^nnu Rei- Anihropoi I'J9O ' 9 . ' i / - ^ 'C'>p\nehi ^ l'}9'') b\ Anruat Revie»i Irt. •\'l

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THENORSE NORTH ATLANTIC

Thomas H Mi Govern

Departtnetit of Anthropology. Hunter College & Graduate Center. City Utiiversity of

New York New York. NY 10021

KEY WORDS archaeologv medieval Nonh Atlantic, vikings, paleoeconomv bibhographv

THE NORSE NORTH ATLANTIC

Just over a thousand years ago. Scandinavian settlers colonized the islands ofthe North Atlantic, spreading an initially homogeneous population and settle-ment/subsistence system from Norway into the westem hemisphere (107)Between approximately 800 and 1000 AD the Norse settled Shetland, theOrkneys, the Faroes, parts of northem Scotland. Iceland, and portions ofWest Greenland (Figure 1) They also penetrated eastem arctic Canada andbnefly established a foothold in temperate North Amenca (126)

The Viking age also saw major Scandinavian militar>' and commercialimpact throughout Northem. Central, and Eastem Europe that extended intothe Eastem Mediterranean and Central Asia Norse settlements in northemEngland, the isle ot Man. Ireland, and Normandy paralleled the NorthAtlantic colonization and may have competed successfully for potential set-tlers in the letter phases of the Viking Age (106) How^ever. these processesare beyond the scope ot the present review which is restncted to the NorthAtlantic axis of expansion

By the end of the 10th century, a population shanng a common culture andspeaking a common language stretched from Bergen s quayside to the Gulf ofSt Lawrence Employing new shipbuilding skills and open-water navigationcapabilities (135). pushed by competition among complex chieftainships andetnergent secondar>' states (166). and tueled by growing wealth and popula-tion at home, this rapid expansion appeared destined to complete the cir-

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NORSE NORTH ATLANTIC 333

cumpolar circuit and link the Old Worid with the New in the early MiddleAges However, this early medieval connection to the Westem Hemisphereremained unexploited Vinland failed shortly after AD 1000. Norse Greenlanddwindled to extinction about 450 years later, and Iceland slipped from aScandinavian cultural and literar\' center to an lmpovenshed marginalbackwater hy 1500 While the islatids of the eastem North Atlantic fared farbetter in the later Middle Ages and early modem penods, their integration mtothe early European world-system camed a heavy pnce in hazardous offshorefishing and ruthless mercantile exploitation (66. 69. 194)

Why were early North American discovenes not followed up hy permanentEuropean colonies as in the 16th century^ What caused the decline or collapseof the other westem hemisphere colonies m Iceland and Greenland^ For thepast 15 years, research teams employing modem archaeological andpaleoecological techniques have begun to address these complex questions,repeatedly documenting what appears to be a marked shift in adaptive strat-egy Early colonists seem to have heen remarkably flexible and resilient,swiftly altenng a generalized herding fishing/hunting economy to fit localresources and environmental constraints Within a hundred years of settle-ment, political stratification and centrahzation appear to correlate with in-creasingly conser\^ative stabilized" economic strategies These strategiessometimes failed to respond effectively to changing climate (onset of theLittle Ice Ageof ca 1250-1880). unintended degradation of groundcover andgrazing, and culture contact Especially in the Westem North Atlantic, lostadaptive resilience, declining prosperity and population, and local extinctionwere the result, dooming a possible North Atlantic route to New W oridcolonization and condemning the sur\i\ing Norse colonies to an exploitedmarginalization

Broad similanties with some Polynesian cultural trajectones and models ofisland biogeographers (126) suggest the wider evolutionar\^ significance of theNorse North Atlantic cases These diverse island laboratones" with differingdistances from mainland markets (and from emerging state systems) anddiffenng environmental vulnerability to changing climate and overgrazingprovide excellent opportunities for both selectionist and adaptationist analy-ses

RESEARCH HISTORY

The North Atlantic islands were tirst subjects of systematic archaelogicalresearch in the last quarter of the 19th century, during a period when theFaroes. Iceland, and Greenland were part of Denmark's colonial holdingsThe work of the Danish Captain Daniel Bruun in the 1890s-1920s spannedvirtually the entne region but concentrated tn Iceland and Greenland Bruun

