Governance and Globalization in the North Atlantic

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Governance and Globalization in the North Atlantic," at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The colonization of the North Atlantic and the immediate, persistent engagement in interrregional trade represents the earliest known transatlantic commercial and political projects. Since their settlement, these islands and archipelagoes (Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Shetland Islands, Orkney Islands) have undergone social and political transitions in which distinct forms of interregional economies, governance, and cultures congeal. We might contend that North Atlantic societies moved through several thresholds of globalization that manifested materially in conjunction with highly specific social institutions. This session seeks to move conversations and debates beyond the presentation of evidence for long-distance exchange, which is robust for this region, and instead use material evidence as a springboard for understanding how interregional economies in the North Atlantic were structured and mediated via specifically governed and institutionalized relationships.