Hopland

The farmhouses at holding No. 15 at Hopland are built together to form a long, continuous building, with dwelling house, hayshed and cowshed built in one row. There have been many such joined structures in the coastal communities, but today there are few remaining. If we travel to the other side of the North Sea, to the Faeroes, Shetland and the Orkney Islands, we find corresponding features in the older building traditions. We find ourselves in a large North Atlantic cultural area.

The residential house, built in 1851, is a loft house with kitchen and a stone-built store at the south-western gable, to protect against the battering rain and the hard winter storms. The timber-built cowshed is inside the hayshed, and on the east side there is a longitudinal covered passageway between the row of supporting staves and the outer walls. It is interesting to be able to recognise the relationship in building styles on the farms in the treeless coastal landscape on both sides of the North Sea. The use of stone is obviously even more common in Shetland and on the Norwegian coast, but we find the same thrifty ways of using resources both in the coastal communities in West Norway and in the western isles.

På garden Hopland vart for eit par mannsaldrar sidan funne 26 flintskiver – flatvorne, skarpkanta flintstykke. Dei låg tett saman i jorda, om lag som dei skulle ha lege i ein pose eller vore innpakka i noko som no var vitra og borte.

Fleire liknande funn er kjende, både frå Vestlandet og landet elles. Flintskivene er mest alltid av god kvalitet og er tydeleg utvalde med særleg omhug. Dei er emnestykke, halvfabrikata – ikkje ferdige reiskapar – og er lagde ned samla, gjerne i myr eller våtlend mark. Det er nærliggjande å tru at dei var tiltenkte ein guddom eller eit vette som offer.

Slike flintoffer var særleg vanlege mot slutten av yngre steinalder. Funnet frå Hopland kan daterast til mellom 2400 og 1800 år f.Kr.