Archaeologists Unearthed Oldest Viking Settlement in Iceland Decades Before They Are Supposed to Settle in the Island

The ancient longhouse that the archaeologists discovered may be the oldest Viking settlement in Iceland. It is thought to be built in 800 AD, decades before they are supposed to have settled in the island.

According to archaeologist Bjarni Einarsson, who led the excavations, the longhouse was hidden beneath a younger longhouse filled with treasures. It is hard not to conclude that the younger longhouse could have been the chieftain's house.

Shared Housing

The longhouses were long measuring up to 75 meters long and 6 meters wide, covered with turf and thatch used as communal habitations throughout the Norse lands during the Viking Age. They are divided into rooms that can be shared by families.

Both the longhouses were found in Stöð, near the village and fjord of Stöðvarfjörður in the east of Iceland. The younger longhouse is dated back to 874 AD, the commonly acceptable date for Iceland's settlement by people escaping from the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair.

The younger longhouse contains the most valuable hoards of beads, silver, and ancient coins found in Scandinavia. The inhabitants likely acquired these goods by trading skins and meat from whales and seals, which were prized throughout the Viking Scandinavia.

There were also Roman and Middle Eastern silver coins and "hacksilver," which are cut and bent pieces of silver used as bullion or currency used in ancient times.

Seasonal Camp in Stöð

Beneath the treasure-filled younger longhouse was an even older structure. Using chemical and other analysis, archaeologists found that it was built in the 800s, long before the permanent settlement of Iceland.

Einarsson thinks that the longhouse was a seasonal settlement or camp, only for the summer and maybe until fall by workers in the area. Additionally, he thinks that their diet included produce from fish, whales, seals, and birds as walruses were not found in eastern Iceland.

Upon investigation of some of the parts of the older longhouse, they concluded that it was one of the most massive longhouses ever found in Iceland.

"We know that the westernmost part of the older hall was a smithy [for working with metal] - the only smithy within a hall known in Iceland," Einarsson said.

Moreover, he said that the seasonal camp in Stöð was similar in size and function to the Viking settlement discovered at L'Anse aux Meadows, in what is now Newfoundland in Canada. Experts have dated it to be around 1,000 AD.

This was a pattern of the settlement of islands in the Atlantic Ocean. First, there would be seasonal camps, and then the settlement followed, Einarsson said.

Einarsson is an expert in his field, having directed a private archaeological firm for over 20 years and from 2009 excavated Viking Age settlement at Vogur, on the west coast of Iceland, which depended on hunting walruses for their ivory, skin, and meat.

He discovered the two longhouses in 2007, but it was not until 2015 that the site's excavations began.