
investigated believed to date from later than ca. A.D.
930–940. Hofstaðir may yet yield earlier dates as its
farm-mound is all but un-investigated and the midlate
10th-century building of the feasting hall likely
represents the development of new political institu-
Figure 1. Earliest phase of a pit house in Sveigakot built ca. 880
and abandoned well before ca. 940.
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tions rather than pioneer farming (Friðriksson et al.
2004, Lucas 2009, Vésteinsson 2007). At the other
Mývatn sites, the dating is either too general (e.g.,
based on artifact typology) or the dated features cannot
be taken as representative of the site as a whole.
Mývatnssveit is the most intensively studied
region in Iceland, and comparable datasets do not
exist for other parts of the country. The available
evidence from other regions, such as Skagafjörður,
Þjórsárdalur, and the Reykjavík area, is consistent
with the interpretation suggested for Mývatnssveit.
It would be difficult to argue that Mývatnssveit
was a candidate for particularly early settlement.
Although rich in freshwater fish and fowl, at 250 m
above sea level it is less than ideally suited to the
type of cattle-based farming that the settlers seem to
have preferred (Vésteinsson 1998). In the same way
as Sveigakot can be seen as a site of last resort and
therefore a good indicator of when all land in that
region had been occupied, Mývatnssveit as a whole
can also be taken as an indicator of the same visa-
vis the country as a whole. If Mývatnssveit was
densely occupied before the end of the 9th century,
so must most other parts of the country have been.
An intensive survey and dating program in Langholt
in Skagafjörður is underway and will hopefully
throw clearer light on this issue (for early results
interpreted differently than here, see Bolender et al.
[2008, 2011]).
Pollen data is consistent with a rapid and comprehensive
occupation of the land in the decades around
A.D. 900. This evidence is most graphically illustrated
in a pollen study in Grímsnes in Southern Iceland
where birch had fallen from a dominating position
in the ecosystem to its present level before A.D. 920
(Hallsdóttir 1987:34, 1996:132), representing deforestation
on a scale difficult to reconcile with anything
but comprehensive occupation of that landscape.
Of course, showing that there was extensive
settlement before A.D. 920–940 does not reveal the
whole story. It is important to note also that more
than 100 sites have archaeological deposits on top of
or just above the landnám tephra from A.D. 871±2.
At two sites, there is evidence for human presence
under this tephra. Both are in coastal locations in the
Southwest: one in Krýsuvík and another in Reykjavík.
In both cases, turf-walls, belonging to enclosures
rather than houses, predate the tephra. It is,
however, significant that neither at these sites, nor at
any of the more than 100 sites where archaeological
deposits have been observed in relation to the landnám
tephra, have middens, burials, or dwellings—in
other words evidence of a permanent settlement—
been found under it.
These findings suggest that people had begun
to settle in Iceland before the deposition of the
landnám tephra, but probably only shortly before
and primarily in coastal areas, possibly only in the
south. Shortly after the eruption, there was a massive
immigration to Iceland which seems to have
led to the establishment of large and small farms in
practically all habitable parts of the country within a
period of ~20 years. Based on an extrapolation from
the Mývatn data, a recent estimate puts the minimum
number of people needed to occupy all these posts
at 24,000 (Vésteinsson and McGovern 2012). Taking
into account that the first colonists are likely
to have faced exaggerated mortality and that return
migration may have occurred (King 1978), the actual
number of people shipped to Iceland in these
decades must have been considerably higher.
But was that it? Was the migration to Iceland
simply a somewhat faster process than Ari fróði imagined,
20 years instead of 60, with no significant additions
after the initial land-rush? The results of strontium
isotope analyses suggest that the story is not so
simple, and in fact that it is much more complicated.
Strontium Isotopes and the Nature of
Colonization
A recent study of strontium isotopes in human
bones from Viking age Iceland has identified as immigrants
at least 32 individuals out of a sample of 83
pagan burials in Iceland. In addition, one individual
from a sample of 43 graves from two early Christian
cemeteries turned out to be an immigrant (Price and
Gestsdóttir 2006, this volume). The pagan burials
are as a group dated to the late 9th and 10th centuries,
whereas the Christian cemeteries are considered to
belong to the 11th century and possibly later. The
Christian cemetery at Skeljastaðir, where the immigrant
comes from, is associated with radiocarbon
determinations placing its use between the mid-10th
and the early 13th centuries (Sveinbjörnsdóttir et al.
