Effective Houses: Property Rights and Settlement in Iron-age Eastern Norway

Lars Erik Gjerpe

doi:10.23865/noasp.194

Archaeology

Effective Houses: Property Rights and Settlement in Iron-age Eastern Norway

Author:

Lars Erik Gjerpe

Synopsis

This book examines property rights, settlement structure and social organization in Norway’s Østlandet in the Iron age (500 BC–AD 1050). Inspired by ethnographical and anthropological studies, a model of a stateless, agrarian and hierarchical society with socially based rights to land is presented. In this model, where there are no territorially embedded rights, society is better represented as a heterarchy or anarchy than as a hierarchy. Power in society was shared between the honoured warrior, the powerless leader and perhaps also the productive farmer. This model differs from that presented by standard Norwegian research, where the retrogressive method is combined with a belief in the stability and continuity of the farm. A critical study of Norwegian research history is therefore an essential part of this book.

This study has also been able to make use of new and extensive settlement evidence gained from machine-stripping of topsoil from large areas in the past thirty years; this has shed new light on the issues discussed in the book related to building practices and the settlement pattern.

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Author Biography

Lars Erik Gjerpe

The archaeologist Lars Erik Gjerpe is an associate professor at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. His research depart from an interest in models of society and research history combined with in depth knowledge of Iron Age and Viking Age settlement and burials, which he acquired as manager of large-scale excavations. He is an experienced editor, and has published several articles such as "The 536 Dust Veil Event and the Long 6th Century" and "Iron Age Building Traditions in Eastern Norway: Regions and Landscapes".