Landscapes of Settlement: Historical Ecology in Northern Iceland

Cuny Hunter College, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Thomas McGovern and his colleagues will conduct three seasons of archaeological investigation at the site of Hofstadir, a medieval settlement in Iceland. First excavated in 1908, researchers uncovered a large hall structure with a central long fireplace and side benches and postulated it functioned as a temple. More recent work which has further uncovered the building and located a series of surrounding house sites indicates that the complex has a complicated occupational history and likely was primarily a full scale high status farmstead. Dr. McGovern will direct additional research at this site to understand how its function changed over time and how its occupants derived their sustenance from and in turn influenced the environment. They will conduct extensive horizontal excavation and combine this with extensive survey and test-pitting of satellite sites and fields within the farm. They will also sample sites and features in the broader region. Iceland was first settled by humans from Scandinavia and the British Isles during the Viking age and extensive contemporary literature describes the latter stages of this occupation. This documentary record (sagas, law codes, annals) provides rich evidence for a socially complex non-state society. These writings have been employed by historians and anthropologists for studies of Iceland and the development of general theories of chieftainship. However, although the early settlement period is described in sagas and other later accounts, all these documents date to after AD 1100 and are clearly secondary sources much influenced by medieval rather than Viking period social and economic contexts. The first 225 years are, in effect, prehistoric and thus can be understood only through systematic archaeological and paleoecological investigation. Dr. McGovern's research will help to accomplish this goal. The work will shed important new light on human environment interactions and the effect of human behavior on island ecosystems. Human impact on local animals, vegetation, soils and drainage patterns was rapid and profound. By 950 AD ca 80% of the native scrub woodlands had been cleared and soil erosion had begun in the higher elevations. By the later Middle Ages, accelerated loss of groundcover led to more widespread erosion of ca 40% of the topsoil present before human settlement and massive alteration of river drainage patterns. Iceland thus represents an extreme case of pre-industrial human impact on the environment and provides an excellent laboratory to understand such interactions.