2010), so in that case there may be some overlap
with the later pagan burials.
Dating the pagan burials is not straightforward.
Only three have a known association with a 10thcentury
tephra layer, the E-934±2. All three are in
Hrífunes in Southern Iceland (Kt 155)1 and predate
the tephra: an adult native-born Icelander of uncertain
sex is firmly below the tephra, an immigrant
adult woman was buried at the time of the eruption
(Larsen and Þórarinsson 1984:40–43), and an adult
woman was buried and the burial subsequently disturbed
prior to the eruption (Gestsdóttir et al. 2015).
Those of the other graves that can be dated at all
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have been dated either through radiocarbon determinations
or artifact typologies, neither of which
methods allow tight dating in this period. It is clear,
however, that while many of the datable burials with
immigrants may be from the late 9th century or early
10th century, a significant number seem to be later,
from the second half of the 10th century. One of these
late arrivals is an adult male (?) buried with a horse
and a dog in Dalvík, northern Iceland, radiocarbon
dated to ca. A.D. 978–1027 (Sveinbjörnsdóttir et al.
2010:686).2 Another immigrant in Dalvík is a woman
aged 25–35 buried in one of the largest mounds
recorded in Iceland (Fig. 2). She was accompanied
by beads dated to the second half of the 10th century
(Hreiðarsdóttir 2005[II]:105).3
In Sturluflötur, E-Iceland (Kt 136) an immigrant
adult of uncertain sex was buried with a bead dated
to A.D. 960–1000 (Hreiðarsdóttir 2005[II]:28). A
highly unusual burial, if it is a burial at all, is that of
an adult found on top of a mountain in eastern Iceland.
Accompanied by no fewer than four brooches
and slightly less than 500 beads, this individual may
have sought shelter in a cave and died there, rather
than being intentionally buried in this atypical location.
Whatever the case, this individual was an
immigrant whose most recent beads were made after
A.D. 960 (Hreiðarsdóttir 2005[II]:111). Including
the immigrant in the Christian cemetery at Skeljastaðir,
five out of 32 identified immigrants arrived
in Iceland in the late 10th century or later. A further
two immigrants from pagan grave contexts (in
Hafurbjarnarstaðir [Kt 40] and Smyrlaberg [Kt 65])
have anomalously late radiocarbon dates (11th–13th
century) that will need corroboration. Discounting
these, five out of 30 is a significant number, considering
that only seven of the immigrants have firm
late 9th and early 10th century dates, while 11 have
general 10th-century dates (i.e., unlikely to have
arrived in the late 9th century) and seven have only
general Viking age dates. These dating issues would
repay closer examination than has been attempted
here, but the implications are clear: people continued
to arrive in Iceland throughout the 10th century
and possibly longer.
On the face of it, this evidence would seem to
be more consistent with Ólafur Lárusson’s model
of gradual settlement increase, but how can this be
reconciled with the indications for very early and
comprehensive settlement in Mývatnssveit? The
answer is simple enough: While very large numbers
of people were shipped to Iceland in the late
9th century, enough to occupy the same, or larger,
number of settlements as occupied in post-Viking
age times, immigration also continued for a long
time afterwards. This scenario has several implications.
It is possible that despite large numbers, the
Figure 2. One of the burial mounds in Dalvík under excavation by Daniel Bruun and Finnur Jónsson in 1909. © Nationalmuseet.
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late 9th century immigrant population was not able to
adequately sustain itself, let alone increase, so that
reinforcements were needed for a long time. It may
also be that despite large numbers of immigrants
in the late 9th century and a possibly robust natural
increase of that population, there was still a need
for more immigrants and/or continued pressures to
migrate to Iceland. Another implication is that the
postulated late-9th-century population is severely
underrepresented in the burial data. These can be
seen as competing assertions, but we suggest they
are complementary: all are true.
