Landscapes of Settlement in Northern Iceland: Historical Ecology of Human Impact and Climate Fluctuation on the Millennial Scale

Abstract

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Gásir in Eyjafjörđur: International Exchange and Local Economy in Medieval Iceland

“…As expected, the marine shellfi sh and the seal bone show much higher delta C13 values (values above -15 to -16% indicate marine food-web participation) than those of the cows (terrestrial food web), and these samples generate radiocarbon dates far too old for the medieval site. The very low N15 values of two of the cattle bone samples (SUERC 8634,8635) are similar to the values produced from nearby Mývatn area sites with highland low-arctic pastures, while the higher N15 value (SUERC 8629) suggests habitual grazing on richer lowland vegetation (see Cook, in McGovern et al 2007). While more isotopic assays are now underway, these diverse delta N15 values from apparently contemporary cattle bone samples already may suggest that Gásir drew upon a wide catchment area for the cattle that provisioned its market.…”

Cultural adaptation, compounding vulnerabilities and conjunctures in Norse Greenland

“…Production from imported domestic animals was supplemented by extensive hunting of seals and small whales, marine and freshwater fishing, wild fowling, egg collection, and in Greenland, caribou hunting (15)(16)(17). Large archaeofauna (animal bone collections) and a growing number of stable isotope measurements on Viking age and medieval human skeletons (15,18,19) show that these wild species (especially marine fish) provided storable buffers against terrestrial pasture productivity fluctuations and stock loss, and they constituted a regular part of the normal diet across the North Atlantic.…”

“…The Atlantic island communities also diverged in terms of farming strategy. In Iceland after A.D. 1200, goats became rare, and sheep increased dramatically compared with cattle and other stock, possibly reflecting the intensification of wool production to produce an exchange commodity (16). In most Greenland archaeofauna, goats remain as common as sheep, suggesting a continued emphasis on food, especially dairy production, rather than surplus wool production (21).…”

“…In Iceland, multiple coastal and inland archaeofauna and a growing number of isotopic assays on human skeletons from both inland and coastal churchyards show that island-wide exchange of dried marine fish (mainly cod family) and substantial consumption of marine food by inland residents took place from first settlement (15,16,31,32). Despite this early, large-scale use of marine fish in Iceland, the rarity of marine fish bones in any phase of Norse occupation-even recently excavated archaeofauna that have been carefully sieved for small bones-indicates that early settlers in Greenland decisively switched from cod to seal (32,33).…”

Soils and palaeo-climate based evidence for irrigation requirements in Norse Greenland

“…The influence of climate on food production is an obvious and major factor in the sustainability of early-Norse settlements emphasised by contemporary measurement of plant productivity suggesting year-to-year fluctuations of up to 20% in biomass production for this region [28]. In common with Norse settlement sites in the Faroe Islands and in Iceland [1,4,45] and given the fluctuations seen in present-day agricultural yield, it is clear that an understanding of the management of early agricultural activity is crucial to developing an insight to the long-term sustainability of the Norse settlement in Greenland.…”