Early Settlement History of Iceland

1. Early Settlement History of Iceland

2. Naddoddr • According to the Landnámabók (Book of Settlement) Naddoddr was a Viking who was the first person to touch land in Iceland around 825 A.D. • He named the country Snæland (Land of Snow)

3. Iceland Voyages(9th Century A.D.)

4. Gardar Svavarsson was the first to make it through a winter • He reached Iceland due to a storm that blew his ship off course in 860 A.D. • He was also the first person to confirm that Iceland was an island

5. Hrafna-Flóki • Another Norseman who traveled with three ravens (Hrafna) to help lead him to Iceland • Also made it through the winter, but lost all his cattle • Vatnsfjordur • Borgarfjordur • He named Iceland (ísland)

6. Ingólfur Arnarson • A Norseman who had instigated a blood feud in Norway • He and his adopted brother Hjörleifur set out to explore Iceland • They made it through a winter and returned the following year with other settlers • Built a farmstead in Reykjavík

7. Archaeology • Landnámabók and Sagas as guides to sites • However, these sources left out many settlement areas including the Mývatn region (Mývatnssveit) in the northeast, which features a farm at Sveigakot and an iron-smelting site and farm at Hrísheimar (Edvardsson, 2003)

10. Early life • Encountered birch woodlands (Smith, 1994; Vésteinsson, 1998, 2000) • Most early settlers farmed in wetland areas that did not require clearing • Areas prone to glacial flooding would allow for easy movement into the inland areas • Egalitarian farm distributions

11. Resource Depletion • Needed plants/trees for building materials, grazing, fuel (domestic and iron-smelting), farm land • Birch pollen greatly declines between 871 CE and 920 CE tephra layers • 1200 CE lack of fuel availability halted iron-smelting at Hrísheimar • Many sites abandoned due to erosion issues (Sveigakot)

12. Food • Domesticated cattle, wild fish and birds, arctic fox, porpoise, seal and whale (McGovern et al. 2006) • Must have used internal trade for sea resources (caught and processed elsewhere and brought inland) • High presence of eggs (versus hunting birds) suggests some management practices

13. Domesticated Animals • Goats, sheep, pigs, horses and cattle • Later in the records sheep take over and cattle decline while pigs and goats virtually drop out • This may be due to less available grazing land or attempts to control erosion problems

14. Environmental Effects • Now 73% of Iceland suffers from erosion issues (Arnalds et al., 2001, cited in Simpson et al., 2004) • Overgrazing prevented forest regeneration • Volcanic nature of soils makes them particularly susceptible to erosion • Although seasonal grazing was practiced at sites such as Sveigakot winter grazing seems to have gone unchecked

15. Environmental Effects • Some farms in southern Iceland show evidence of land management practices that have maintained soil quality to present day. • It has also been suggested that some farms just had a string of bad seasons and that climate affected grazing seasons • Larger farms with greater resource access and knowledge of previous farm failures had a greater chance of survival • Volcanic activity, glacial flooding and climate changes should also be recognized as contributing factors

16. Icelandreview.com