Colonization Models of Iceland: new Archaeological and Environmental Data

Summary

This study aims to improve the dating resolution of archaeological and environmental data from the earliest sites of human occupation in Iceland in order to understand better the timing, scale and rate of the colonization of Iceland. This can be achieved through critical examination of the whole corpus of approximately 650 sites which is now accessible; through cross-referencing of different dating methods – primarily tephrochronology, radiocarbon dating and typology – and through application of new statistical methods of analysis, such as Bayesian statistics which in turn allow testing of specific colonization models. A key motivation for this research is the idea that Iceland is located in the deep ocean, where in the ninth century neither indigenous people nor land-mammals lived, and agriculture had not yet been practiced making this volcanic island the most extreme case study to test colonization models.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage