Historians also suggest that the Scandinavian population was too large for the peninsula and there were not enough crops to feed everyone. This led to a hunt for more land to feed the ever-growing Viking population. Internal conflicts, especially during the period of conquest and settlement that followed the early raids, caused the progressive centralisation of power into fewer hands. This meant that lower classes who did not want to be oppressed by greedy kings went in search of their own lands. Those who settled Iceland created Europe's first modern republic with a yearly assembly of elected officials called the "Althing".