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brought professional archaeology of a ver>' high standard to the region,pioneenng settlement-pattem analyses and beginning a tradition of systematiccollection of unmodified animai bones and plant remains from excavatedsites

The tate 1920s and 1930s saw expansion of both single-sjte excavations andmore ambitious large-scale projects, especially in Greenland and Iceland Ledby Poul Norlund. Martin Stenberger, and Aage Roussell, these projects endedat the beginning of World War Two (W^'II) in the spectacular intemationalinvestigation in Iceland of the Thjorsa valley sites covered by the volcanoHekla ca 1104'1158 AD (174, see also recent re-analyses hy Vilhjalmsson189, 190) The reports of this penod are somewhat short on stratigraphicanalysis or systematic typology of common finds, but they do show a con-sistent lnter-island comparative onentation, drawing ethnographic analogiesto recent North Atiantic communities throughout the region Roussell's mostcontroversial work (162) explicitly attempted to use standing traditionalstructures m the Bntish Isles to explain archaeological finds in Greenland andIceland

The post-WWU penod saw a certain ebbing of the comparative, lnter-island approaches followed by Bruun and Roussell, and research tended tobecome more site focused and to avoid regional syntheses Dunng the late1940s and 1950s, medieval archaeology emerged as an independent field inmany European museums and universities This development had the salutaryeffect of rescuing medieval layers from discard as uninteresting overburden"and continues to contnbute to vital work on artifact typology and distnbution,the large-scale urban excavations of the 1970s represent landmarks in thetheor\' as well as the method of complex site investigation (91)

However, much (though not all) Viking-period archaeology tended tobecome isolated from developments in other areas and penods The introduc-tion of analytic methods and theoretical models borrowed from ecology,geography, and anthropology that so transformed prehistonc archaeology inEurope in the 1960s and 1970s only gradually penetrated medieval and VikingAge research A strong art-histoncal bias is evident in the spate of lavishlyillustrated Viking books pubhshed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, whereelite grave finds appear to dominate the record and where the same exquisiteItems of animal-art metalwork (often excavated in the 1930s) appear in nearlyever> volume Common artifacts, settlement pattems. paleoecological andpaleoeconomic data are scarcely mentioned, and the sparse and often con-tradictory documentary record is uniformly allowed to substitute for attemptsat independent archaeological descnption and explanation The limitations ofwhat has been somewhat unkindly called the 'broocbes, beasts, and barrows"approach have been apparent to both archaeological cntics (101, 111) andViking Age histonans (108). leading to Sawyer's now famous remark that

NORSE NORTH ATLAN'HC 335

medieval archaeology is an expensive way of finding out what we alreadyknow •'

Fortunately, this theoretical impasse has not long remained Klavs Rands-borg's 1980 book on Viking Denmark (159) represented a theoretical break-through, introducing models and concepts of locational geography and eco-nomic analysis employed by prehistonans and skillfully applying them to atopic of ongoing anthropological interest—secondar}^ state formation InRandsborg's w^ork. the documentar\' record became supplementary to the nch(and now fully exploited) Danish archaeological record Richard Hodges'svvork in Vikmg and pre-Viking long-distance trade and the formation ofproto-urban empona has further widened the methodological and theoreticalbreakthrough, firmly establishing that medieval archaeology need not berestncte^l to footnoting documentar\' history or providing attractive illustrativeplates (92) As in other regions, this realignment of objectives and ex-pectations has not gone uncnticized i93. 158). but it seems clear that Vikingpenod-medieval archaeology has undergone an nrevocable transformation (cf30. 60)

