[MR] History Blog: Dig Moves Back Iceland Settlement Date

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends, Especially Vikings,

Today the History Blog is reporting on excavations in Iceland that push
back the earliest known date for Viking settlement there.

According to the *Landnámabók (*The* Icelandic Book of Settlements), *the
earliest colonization was in 874 at Reykjavík by one Ingólfr Arnarson. Now
the remains of two longhouses have been discovered that push the date back
to as early as 800. It is likely these longhouses were more of a temporary
nature, and might have served as seasonal hunting camps, but there they
certainly upset the accepted timeline:
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/58868 .

Like Columbus in the New World, Ingólfr Arnarson gets all the credit in
history as Reykjavík's founder. Though he may have planted the first
recorded permanent settlement in Iceland, obviously he wasn't the first:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingólfr_Arnarson .

The original *Landnámabók* has not survived. The existing versions date to
around the middle 13th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landnámabók .
It looks like a revised edition may be needed.

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge   🦆
(Whose own genealogy shows similar flaky documentation.)