Norse Greenland Farms and The Loss of Organic Preservation: No More Wood, Textiles, or Bones

Summary

This presentation is an attempt to illustrate the scale of climate induced loss of organic preservation at Norse/Viking farmsteads in the Eastern Settlement of Southwest Greenland. For over a century now Norse Greenland has been associated with well preserved sites, where wooden artifacts, bones and even textiles have been recovered. Archaeological investigations at sites that previously reported excellent preservation conditions suggest that recent climatic changes have had a wide and severe effect on sites in the whole region. Observations recorded during systematic coring surveys, large and small scale excavations, and keyhole archaeology in the last decade at ca. 90 Norse sites in The Eastern Settlement are confirmed by recent hard science investigations into the causes and processes of rapid midden decomposition in Western Greenland.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Burning Libraries: Environmental Impacts on Heritage and Science   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16621