The possible inability of the late-9th-century
population to sustain itself could have been caused
by three factors (at least). Exaggerated mortality,
through hardship, apathy, or violence is frequently
observed in founding populations (e.g., Kupperman
1979) but is usually only associated with the very
first years of settlement. Modern migration studies
show that return-migration is an aspect of all migrations
(Gmelch 1980, King 1978, Wyman 1993)
and it is likely that this was so in prehistory too,
although it is notoriously difficult to detect. Studies
of pre-steamship return migration from America
suggest that it is likely to have been less than 1% of
the out-migration (Kamphoefner 1991:297–301).
A third possible factor is an unbalanced sex ratio.
If men significantly outnumbered women—as they
frequently do in frontier situations (Sharpe 2001, Simon
and Brettel 1986)—then natural fertility, even
if exaggerated as it often is in new societies (Harris
2001:13–143), may not have been enough to sustain
the population. It is possible that such factors were
significant enough to require a steady influx of people
for more than a century after the initial land-rush,
but their impact may equally have been felt primarily
in the very first years of the colonization, perhaps
in the pre-A.D. 870 period, and robust fertility rates
might have begun to assert themselves as early as the
A.D. 880s or 890s. The strontium evidence allows us
to suggest a more nuanced scenario.
Patterns in Burial Data
It might be assumed that the roughly 320 pagan
burials known in Iceland reflect the population as a
whole. Alas, it is not so simple, and it is well known
that this sample is biased in a number of ways. The
very low incidence of children is one obvious thing
to note, with only two infants and 10 children aged
7–17 out of a population of 119 preserved skeletons
(Friðriksson 2000:594). Another is the skewed sex
ratio, with 35 women against 73 men (Friðriksson
2000:595). Neither aspect is unique for Iceland, but
they do suggest that significant proportions of the
population are missing from the burial record. This
implication underpins general suspicions, also entertained,
e.g., in Norway (Nordeide 2011, Solberg
2000:268), that the burial record represents primarily
the upper portions of the social scale.
One way of approaching this is to look at the size
of pagan cemeteries. The majority of pagan burials
are isolated finds, and only a handful of cemeteries
have been examined comprehensively. The largest
has 12 human graves, but Adolf Friðriksson
(2009:12–14) concludes that a typical Icelandic
grave field has at least 4–5 graves.4 This is probably
an over-cautious estimate and the existence of
cemeteries with 9–12 graves suggests that this could
have been the norm. Even so, this is much too few
graves to account for all the people who must have
lived on the farms with which these cemeteries are
associated. If the pagan cemeteries each only served
one farm (and this is not certain) and we reckon with
a very low average household size , say 5 compared
to 6.15 in the 18th century (Jónsson and Magnússon
1997:140), then with a “normal’” mortality rate
of 30‰ (Jónsson and Magnússon 1997:188) and a
century of use, each cemetery should have at least
17 human burials. This is an absolute minimum because
the period of use is likely to have been longer,
the mortality rate higher, especially to begin with,
and the household size larger, making an expected
number of dead per farm in the pagan period closer
to 20–25. However we juggle these figures, it is
clear that the pagan cemeteries are missing at least
a third and more likely two thirds or more of the actual
population. We know that infants in particular,
but also children and women, make up a significant
proportion of those missing. However, adding likely
figures for those would not make up the shortfall.
In other words, some adult males are also missing,
and the suspicion is that these are the dispossessed
and unconnected: slaves, servants, and others of low
status however defined.
The burial record as a whole therefore represents
only a specific proportion of Icelandic society in
the 9th and 10th centuries. Looking at the immigrants
within this biased sample is quite revealing. Two
things stand out: Firstly, unlike the assemblage as
a whole, the sex ratio is nearly even among the immigrants.
There are 11 females or likely females
against 12 males or likely males compared to a ratio
of 31:10 males to females among those born in Iceland.
In other words, a disproportionally high ratio
of the women buried in these graves are immigrants.
The second is that the immigrants are associated with
richer burials. This can be demonstrated in two ways.
