Published in "World Archaeology", 1995

The Norse settlement of Iceland established a viable colony on one of the world's last major uninhabited land masses. The vast corpus of indigenous Icelandic traditions about the country's settlement makes it tempting to view this as one of the best case studies of island colonization by a pre-state society. Archaeological research in some ways supports, but in other ways refutes the historical model. Comparison of archaeological data and historical sources provides insights into the process of island colonization and the role of the settlement process in the formation of a culture's identity and ideology.