These developments in the Norse archaeological heartland have been paral-leled in the North Atlantic penpher\'. and the past 15 years have seen dramaticexpansion of archaeological activity in ever\ island group Renewed intensivefieldwork has been associated with theoretical and methodological innova-tion Beginning in Iceland in the late 1950s, the pioneenng interdisciplinarywork of Sigurdur Thorannsson and his associates (182) demonstrated thepotential of a fully ecological perspective and integrated geological andbiological data with histoncal and archaeological land-use evidence Re-newed mterest m traditional lifeways has produced a rich literature withconsiderable ethnoarchaeological potential (74. 113). and ethnologists arenow beginning to make a significant contnbution to archaeological debates(6. 67, 68. 88, 97) Climate impact investigations are also expanding in theregion, as geophysical and documentarv sources begin to be more fullyintegrated and early climatic determinism (cntiqued in 82) gives way to moresophisticated analyses (22. 23. 64. 146-148) Several archaeological projectsbegun in the 1970s utilizing modem sur\-e> and excavation techniques andexplicitly adopting economic and ecological approaches (and the m-terdisciphnar\^ cooperation that these require) are now yielding nch harvestsot new data There is again considerable interest in lnter-island and inter-regional companson as these new data sets are gradually integrated, and thecoming decade promises to be an exciting and productive penod in thearchaeology of the Norse North Atlantic

A recent series of edited volumes may provide an over\'iew of much of thisnew research (35. 51, 75, 151). and many reports and short notices are to betound in \'ordtc Archaeological Ahsfacts AcTa Borealia (Tromsct), Acta

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Archaeologica. Norwegian Archaeological Review, Northern Studies (Edin-burgh). Medieval Archaeology, Arbok hins Islenzka Fornleifafelags, Hikuin(Aarhus). and the penodic Viking Congress volumes While I have attemptedhere to cite English-language sources wherever possible, many importantsources (some with English summanes) are in Scandinavian languages

CURRENT RESEARCH

Arctic NorwayMuch recent research m Viking Age-Medieval arctic Norway has cetitered onthe prohlem of the tell-like 'farm mounds"' These massive accumulationsrepresent up to 2000 years of continuous occupation and often contam amixture of midden matenal and structural remains Most modem work onthese rich deposits has been camed out by teams from the University ofTroms0 led by Reidar Bertelsen and Inger-Mane Holm-Olsen (25-29. 94).who have combined meticulous stratigrapbic excavation with innovative sta-tistical analyses The deposits document a mixed herding-fishing economywith a strong mantime orientation and appear to reflect a northward expansionof Norse populations roughly contemporary with the migrations to the westThe mteraction of Norse and local Sami populations is also a major researchinterest to north Norwegian scholars, and this culture-contact situation isbecoming increasingly well documented (28)

ShetlandSystematic Norse archaeology in the Shetland Islands began with the ex-cavations of Curie and Hamilton at the multi-component site of Jarlshof inDunrossness on the southemmost tip of the archipelago In Norse times, thissite grew to become a large estate, and the excavations produced an ex-emplary site monograph by Hamilton (84)

Excavations by Small at the site of UnderhouU on Unst (169) documented asenes of stmctures first thought to be Viking Age but subsequently dated tolater medieval pbases Ongoing excavations at Da Biggins site on the smallisland of Papa Stour by Barbara Crawford (55) have uncovered traces of latermedieval structures that are probably associated with an elite residence knownfrom documentar}' sources In 1977-1980, Gerald Bigelow camed out amultidisciplinar>^ investigation of sites around Sandwick hay on Unst Histeam documented a two-phase i2th-14th-century small farm whose depositsyielded large collections of artifacts and an enormous archaeofauna (31-34)Simon Buttler has camed out a thorough study of Norse steatite (soapstone)production in Shetland, documenting several types of quarrying activity (45,46)

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Building on Hamilton's typologies and integrating the results of the Sand-wick excavations. Bigelow descnbed a widespread transition in artifact type,house form, and subsistence economy between Viking Age and Late Norsephases that apparently occurred around ^D 1100 (34) Bigelow links theseshifts to an increase in dair\'ing (w hich may reflect new- taxation pattems). anintensification of fishing, and greater importation of durahle goods fromNorway Transition to similar Late Norse pattems may also be evident inOrkney and northernmost Scotland Many workers now suspect that this LateNorse socioeconomic transition in the Eastem North Atlantic may mark thedevelopment and spread of large-scale commercial fishenes

Orkney & Northern ScotlandWith Its nch soils and relatively productive cereal agnculture. Orkney issomewhat anomalous in the Norse North Atlantic and formed the center of anEarldom that for a time was one of the most powerful political forces mnorthem Bntain (54. 191) In addition to a number of ehte residential centers,several small Vikmg-penod castles' have been descnbed on the islands (52,53). some of which can be associated with figures mentioned in OrkneyingaSaga (153) As political and economic ties among the Orkneys, the nearbymainland of Caitbness, and the outer Hebndes were probably always strong,modem archaeological research has tended to take a regional perspective (foran excellent overview, see 142)

