Effects of Past and Present Climate Change: Viking Age and Norse Sites in Greenland

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Climate and Heritage in the North Atlantic: Burning Libraries" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This presentation is one of the products of a series of ongoing interconnected, international, interdisciplinary fieldwork projects coordinated by the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) research cooperative since 2005 in Greenland. The projects drew on more than a century of prior field research, where four generations of archaeologists described and assessed organic preservation conditions at their sites in several regions of the Norse Eastern Settlement. This created a unique form of “archaeological TEK” (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) that represents an invaluable guide into the changing preservation conditions since late nineteenth century. Between 2005 and 2022 we conducted extensive coring surveys of over 120 Norse middens, and open area and small test excavations at over 15 sites. The results show an almost complete loss of once outstanding organic preservation in a region where only 60 years ago wood, bones, leather, wool, and feathers were recovered. Our findings draw attention to the destructive process of modern climate change that has been affecting organic preservation, and to the need to organize a circumpolar-wide, international response strategy to rescue the endangered sites and their unique cultural heritage before it largely disappears.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Climate and Heritage in the North Atlantic: Burning Libraries   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36029.0