Social-Ecological Resilience in the Viking-Age to Early-Medieval Faroe Islands

This dissertation aims to evaluate the development and maintenance of social-ecological resilience during the settlement-period (ca. 9th through 11th centuries CE) in the Faroe Islands. In particular, the core objectives include the identification of the key social and natural variables involved, the examination of how these variables contributed to overall resilience, and the investigation of the initiation of the Faroese domestic economy. This research focuses primarily on an analysis of the 9th through 13th century archaeofaunal assemblage from the site of Undir Junkarinsfløtti, located on the island of Sandoy. This analysis represents the first detailed study of the Faroese settlement-period domestic economy. In addition to the Undir Junkarinsfløtti archaeofaunal data, the research presented here draws from a wide range of archaeological, paleoenvironmental, and documentary evidence. These Faroese data are compared with contemporaneous datasets from elsewhere in the North Atlantic, including Iceland, Greenland, the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland, and western coastal Norway. Interpretation of this evidence is informed by a theoretical approach rooted in historical ecology, with an emphasis on the dynamic and dialectic nature of human-environment interactions, particularly as these relate to social-ecological resilience. This study suggests that the overall resilience of the Faroese social-ecological system can largely be attributed not only to the maintenance of a broad-based domestic economy that was heavily subsidized by the sustained exploitation of robust natural resources, but also to the development of a collaborative, community-based approach to resource management and use. In particular, these factors contributed to robustness against food shortfalls. The available evidence suggests that this resilient economic regime was initiated by a culturally-hybridized, Hiberno-Norse population

A catalogue of bird bones: an exercise in semantic web practice

The vast databases of natural history collections are increasingly being made accessible through the internet. The challenge is to place this data in a wider context that may reach beyond the interests of scholars only. The North Atlantic Biocultural Organization and Icelandic Institute of Natural History are jointly developing a web based catalogue of bird bones, comprising digital images, and related information from the museum database. Linking the bird bone catalogue with the semantic web developed by STERNA will integrate the bird bone catalogue with diverse information on birds that is directed towards the general public

Genetic examination of historical North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) bone specimens from the eastern North Atlantic: Insights into species history, transoceanic population structure, and genetic diversity

Species monitoring and conservation is increasingly challenging under current climate change scenarios. For the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) this challenge is heightened by the added effects of complicated and uncertain past species demography. Right whales once had a much wider distribution across the North Atlantic Ocean, although the degree to which right whales in the western and eastern North Atlantic were genetically isolated remains unknown. We analyzed DNA from 24 4th–20th century (CE) right whale bone specimens that were collected from 10 historical and archaeological sites in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Scotland. Following mtDNA species identification, we obtained 15-locus nuclear microsatellite profiles from a subset of eight specimens and compared these to contemporary data from animals remaining in the western North Atlantic population. While some specimens share mtDNA haplotypes with the contemporary population, several new haplotypes were found. Moderate mtDNA and nuclear differentiation between the two regions was identified (mtDNA: FST = 0.0423, ΦST = 0.041; nuclear DNA: FST = 0.024). Interpretation of the relationships between animals in the two regions is not simple, and this research highlights the difficulty in conducting such assessments in species with complex histories of unknown structure prior to extensive exploitation.publishedVersio

Puffins, Pigs, Cod, and Barley: Palaeoeconomy at Undir Junkarinsfløtti, Sandoy, Faroe Islands

This paper reports on the zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical remains from the initial season of excavations at the Norse period site at Undir Junkarinsfløtti in the Faroe islands. These remains represent the first zooarchaeological analysis undertaken for the Faroes and only the third archaeobotanical assemblage published from the islands. The excavated deposits are described and the key findings from the palaeoenvironmental remains highlighted within the context of the wider North Atlantic environmental archaeology of the Norse period

Puffins, Pigs, Cod, and Barley: Palaeoeconomy at Undir Junkarinsfløtti, Sandoy, Faroe Islands

This paper reports on the zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical remains from the initial season of excavations at the Norse period site at Undir Junkarinsfløtti in the Faroe islands. These remains represent the first zooarchaeological analysis undertaken for the Faroes and only the third archaeobotanical assemblage published from the islands. The excavated deposits are described and the key findings from the palaeoenvironmental remains highlighted within the context of the wider North Atlantic environmental archaeology of the Norse period