The nature of the culture contact and transformation that took place dunngthe Norse colonization of Celtic north Scotland has long heen controversialAnna Ritchie used her excavations at Buckquoy in Birsay Bay in Orkney toargue for a relatively peaceful assimilation of Pictish residents to Scandina-vian dwelling styles and language (160. 161). while Ian Crawford citedevidence from his project at the Udal in North Uist m the Hehndes as proof ofviolent conquest and population replacement (56-58) As Moms points out(142 2i6-!7), the actual contact situation was probably extremely complexand locally vanable. so that any attempt to generalize broadly from singlesites IS inevitably somewhat futile The nature of Celtic-Scandinavian contactwill probably remain a major research focus in this area

On Orkney, much research has also focused upon elite centers and theirassociated church-complexes At the Brough of Birsay. the seat of the Earls ofOrkney, a church and residential complex of Viking-Late Norse date clusterson an easily defensible headland now isolated at high tide (59, 95. 96. 140,141) Similarly sited ehte settlements have also been documented at SkaiU(79) and the Brough of Deemess (139). and a rich 9th-centur\' cemetery hasbeen excavated at the Bay of Westness (109)

During the past decade Orkney and Caithness have become major centersof interdisciplinar>^ paleoeconomic and paleoecological research, where lnno-

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vative sampling strategies and intensive bioarchaeological analyses have setnew standards for the region In Orkney, much of this research has clusteredin the Birsay Bay area, partly in response to widespread manne erosion (62,65, 89, 143, 161) Evidence for animal husbandry pattems and use of manneresources is abundant, and some elements of the Late Norse pattem ofintensification of fishing noted in Shetland by Bigelow are clearly present inthe Birsay samples While two monographs have been completed (89. 161),much time-consummg analysis is still under way Fresh results from thehighly productive teams led by Chns Moms should shortly expand ourunderstanding of economic change m the area

In Caithness, comparable research has been camed out in the FreswickLinks area in Freswick Bay by teams led by Colleen Batey (14-17) Thiseroding sand beach landscape has revealed a senes of Late Norse structuresand middens first lnvesagated by Curie (61) and V G Childe (48) Laterresearch has focused upon the nch and rapidly eroding midden deposits,which have a great potential for providing eeonomic and paleoecologicalevidence Systematic sampling and smail-mesh sieving have agam generatedlarge collections that allow for detailed analyses but that require time to bnngto completion and full publication Preliminary results again suggest anintensification of fishing in Late Norse times, probably on a commercial scale(17. 105a)

FaroesThe Faroe Islands have long supported a highly sophisticated local antiquanantradition, which played a significant role histoncally in fostenng nationalconsciousness (156, 194. 195) Place-name analyses have received muchattention in Faroe (IOO), and techniques fn^t developed there have beenapplied in the Shetlands. Orkneys, and northem Scotland (144) in attempts totrace settlement history and land use Systematic Faroese archaeology issomewhat more recent, beginning in the post-WWII penod with the work ofSveni Dahl (63) and continued under the leadership of Ame Thorsteinsson(187) Much recent work has centered on the dating and character of the initialsettlement Pioneenng palynologicai work by Johatmes Johansen (102-104)claimed to have identified evidence of early cereal cultivation by pre-Nor^Celtic monks ca AD 600 This claim has proved controversial (105. 115), andthe status of the Celtic pengnni in Faroe remains ambiguous A recent reviewof Viking Age archaeological evidence by Simun Arge (10. 11) concludesthat there is in fact little hard evidence to support the traditional Norsesettlement date (ca AD 825), with most radiocarbon and artifactual datesclustering several generations later Arge notes that many early sites may havebeen removed by ongoing manne erosion, and that the present archaeologicalrecord probably does not reflect the earliest settlement pattem

Excavations directed by Steffen Suimmann Hansen at the site of Toftanes

NORSh NORTH AT1,ANTIC 339

on Eysturoy have recently revealed a well-preserved Viking-penod farmstead(86. 87) Large amounts of preser\^ed wood and fiber have shed new light onNorse plant use (116). and a preliminar\' analysis of the archaeofauna in-dicates a predominance of sheep, followed by cattle and pigs