First, native born Icelanders are much more frequently
found in graves with no grave-goods (16 out of 51
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2016 Special Volume 7
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In part, this situation probably relates to affluence;
the bulk of the founding population was likely
very poor and only later generations had the wherewithal
to invest in objects with symbolic meaning.
But it also relates to levels of social differentiation
and the need to assert status and social inclusion.
We could imagine that the founding population was
largely unfree, and uniformly so, governed perhaps
by overseers and/or a very small group of landowners,
many of whom may not have permanently settled
in Iceland. That would fit with numerous examples
from early modern colonizations where the people
who invested in colonizing ventures, and expected
to increase their wealth and power from this, did not
participate in person, or only fleetingly so. Instead
people of low or questionable status were sent out to
do the actual colonizing only to be followed later by
more respectable types or by developing respectability
themselves in later generations (for variations in
such developments in possibly analogous situations
see Choquette [1997], Pope [2004]).
In contrast to the invisibility of the first one or two
generations in Iceland, whose dwelling remains left
no positive features and whose burials only rarely had
the grave goods or other features which would help
us find them, their descendants in the late 10th century
employed massive turf architecture and buried their
dead much more frequently with grave goods. As a
result, we are much better informed about the latter,
and we tend to assume that the evidence from their
remains holds for the Icelandic Viking age as a whole.
This assumption is not valid, and making the distinction
holds the key to understanding the complex
goings-on in this formative society.
Becoming Respectable in 10th-Century Iceland
Of the 16 burials defined by Kristján Eldjárn and
Adolf Friðriksson as the richest in the country, none
can be dated to the late 9th century, only two to the
early 10th century,8 while at least six belong to the
mid- to late 10th century.9 We can take these findings
as a rough indication of the incidence of respectability
in Viking age Iceland. It was low to begin with
and possibly associated mainly with people who did
not settle permanently and are therefore not present
in the Icelandic burial record, but increased as the
10th century wore on. An important stage will have
been reached when an indigenous upper-class had
emerged, which may plausibly be associated with
the development between A.D. 930 and the 960s
(Ari’s dates) of a hierarchical system of assemblies
applying local law to the settlement of disputes. This
native upper class will have wanted to wrest any dicases
[31%]), but only two out of 32 immigrants (6%)
come from graves with no grave goods. Second, of
the 16 burials characterized by Kristján Eldjárn and
Adolf Friðriksson as the richest in the country (Eldjárn
2000:303-304), six are immigrants5 while only
two are native-born Icelanders6 (the remaining eight
either have no bones preserved or the teeth have not
been analysed for strontium isotope ratios).
These findings can be interpreted in a variety of
ways, but we propose that these patterns all relate to
the same phenomenon, namely the double invisibility
of the late 9th-century founding population and the
exaggerated visibility of an upper class with partly
foreign roots and a definite Norse identity emerging
in the late 10th century.
The Dispossessed in Early Iceland
The people who established more than 30 farms
in Mývatnssveit, and by implication more than 4000
in the country as a whole, in the late 9th century
are doubly invisible in the archaeological record.
There are too few graves from this period (even
if we think that they were all young people who
lived long lives—which is unlikely). The simplest
explanation is that this dearth is caused by the
same factor as barred a significant proportion of the
population from burial in cemeteries throughout the
pagan period: low status and absence of family ties
and obligations. The other aspect of this invisibility
is more concrete: in Mývatnssveit, practically all
positive features which have been dated in relation
to the ~A.D. 930–940 tephra post-date it. All
home-field enclosures and field boundaries are later
and so are all the halls with the characteristic plan
of Norse dwellings in the Viking age (bow-shaped
walls, three aisled, central hearth, etc.).7 So far pre-
A.D. 930–940 dwellings have only been revealed
at Sveigakot, and these are sunken-featured buildings
without any particularly Norse ethnic markers
(Vésteinsson 2010). Apart from that, the pre-A.D.
930–940 cultural deposits consist of middens, upcast
(presumably from sunken-featured buildings),
and traces of cultivation/field improvements. The
artifacts from these early layers are both limited in
volume and singularly non-specific in their associations.
There is nothing in these assemblages suggesting
Norse, or indeed any other specific ethnicity.
