Climate Change and Resource Management in Eastern Settlement Norse Greenland: Zooarchaeological Perspective

Summary

Changes in climate regimes have played a significant role in the cultural settlement patterns of Greenland for several millennia. This presentation focuses on the Norse Settlement ca. 985-1450 CE and how the terrestrial and marine (wild and domestic) animal resources were utilized, managed and modified in the face of climatic and environmental changes at all levels of the Norse social strata. Datasets from small tenant farms and shielings such as E74 Qorlortorsuaq and E168 , middle size independent farms like E172 Tatsipataa and E171 Tasilkulooq, and magnate farms like E29N Brattahlid and the Bishop’s See at E47 Gardar (Greenlandic center of power), are utilized to understand the site specific, local, and regional management strategies and the level of their long-term sustainability. The Eastern Settlement strategies are compared with parallel data from the Western Settlement; small site W48 Niaqussat, middle size farm GUS (Farm Beneath the Sand) and a high status chieftain manor at W51 Sandnes. Their comparison aids in understanding the collapse of the whole Norse colony, a century after the abandonment of one of its two core components, the Western Settlement.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Resilience, Sustainability and Collapse in the North Atlantic

Keywords

Spatial Coverage