Zooarchaeology of the Scandinavian settlements in Iceland and Greenland: diverging pathways

The Scandinavian Viking Age and Medieval settlements of Iceland and Greenland have been subject to zooarchaeological research for over a century, and have come to represent two classic cases of survival and collapse in the literature of long-term human ecodynamics. The work of the past two decades by multiple projects coordinated through the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) cooperative and by collaborating scholars has dramatically increased the available zooarchaeological evidence for economic organization of these two communities, their initial adaptation to different natural and social contexts, and their reaction to Late Medieval economic and climate change. This summary paper provides an overview of ongoing comparative research as well as references for data sets and more detailed discussion of archaeofauna from these two island communities. Keywords: North Atlantic, zooarchaeology, Greenland, Iceland, climate change, human ecodynamic

Archaeological sites as Distributed Long-term Observing Networks of the Past (DONOP)

The authors would also like to acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation, specifically the Arctic Social Sciences Program, and RANNIS (The Icelandic Center for Research).Archaeological records provide a unique source of direct data on long-term human-environment interactions and samples of ecosystems affected by differing degrees of human impact. Distributed long-term datasets from archaeological sites provide a significant contribution to establish local, regional, and continental-scale environmental baselines and can be used to understand the implications of human decision-making and its impacts on the environment and the resources it provides for human use. Deeper temporal environmental baselines are essential for resource and environmental managers to restore biodiversity and build resilience in depleted ecosystems. Human actions are likely to have impacts that reorganize ecosystem structures by reducing diversity through processes such as niche construction. This makes data from archaeological sites key assets for the management of contemporary and future climate change scenarios because they combine information about human behavior, environmental baselines, and biological systems. Sites of this kind collectively form Distributed Long-term Observing Networks of the Past (DONOP), allowing human behavior and environmental impacts to be assessed over space and time. Behavioral perspectives are gained from direct evidence of human actions in response to environmental opportunities and change. Baseline perspectives are gained from data on species, landforms, and ecology over timescales that long predate our typically recent datasets that only record systems already disturbed by people. And biological perspectives can provide essential data for modern managers wanting to understand and utilize past diversity (i.e., trophic and/or genetic) as a way of revealing, and potentially correcting, weaknesses in our contemporary wild and domestic animal populations.PostprintPeer reviewe

SDSSJ103913.70+533029.7: A Super Star Cluster in the Outskirts of a Galaxy Merger

We describe the serendipitous discovery in the spectroscopic data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey of a star-like object, SDSSJ103913.70+533029.7, at a heliocentric radial velocity of +1012 km/s. Its proximity in position and velocity to the spiral galaxy NGC 3310 suggests an association with the galaxy. At this distance, SDSSJ103913.70+533029.7 has the luminosity of a super star cluster and a projected distance of 17 kpc from NGC 3310. Its spectroscopic and photometric properties imply a mass of > 10^6 solar masses and an age close to that of the tidal shells seen around NGC 3310, suggesting that it formed in the event which formed the shells.Comment: Accepted by AJ: 4 figures (1 color

Climate challenges, vulnerabilities, and food security

This paper identifies rare climate challenges in the long-term history of seven areas, three in the subpolar North Atlantic Islands and four in the arid-to-semiarid deserts of the US Southwest. For each case, the vulnerability to food shortage before the climate challenge is quantified based on eight variables encompassing both environmental and social domains. These data are used to evaluate the relationship between the “weight” of vulnerability before a climate challenge and the nature of social change and food security following a challenge. The outcome of this work is directly applicable to debates about disaster management policy

SDSS J103913.70+533029.7: A Super Star Cluster in the Outskirts of a Galaxy Merger

We describe the serendipitous discovery in the spectroscopic data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey of a starlike object, SDSS J103913.70+533029.7, at a heliocentric radial velocity of +1012 km s-1. Its proximity in position and velocity to the spiral galaxy NGC 3310 suggests an association with the galaxy. At this distance, SDSS J103913.70+533029.7 has the luminosity of a super star cluster and a projected distance of 17 kpc from NGC 3310. Its spectroscopic and photometric properties imply a mass of >106 M⊙ and an age close to that of the tidal shells seen around NGC 3310, suggesting that it formed in the event that formed the shells.Astronom