Work on a set of probable saeters (sheihngs) at Argisbrekka on Eysturoy byDitlev Mahler clearly documents a senes of largely turf-built structures datingfrom Viking Age to Early Middle Ages (119. 120) The use of these seasonalherding sites seems to have ended by the 12th-l3th centunes, probably as aresult of growing population and a different pattem of upland resource use

IcelandArchaeological research in Iceland began in the late 19th centur>- (38. 73).and popular interest in the physical evidence for the dramatic saga-history ofIceland has probably always been strong As in the Faroes, linguistic andantiquanan scholarship has played a significant role in the movementstowards home rule and eventual independence from Denmark

The most ambitious archaeological project of the pre-independence penodwas the joint Scandinavian Thjorsardalur Project mentioned above (174).which excavated or tested a series of neighboring ahandoned farms in theThjorsa valley in southem Iceland The project hegan the use ot dating byvolcanic tephera layers now extensively employed by Icelandic archaeologists(184-186, but also see cntiques in 70. 188. 190) The onginal conclusions ofthe project have been modified in recent work by Vilhjalmur O Vilhjalms-son. who demonstrated that the abandonment bad been gradual rather thanabrupt and that some occupation persisted to the beginning of the 13th centur\-(189) Since independence. Icelandic archaeologists have been activethroughouttheislandl7l. 72. 80. 81. 117. 118. 149, 150. 157. 176). mainlypublishing their findmgs in the yearbook of the Icelandic National Museum{Arbok hins Islenzka Fornleifafelagsi Some of the strengths of modemIcelandic archaeology are us continued interest in all phases of the island'ssettlement history (not only the Viking Penod) and its strong commitment tomultidisciplinar>' investigations involving geo- and bioarchaeological col-laboration The possibilities for ethnoarchaeological investigation (97). re-gional settlement modeling (170), and histoncal agncultural reconstmction(1) are also beginning to be fully exploited

Recently a debate has developed over the datmg of the fist Norse Settle-ment in Iceland (traditionally cd AD 874) Margret Hermanns-Audardottn-'sexcavations of an early site at Herjolfsdalur on the Westman Islands off thesouth coast produced some radiocarbon dates indicating occupation in the 7thcentur>' (90) Her claim of a pre-Viking Scandinavian colony has drawncnticism from botb archaeologists and natural scientists, and the topic re-mains controversial

The Celtic monks (Icel papar) traditionally beheved to have preceded the

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Norse colonizers have remained as elusive in Iceland as in Faroe Recentreinvestigation of sites on the island of Papey off the southeast coast byGudrun Sveinbjamardottir documented 9th-century Norse settlement butfound no traces of papar (181)

Excavations begun in 1987 (directed by Gudmundur Olafsson) at Bes-sastadir near Reykjavik have proved extremely productive The site is thecurrent presidential residence, it was formerly the Danish Royal Govemor'sestate and before that an elite manor belonging at one time to Snom Sturlas-son. the saga author The site has been partially excavated dunng renovationwork, tuming up nearly 3 m of stratified deposit in some areas (152) Thesite's excellent organic preser\^ation has produced a large archaeofauna (5)and an insect fauna including accidentally imported ants (P Buckland. per-sonal communication) Additional rescue work continues at the site

Videy. an island m modem Reykjavik harbor, was the seat of the DanishLieutenant Govemor and also a medieval elite monastic holding The site hasbeen partially excavated dunng the construction of a conference center,revealing well-preserved early modem and medieval stmctures and excellentorganic preser\ation In addition to a large archaeofauna (5). continuingexcavations by Margret Hallgnmsdottir have produced a set of medievalwax-tablet texts and a large number of wooden artifacts (82a. 83)

Rescue work at the ehte site of Nesstofa near Reykjavik in 1989 (directedby Vilhjalmur O Vilhjalmsson) also revealed structural remains and a deeplystratified midden with excellent organic preservation The potential for com-parative investigation of changing conditions on elite farmsteads in the greaterReykjavik area thus seems considerable

