The Age of Settlement Begins
The age of settlement in Iceland is considered to have begun with Ingólfur's settlement, for he was the first to sail to Iceland with the express purpose of settling the land. He was followed by many others—within about sixty years, all the usable land had been taken. Landnámabók manuscripts mention 1,500 farm and place names as well as more than 3,500 people. The material is arranged in a geographical fashion and seems to give a relatively complete picture of how the country was settled. It is difficult to estimate with any great precision the number of the migrants to the country during the Age of Settlement, but scholars estimate that it was between 15,000 and 20,000 people.
Controversial results of recent carbon dating work, published in the journal Skírnir, suggest that the country may have been settled as early as the second half of the 7th century.
Read more about this topic: Settlement Of Iceland
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