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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Expensive Errors Or Rational Choices: The Pioneer Fringe In Late Viking Age Iceland, Orri Vesteinsson, Mike Church, Andrew Dugmore, Thomas Mcgovern, Anthony Newton
Expensive Errors Or Rational Choices: The Pioneer Fringe In Late Viking Age Iceland, Orri Vesteinsson, Mike Church, Andrew Dugmore, Thomas Mcgovern, Anthony Newton
Publications and Research
Just as the colonies established on the North Atlantic islands in the Viking Age were peripheral to Europe, so these islands had their own peripheral areas. In Iceland the highland margins have long been a focus of archaeological research and the prevailing view has been that highland settlement failed because people had made unrealistic assessments of carrying capacity. This paper presents a case study of the northern highland valley of Krókdalur and argues that the dating and pattern of settlement in that valley indicates that its settlers were keenly aware of its limitations. It also suggests explanatory frameworks that can …
Sorting Sheep And Goats In Medieval Iceland And Greenland Local Subsistence, Climate Change, Or World System Impacts?, Thomas Mcgovern, Ramona Harrison, Konrad Smiarowski
Sorting Sheep And Goats In Medieval Iceland And Greenland Local Subsistence, Climate Change, Or World System Impacts?, Thomas Mcgovern, Ramona Harrison, Konrad Smiarowski
Publications and Research
Large archaeofaunal collections recovered from Viking Age and Medieval sites in Iceland and Greenland during intensive collaborative fieldwork over the past decade have demonstrated a diverging pattern in sheep and goat (caprine) management after ca. 1200 CE in the two Norse communities. Since Landnám (first settlement), flocks in both places contained a mixture of sheep and goats and survivorship profiles suggest a very mixed milk-meat-wool production strategy. By the late 13th century Icelandic herds were nearly all sheep, and zooarchaeological evidence suggests an increasing focus on wool production. Greenlandic archaeofauna indicate that farmers maintained the old Viking Age pattern …