Sur\'ey and paleoecological research camed out since the mid-1970s byteams led by Paul Buckland and Gudrun Sveinbjamardottir have producedextensive mapping and documentation of changing land use and climate in thesouth (42-44. 175, 176). the east (178). and the north (177) The innovativecombination of insect, macrofloral. and geoarchaeological evidence by thisteam has made major contnbutions, in collaboration with many recent proj-ects in Iceland and elsewhere in the North Atlantic (40. 165, 179)

Survey work and small-scale testing of deposits in the inland Hrafenkels-dalur region by Sveinbjom Rafnsson. begun in the 1970s, continues todocument sites Two archaeofauna from the region (4) indicate that sheepherding was dominant in the area since at least 1104

Rescue excavations at Storaborg. a large farm on the south coast, have beenunder way since 1978 (directed by Mjoll Snaesdottir) This deep, moundedsite was abandoned ca 1840, and deposits appear to extend into the earlyMiddle Ages (171. 172) The site has produced a huge archaeofauna (prob-ably over 100.000 identifiable fragments, cf 4) and an extensive insect andmacrofloral assemblage (43. 154) Evidence thus far points to an early

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adoption of large-scale (possibly commercial) tishing (mainly for cod signifi-cantly larger than those taken in the area today) that continued dow n toabandonment

Reykhoh. in Borgarfjordur. the manor of the chieftain and saga-authorSnom Sturlasson. has been under excavation since 1986 (directed by GudrunSveinbjamardottir and Gudmundur Olafsson) Early modern and medievalstructures have been uncovered, and the investigations continue In 1988-1989. Kevin Smith directed excavations at the nearby small site of Hals,providing indications ot non-elite lifeways in the Reykholt region

In 1987-1988. excavation and survey were camed out by Thomas Amorosiand Gudrun Sveinbjamardottir on a number of sites in the east and northeast,the most productive being the deeply stratified midden deposits at the site ofSvalbard in Thistilfjordur These deposits span ca 1050-1850 and produced ahuge archaeofauna as well as substantial artifact collections from closelydatable strata Preliminary' analyses of animal bones show marked Little iceAge impact m this agnculturally marginal zone, with a dramatic increase mseal bones evident in the later deposits (4, 5) Preliminar\' paleoecologicalresearch (196) likewise suggests changing climate and land use in the laterMiddle Ages

In 1989. a farm midden at Midbaer on the island of Flatey m Breidafjord(first identified by Aevar Petursson) was investigated by Amorosi andMcGovem. revealing nearly 3 m of stratified deposit with rich organicpreser\'ation The sample archaeofauna is still under analysis but indicates afar greater reliance on manne species (birds, ^eals. and fish) than previouslyreported for any Norse site The rich marine resources of the Breidafjord areamay have provided significant buffering against climatic fluctuations andprobably contnbuted to the region's continued later medieval prospenty

Sun-'ey and small-stale excavation by Amorosi and Haukur Johanneson inthe climatically marginal northwest peninsula (Strandasysla distnct) in 1988will be followed up by a multidisciplinar> investigation of land use andclimate impact in the region in 1990 (directed by Amorosi and VilhjalmurVilhjalmsson)

Icelandic archaeology is thus in an extremely active phase, with major newcollections under analysis and tieldwork continuing in many parts of the

GreenlandAfter a long hiatus. Greenlandic Norse drchaeoJogy has seen a rapid expan-sion in both fieldwork and laboratorv' analysis since the mid-1970s (forsummaries of earlier research see 39. 99, 145. for cntical review see 101.112) Projects involving both excavation and sur\ ey were camed out between1976 and 1984 in the Westem Settlement (Inuit-Norse Project 1976-1977.

