Houses and households in early Icelandic society: geoarchaeology and the interpretation of social space
This thesis contributes new archaeological evidence to the debate about how early Icelandic society was constituted and organised, and how it developed over the course of its first 200 year,s. It examines Viking Age residential architecture in Iceland at new levels of detail and with new methods, in...
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| Other Authors: | , |
| Format: | Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Newnham College
2007
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.15974 https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/245017 |
| Summary: | This thesis contributes new archaeological evidence to the debate about how early Icelandic society was constituted and organised, and how it developed over the course of its first 200 year,s. It examines Viking Age residential architecture in Iceland at new levels of detail and with new methods, including geoarchaeological techniques to enhance the interpretation of activity areas in individual buildings, and space syntax analysis to facilitate the comparison of houses and the detection of patterns in architectural form. The integration of these different techniques and scales of analysis permits a detailed understanding of how households organised social and economic activities on farmsteads, and sheds new light on the cultural identity of the earliest settlers, the size and complexity of their households, the degree of stratification in early Icelandic society, and how social structures in Iceland changed over time. This thesis examines the excavation data of all Viking Age houses and pit houses that were excavated in Iceland up to 2005, highlighting the complex interplay between cultural norms and the agency of individuals in the design and construction of residential buildings. It presents detailed geoarchaeological studies of the floor deposits in a tenth-century house at Aðalstræti 14-18, in Reykjavik, and a tenth-century pit house at Hofstaðir, in Mývatnssveit, and interprets the results in light of floor formation processes observed in early twentieth-century turf buildings at the farm of Þveni, in Laxárdalur, northeast Iceland, These geoarchaeological case studies reveal new types of activity areas that were previously not identified in Viking Age houses or pit houses, and enhance the understanding of the range and organisation of social and economic activities on early Icelandic farmsteads. This study of residential architecture reveals that there was either a high degree of cultural unity or a high degree of cultural integration in Viking Age Iceland, with settlers adopting the building style of the ... |
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