Icelandic Agricultural Heritage and Environmental Adaptation: Osteometrical and Genetic Markers of Livestock Improvement

Summary

In the early settlement of Iceland, Scandinavian pioneers brought their social knowledge alongside herds of livestock to the untamed island and in turn initiated a millennium-long tradition of livestock husbandry and survivorship in a harsh and unpredictable environment. Decades of integrated historical ecological research across Iceland allows for an exploration of the complex human ecodynamics of this marginal European outpost in the North Atlantic. Comparative osteometrical data from multiple sites from Iceland’s settlement to the modern period suggest that Icelandic livestock were subjected to breeding improvements during the late medieval period – before the conventional initiation of these practices during the Second Agricultural Revolution on continental Europe. These osteometrical data have the potential to be coupled with ancient genetic material retrieved from faunal remains to begin untangling the social, environmental, and ecological processes that shaped agricultural heritage and resource management practices through time. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Environmental Archaeology and Historical Ecology: Present and Future Directions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 456