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Lansmuseum survey project 1981, Anavik investigations 1982. Sandnes res-cue project 1984, Kaptsilik Valley survey 1985, see 7, 12, 18, 36.41, 49, 50.77.94, 125, 131. 132, 134. 136, 138, 173) These investigations resulted in amassive expansion in bioarchaeological samples, the first radiocarbon datesfrom Norse Greenland, several deeply stratified midden sequences, extensivepaleoecological collections (pollen, macrofloral, and microfaunal), and asystematic sur\'ey coverage of most of the settlement area

A major project in the Eastem Settlement area (Inter-Scandinavian Project1975-1978, 114) camed out intensive sur\'ey activity m the Brattahhd region,dicovenng a new site class of high-altitude saeters with some similanties tothe newly discovered Faroese sites (2, 3. 110) Fresh settlement-pattemanalyses have addressed prohlems of expansion and contraction of EastemSettlement farm sites (21. 112, 137)

While much recent research awaits full publication, the rich Greenlandicdata sets (uncomplicated by post-medieval settlement) have allowed for muchmore detailed locational and economic analyses than have yet been possiblefor most other portions of the Scandinavian North Atlantic We now know-that the Norse Greenlanders were heavily dependent upon migratory seals andcaribou (some archaeofauna are over 10% seal bone) as well as importeddomestic mammals Their overseas trade was fueled not by large-scale fishingor intensive wool production but by a remarkable long-distance hunt forwalrus ivory and other arctic luxur\' goods (128, 129) The stone churches oflater Norse Greenland are among the largest in the North Atlantic region andwere produced by one of the smallest communities (19. 163, 164) Contactwith incoming Thule Inuit is still little understood (12, 121-123) hut appearsto have been a mix of fnendly and hostile relations culminating in Inuitoccupation of outer-fjord resource spaces critical to long-term Norse subsis-tence The role of climate change and unplanned ecological degradation in theNorse decline has been freshly investigated (64, 77. 78. 133). and a comhina-tion of computer models of Norse economic impact with steadily improvingpaleoecological and paleoclimatic evidence seems a promising research direc-tion

In recent years this fresh basic research has led to a productive shift fromdebates over one or another monocausal explanation for the extinction of theNorse colony to more interesting controversies over the nature and organiza-tion of Norse society in Greenland McGovem (124. 127, 130) and Berglund(19, 20) have argued for a sharply hierarchical later-medieval society man-aged by partly foreign elites and dominated by the episcopal manor at Gardarin the Eastem Settlement Ameborg (12, 13) and Keller (111. 112) havedownplayed the role of the Latin church in Greenland, modeling a much moreautonomous set of complex chiefdomships rather than a penpheralized colonyof a medieval European core All authors agree on the vital role of Norse

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decision-makmg in response to the challenges of Inuit contact, climatechange, and increasmg isolation There seems to have been a decisive shiftaway from simplistic explanations for the settlements' extinction that treathuman adaptive (or a maladaptive) strategies as a dependent vanable

Vinland and North AmericaThe search for the Norse settlements of Viniand mentioned in Eirik the Red'sSaga and the Greenlanders' Saga has spawned a huge literature marred bymany shoddy fakes and many speculative pipedreams apparently denvingfrom the psychological needs of white European immigrants for a politicallyand racially acceptable past divorced from the reality of Native Amencancultural diversity and complexity (see 126, 192) The discovery of a genuineNorse site at L'Anse aux Meadows in northemmost Newfoundland separatelyby J0rgen Meldgaard and Helge Ingstad in the late 1950s abmptly lifted thequestion of Norse settlements in temperate North Amenca from the morass of"cult archaeology "

Seven years of excavation by the Ingstads (98) was followed up hy fouryears of additional intensive worit by a Canadian Parks Service team led byBirgitta Wallace Now backed by 141 radiocarbon dates and an impressivesenes of environmental analyses, the L'Anse aux Meadows site is unquestion-able evidence for a bnef Norse presence in temperate North Amenca In arecent monograph-length paper. Wallace discusses the saga evidence forVinland and systematically compares it to the archaeological evidencefrom L'Anse aux Meadows She finds many discontinuities and argues thatL'Anse aux Meadows is probably not the Leifs' booths" mentioned in thesagas but a gateway staging point for exploration into the Gulf of St Law-rence (193)

