Proto-World Systems, Long Term Sustainability, and Early Resource Colonies: Examples from the North Atlantic

Summary

Centuries before the rise and spread of the early modern world system after 1500 CE, Europeans colonized the islands of the North Atlantic and established a presence in the Western Hemisphere. Both Iceland and Greenland were initially settled by walrus hunters supplying prestige goods to a Scandinavian homeland experiencing rapid social and economic change. While Iceland developed into a substantial farming society of some 50,000 and eventually developed an active export trade in dried fish and woolens, Greenland stayed small (probably less than 3,000) and retained many of the characteristics of later post-medieval arctic resource extraction communities. Both Icelandic bulk goods production and Greenlandic prestige goods production have been shown to have profound impact on the organization of local subsistence economy and resilience in the face of climate change. These long distance market connections pre-figure later post medieval arctic resource exploitation patterns and associated local social impacts in the north and may illustrate the benefits of comparative approaches that cross the medieval/ post-medieval divide.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014   •
• Questions that Will Count in the Future: Global Perspectives on Historical Archaeology

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-7,02