97 Ships and Sheep: Deserted and not-so- Deserted Farms in Viking Age Norway Frans-Arne H Stylegar Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, And the long grass o’er tops the mould’ring wall; And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler’s hand, Far, far away thy children leave the land. Ill fares the land, to hast’ning ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay: (Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, 1770) There are a number of deserted farm sites in SW Norway; apparently more than in any other part of the country. In the Jæren district alone, there are nearly two hundred. The sites consist of a variety of monuments still visible in the cultural landscape: house foundations, stone walls, clearance cairns, burial mounds, etc. If we include sites where only the place-names indicate a former farm, it adds at least a hundred deserted farms to the total for Rogaland alone (Særheim 2000). Most, but by no means all, of the deserted sites are situated in upland areas. The deserted farm sites have attracted scholarly attention since the early 20 th century, and between 1907 and the 1980s many were excavated (Rolfsen 2008). Major excavation campaigns took place during the interwar period: in the marginal areas in the highlands of Jæren (Petersen 1933; 1936) central Jæren, and Lista (Grieg 1934; Kallhovd and Stylegar in press). In some cases these were associated with infields, and located relatively close to the modern farm sites (Grieg 1934, 5; Stummann Hansen 1999; Rønneseth 2001). After the Second World War, Hagen and Myhre undertook further, larger-scale, excavations in Sosteli and Ullandhaug, respectively (Hagen 1953; Myhre 1980). While Petersen and Grieg focused on the house foundations, both Hagen and Myhre studied the farm as a social and economic unit. According to Petersen (1933; 1936) a large majority of the sites date from the Late Roman and Migration periods, and were abandoned at the end of the latter, i.e. in the 6 th century AD. For decades, the deserted farms in SW Norway were the foremost evidence in Norwegian archaeology for the general Fig. 1. Sosteli and other sites discussed in the article. 137909_VK06_14_STYLEGAR_Layout 1 17/08/2016 18:09 Page 97