In addition to the single settlement site, a number of scattered Norseartifacts have been recovered from several Inuit sites in arctic Canada and oneIndian locality in Maine The Goddard site in Maine produced a Norse penny(the only mmted coinage thus far found west of Iceland) but no other Norsefinds The Maine State Museum team investigating the site concludes that thecoin probably traveled through a long coastal exchange network and need notreflect Norse penetration of the Gulf of Maine (37) The greatest concentra-tion of Norse finds in Inuit contexts outside of Greenland is m northemEUesmere across from the Thuie distnct Excavations by Peter Schledermannand Karen McCullough (167) tumed up a vanety of Norse finds, includingcloth and a few scraps of chain mail armor A recent paper by McGhee (121)reviews the evidence from arctic Canada and concludes that some limitedtrading and possible mutual raidmg between lnuit and Norse were likely This3CK)-year culture-contact situation remains poorly understood and m need offurther research

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Human Biology in the North AtlanticBiological anthropology has had a long research history in the Norse NorthAtlantic and promises additional major contnbutions in the near future Earlywork centered on the problem of Norse extinction in Greenland, generating alongstanding controversy Initial publication of analyses of human remainsfrom the cemetery at 0 111 Herjolfsnes by Hansen (85) strongly suggestedthat inbreeding and 'racial degeneration" had produced a female populationwith narrow pelvises unsuitable for successful childbirth While these find-mgs are still occasionally quoted to support theones of Norse extinction,Fisher-M0ller's reanalysis of the Herjolfsnes matenal conclusively demon-strated that post-mortem decalcification and soil pressure were responsible forthe shape of the specimens and that other Greetiiandic cemeterj' samplesshowed no such abnormalities (76) The personal courage it required topublish an attack upon politically favored racial theones in German-occupiedDenmark is worthy of note, even in this bnef review

Broader questions of population movement and genetic distance wereaddressed by A Carohne Berr>''s nonmetncal analyses of Norse crania from awide range of sites from Norway to Greenland (24) Her investigation tendedto confirm the traditional documentarj' accounts but emphasized the BntishIsles component evident in the westem North Atlantic samples from Green-land and Iceland In Iceland, Jon Steffanson and the late Sigurdur Thoranns-son used changes in reconstructed stature within dated cemetery populationsto argue for significant famine-induced stature reduction m the late medievalto early modem penods (183)

Most recently, an intemational research team has been using a spectrum oftechniques ranging from stable isotope archaeometr>' through skeletalpaleopathology and dental morphology to investigate the diet, health, andnutntionai status of North Atlantic Norse populations Results of dentalinvestigations thus far strongly suggest major differences in diet between theNorse Greenlanders and other contemporary North Atlantic populations (168)and indicate widespread reduction in stature m the later Middle Ages Atpresent, biological anthropology appears to be on the threshold of potentiallyrevolutionary' contnbutions to our understanding of human adaptation in theNorth Atlantic region

SUMMARY

The archaeology of the Norse North Atlantic has a long scholarly history, hutthe region has only recently emerged as a well-defined area of intemationalinterest A senes of recent meetings has ser\'ed to strengthen ties amongworkers in Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, and North Amenca and hascontnbuted to an emerging consciousness of shared research goals and

NORSE NORTH ATLANTIC 345

problems Locational analyses, archaeometnc dating, systematic samplingand recover\' strategies, computer-aided mapping and recording, and a fullspectrum of geo- and bioarchaeological techniques have become standardtools of most North Atlantic fieldworkers. and productive intemational andinterdisciplinar>' research has become the rule rather than the exceptionTheoretical as well as methodological sophistication is also increasinglyevident in the growing capacity of North Atlantic scholars to build social andeconomic models that are not cnppled by a complete dependence on anincomplete documentary record (108) With a great deal of excavated matenalunder intensive analysis and with steadily expanding fieldwork in ever>' partof the region, medieval archaeology in the Norse North Atlantic is proving ahighly effective means for finding out what no one knew before

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1 would like to thank all the many scholars in North Amenca. Greenland.Iceland. Faroe, the United Kingdom. Norway, and Denmark who have sogenerously shared data, ideas, cnticism. and tent space over the past twodecades My gratitude is especially due to those who participated in fieldworkin W'est Greenland. Shetland, and Iceland and to our kind hosts in all theseplaces Tom Amorosi provided the map and much unpublished data Researchreported here was made possible by grants trom the US National ScienceFoundation, the National Geographic Society, the Wenner-Gren Foundationtor .Anthropological Research. The NATO Scientific Grants program, theAmencan-Scandinavian Foundation, and the PSC-CUNY Grants ProgramAli errors are the author's responsibilitv

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