There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating the impacts of human arrival in new “pristine” environments, including terrestrial habitat alterations and species extinctions. However, the effects of marine resource utilization prior to industrialized whaling, sealing, and fishing have largely remained understudied. The expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic offers a rare opportunity to study the effects of human arrival and early exploitation of marine resources. Today, there is no local population of walruses on Iceland, however, skeletal remains, place names, and written sources suggest that walruses existed, and were hunted by the Norse during the Settlement and Commonwealth periods (870–1262 AD). This study investigates the timing, geographic distribution, and genetic identity of walruses in Iceland by combining historical information, place names, radiocarbon dating, and genomic analyses. The results support a genetically distinct, local population of walruses that went extinct shortly after Norse settlement. The high value of walrus products such as ivory on international markets likely led to intense hunting pressure, which—potentially exacerbated by a warming climate and volcanism—resulted in the extinction of walrus on Iceland. We show that commercial hunting, economic incentives, and trade networks as early as the Viking Age were of sufficient scale and intensity to result in significant, irreversible ecological impacts on the marine environment. This is to one of the earliest examples of local extinction of a marine species following human arrival, during the very beginning of commercial marine exploitation.

Two interwoven topics are dealt with, firstly a new interpretation of the Icelandic Sagas and historical written sources on the Viking age voyages to North America, leading to a theory on the location of Vínland, and secondly an archaeological survey of deer hunting pitfalls in Newfoundland, which were possibly dug by the Nordic voyagers a millenium ago. According the theory of the article, Vínland is the modern day Newfoundland, and the Straumfjord of the sagas, where Thorfi nn Karlsefni and Gudríd Thorbjarnardóttir attempted settlement could be Sop’s Arm in White Bay on the North coast of Newfoundland. The system of pitfalls that was surveyed and excavated is close to Sop’s Arm. The pitfalls form an 82 metre long system that lies in an almost straight line. Individual pits are now 1.5–2.3 metres deep and 7–10 metres long. Two pitfalls were excavated by taking a section into them. Attempted radiocarbon dating of soil from two pitfalls was inconclusive. Considerable soil thickening of 55–110 centimetres since the pitfall construction was observed.

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Two interwoven topics are dealt with, firstly a new interpretation of the Icelandic Sagas and historical written sources on the Viking age voyages to North America, leading to a theory on the location of Vínland, and secondly an archaeological survey of deer hunting pitfalls in Newfoundland, which were possibly dug by the Nordic voyagers a millenium ago. According the theory of the article, Vínland is the modern day Newfoundland, and the Straumfjord of the sagas, where Thorfinn Karlsefni and Gudríd Thorbjarnardóttir attempted settlement could be Sop’s Arm in White Bay on the North coast of Newfoundland. The system of pitfalls that was surveyed and excavated is close to Sop’s Arm. The pitfalls form an 82 metre long system that lies in an almost straight line. Individual pits are now 1.5–2.3 metres deep and 7–10 metres long. Two pitfalls were excavated by taking a section into them. Attempted radiocarbon dating of soil from two pitfalls was inconclusive. Considerable soil thickening of 55–110 centimetres since the pitfall construction was observed.