Comb-Making in Medieval Novgorod (950-1450): An industry in transition

Смирнова, Л. И.

doi:10.30861/9781841718118

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…biogeographical means: through the identification of antler products to species level. A number of authors (Lie, 1993;Stephan, 1994;Ballin Smith, 1995;Weber, 1995;Smirnova, 2002;Ashby, 2009Ashby, , 2013b have attempted to differentiate 'local' species from imported material using macroscopic zoological methods, but these approaches have had limited success for highly worked or fragmentary material (Ulbricht, 1978: 20-21;Ambrosiani, 1981: 104-09;Ilkjaer & von Carnap-Bornheim, 1993: 319;Rau, 2010: 422). Bioarchaeology offers the potential to provide species identifications at the molecular level.…”

Section: Combmakers As Urban Craftspeoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Networks and Arctic Outlands: Craft Specialists and Reindeer Antler in Viking Towns

2015

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This paper presents the results of the use of a minimally destructive biomolecular technique to explore the resource networks behind one of the first specialized urban crafts in early mediaeval northern Europe: the manufacture of composite combs of deer antler. The research incorporates the largest application of species identification by peptide mass fingerprinting (ZooMS) to a mediaeval artefact assemblage: specifically to collections of antler combs, comb manufacturing waste, and raw antler from Ribe, Aarhus, and Aggersborg. It documents the early use of reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) antler, from the 780s AD at the latest, presenting the earliest unambiguous evidence for exchange-links between urban markets in the southern North Sea region and the Scandinavian Peninsula. The results demonstrate that the common conceptual distinction between urban hinterlands and long-distance trade conceals a vital continuity. Long-range networks were vital to urban activities from the first appearance of towns in this part of the world, preceding the historically documented maritime expansion of the Viking Age. We consequently suggest that urbanism is more appropriately defined and researched in terms of network dynamics than as a function of circumscribed catchment areas or hinterlands.

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Section: Combmakers As Urban Craftspeoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Networks and Arctic Outlands: Craft Specialists and Reindeer Antler in Viking Towns

2015

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“…This eastern source was documented as early as the late ninth century CE, when the Arctic Norwegian chieftain Ohthere visited the court of King Alfred of Wessex in England [ 22 , 23 ]. The continued importance of this source is implied by the great abundance of walrus ivory known from medieval Novgorod—an important trading town with an extensive network into Arctic Fennoscandia and Russia [ 24 , 25 ]—and by the hunting of the Arctic European walrus in the Svalbard Archipelago between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries [ 26 ]. Finally, walruses were also initially hunted in Iceland during its colonization in the late ninth and tenth centuries [ 7 , 9 , 27 ], but by the twelfth–thirteenth centuries, when the island's earliest laws and narrative texts were first recorded, Icelandic walruses were reduced to isolated visitors only [ 9 , 28 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ancient DNA reveals the chronology of walrus ivory trade from Norse Greenland

et al. 2018

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The importance of the Atlantic walrus ivory trade for the colonization, peak, and collapse of the medieval Norse colonies on Greenland has been extensively debated. Nevertheless, no studies have directly traced medieval European ivory back to distinct Arctic populations of walrus. Analysing the entire mitogenomes of 37 archaeological specimens from Europe, Svalbard, and Greenland, we here discover that Atlantic walrus comprises two monophyletic mitochondrial (MT) clades, which diverged between 23 400 and 251 120 years ago. Our improved genomic resolution allows us to reinterpret the geographical distribution of partial MT data from 306 modern and nineteenth-century specimens, finding that one of these clades was exclusively accessible to Greenlanders. With this discovery, we ascertain the biological origin of 23 archaeological specimens from Europe (most dated between 900 and 1400 CE). These results reveal a significant shift in trade from an early, predominantly eastern source towards a near exclusive representation of Greenland ivory. Our study provides empirical evidence for how this remote Arctic resource was progressively integrated into a medieval pan-European trade network, contributing to both the resilience and vulnerability of Norse Greenland society.

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“…Centres in Eastern Europe also provide evidence of mediaeval walrus trade. Novgorod, Russia, has produced one of the largest collections of carved mediaeval walrus ivory in Europe [ 9 , 10 ] and excavations in Kyiv, Ukraine, revealed nine walrus rostra—more than most northern European centres; only Bergen and Schleswig, with 15 examples each, have more [ 3 , 11 , 12 ]. Moreover, mediaeval Arabic written sources regarding trade in Central and Western Asia refer to ‘fish teeth' interpreted as walrus tusks acquired in or via what are now Ukraine and Russia, valued for making knife handles and sword hilts [ 13 – 15 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Walruses on the Dnieper: new evidence for the intercontinental trade of Greenlandic ivory in the Middle Ages

et al. 2022

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Mediaeval walrus hunting in Iceland and Greenland—driven by Western European demand for ivory and walrus hide ropes—has been identified as an important pre-modern example of ecological globalization. By contrast, the main origin of walrus ivory destined for eastern European markets, and then onward trade to Asia, is assumed to have been Arctic Russia. Here, we investigate the geographical origin of nine twelfth-century CE walrus specimens discovered in Kyiv, Ukraine—combining archaeological typology (based on chaîne opératoire assessment), ancient DNA (aDNA) and stable isotope analysis. We show that five of seven specimens tested using aDNA can be genetically assigned to a western Greenland origin. Moreover, six of the Kyiv rostra had been sculpted in a way typical of Greenlandic imports to Western Europe, and seven are tentatively consistent with a Greenland origin based on stable isotope analysis. Our results suggest that demand for the products of Norse Greenland's walrus hunt stretched not only to Western Europe but included Ukraine and, by implication given linked trade routes, also Russia, Byzantium and Asia. These observations illuminate the surprising scale of mediaeval ecological globalization and help explain the pressure this process exerted on distant wildlife populations and those who harvested them.

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Comb-Making in Medieval Novgorod (950-1450): An industry in transition

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Urban Networks and Arctic Outlands: Craft Specialists and Reindeer Antler in Viking Towns

Urban Networks and Arctic Outlands: Craft Specialists and Reindeer Antler in Viking Towns

Ancient DNA reveals the chronology of walrus ivory trade from Norse Greenland

Walruses on the Dnieper: new evidence for the intercontinental trade of Greenlandic ivory in the Middle Ages

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