This evidence is in contrast to the late-10th-century
assemblages, which are both larger in volume and
diversity and also have artifacts with symbolic
meaning. In Sveigakot, these include a piece from an
oval brooch and a dragon head from a bone pin from
layers contemporary with a very small, but also very
Norse, hall (Vésteinsson 2014).
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rect influence over Icelandic affairs and possessions
from foreign competitors (if the latter had not turned
to other more lucrative ventures already), but they
will also have wanted to increase their respectability
through both direct and symbolic associations with
established aristocracies in the perceived homelands.
It is clear that, whatever the ethnic origins of the
9th-century population, by the mid- to late 10th century
the source of symbolic power for these Icelandic
wannabes was Scandinavia (Vésteinsson 2014). It is
in this light that we need to consider the continued
immigration to Iceland in the second half of the 10th
century. There may still have been a need for workers
and tenants, but the relatively greater number of
wealthy people and women among the immigrants
suggests that there had developed demand for people
of a different sort. In particular, it is easy to see how
respectability could be sought through marriage with
Scandinavian aristocrats, or even just any free-born
Scandinavian (see Metcalf [2005] for an example of a
colonial aristocracy maintaining status through marriages
with impecunious noblemen from the homeland
for more than two centuries after settlement).
Perhaps the mound erected over the young immigrant
woman in Dalvík around 1000, one of the largest
known in Iceland (Fig. 2), represents an attempt to
advertise the respectability which had almost been
secured, but was thwarted by an untimely death?
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to T. Douglas Price for organizing
the workshop in Copenhagen in 2011 where the results
of this research were presented. This research forms
part of two Rannís-funded projects: “Death and Burial in
Iceland for 1150 Years” (grant no. 110646021) and “The
Settlement of Iceland: The Analysis of Strontium Isotopes
in Human Remains” (grant no. 40636031).
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Endnotes
1“Kt” followed by a number refers to the numbering of
pagan burial sites in Eldjárn (2000) and Friðriksson
(2000).
2DAV-A-009 = kuml 12. Kt. 89. The skeleton is wrongly
described as female in Sveinbjörnsdóttir et al. (2010:686).
3DAV-A-008 = kuml 13. Kt 89 (Hreiðarsdóttir
2005[II]:105).
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2016 Special Volume 7
145
4In fact, in his paper, Adolf Friðriksson published maps of
robbed and unexcavated cemeteries with 13 (Berufjörður)
and 17 graves (Ingiríðarstaðir). Some of these are likely
to be horse graves, but this evidence supports the case for
substantially larger cemeteries than 4–5.
5Hafurbjarnarstaðir (Kt 40); Sílastaðir (Kt 98) graves 1, 2,
and 4; Daðastaðir (Kt 126); and Álaugarey (Kt 151). Of
these, the association of bones with grave-goods in the
Hafurbjarnarstaðir burial is uncertain.
6Öndverðarnes (Kt 47) and Vatnsdalur (Kt 54).
7This is true of the fully excavated halls at Hofstaðir
(Lucas 2009) and Sveigakot, as well as hall-like
structures trenched in Girðingar, við Kleifarhólma
(Vésteinsson 2011:27, 35), Raufarhóll (Vésteinsson
2012:12), and Saltvík (Vésteinsson 2004:11–13). To this
can be added evidence from other parts of the country,
e.g., the earlier hall in Stöng, which post-dates the E-934
± 2 tephra (Vilhjálmsson 1989).
8 Daðastaðir (Kt 126) and Öndverðarnes (Kt 47)—the
latter judging only from its M-type sword.
9Miklaholt (Kt 36), Eyrarteigur (Kt 144), Vatnsdalur (Kt
54), Kornsá (Kt 63), and Ketilsstaðir (Kt 142) are dated to
the mid-10th century, while Baldursheimur (Kt 117) only
has a general-10th-century date. A comparable picture
emerges when burials with datable beads are arranged
chronologically: only one has a 9th-century date and two
have firm early-10th-century dates, while 14 have firm
late-10th-century dates and the remaining 4 could be from
the late 9th to the late 10th (Hreiðarsdóttir 2005[I]:165).