The iron age farm in Southwest Norway

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Abstract
The author describes an excavated farm from the Early Iron Age (4th‐6th centuries A.D.) near Stavanger in Southwest Norway. Similar farms are found in hundreds in the county of Rogaland. Only a few of these have been excavated and dated, mainly to the Migration Period. Some have also been settled in the Viking Period and in the Medieval Period. Two main types of farm structures have been defined, the simple type and the complex type. The complex type has probably been much more common than hitherto believed, and what have been interpreted as several different farms of the simple type can often be seen as only parts of one farm with a complex structure. Our knowledge of the farm structure of the Late Iron Age is rather fragmentary. Most of the farms have been abandoned in the 6th century. The finds from the later periods come from burial mounds or from houses cither raised on the ruins of older house foundations, or unconnected with the older farm structure. They seem to represent a new occupation of the deserted farms, but the second phase of pioneer settlement was not so strong as the one in the Migration Period, and it came to an end with the Black Death in 1349. Some of the farms were resettled during the last 300 years and some arc still deserted. The deserted farms have acted as a safety valve under pressure of population and have only been settled during periods when the demand for arable land was great.

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