IAP-24-087

Northern Farming: Sustainable Practice Through Time

During the Medieval Warm Period (800-1300 CE) Scandinavian farmers pushed the limits of agriculture into northern Fennoscandia and North Atlantic islands. Modern climate warming and food security concerns are again pushing farming further north, but there are gaps in our knowledge about the sustainability of past land management practices, particularly on long-term soil health. This project will provide novel insights into the sustainability of Norse land management through the analysis of soils, botanical remains from archaeological sites, and the analysis of carbon, nitrogen, and sulphur stable isotopes on charred cereal grains, which provide evidence for soil amendment.

Research Context:

Norse expansion of agriculture into the North Atlantic during the Medieval Warm Period has often been characterized negatively, with the application of European-style agriculture seen as producing deleterious results (Richter et al. 2021). In Iceland deforestation and overgrazing resulted in widespread soil erosion producing ecological collapse in some areas with consequent human abandonment (Arnalds 2015). Similarly, erosion and negative impacts have been found in the Faroes and Greenland (Lawson et al. 2005; Schofield et al. 2022). However, recent scholarship has identified a degree of Norse sustainability and resilience, with some sustainable management of resources such as eggs and wood (Bates et al. 2021; McGovern et al. 2019). Soil management was also an important controlling factor, enabling successful long-term occupation of some farmsteads, including Hofstaðir in northern Iceland, while other sites, such as Sveigakot in northern Iceland, were abandoned (Simpson et al. 2009). More research is needed to understand how sustainable land-use practices were (or were not) implemented from the time of settlement, soil management practices through time and/or abandonment, how this differs between locations, and whether lessons from the past can be applied to modern northern agricultural practices.

Research Questions:

This project examines the sustainability of Norse landscape management and agricultural practices in northern frontier settlements in the North Atlantic region during the Medieval Warm Period (800-1300 CE), by addressing these questions:

1. Was fire used to clear woodland and manage vegetation growth?
2. Was water and drainage actively managed, and, if so, how?
3. Were soils amended with animal dung or other fertilisers?
4. Where evidence for land management strategies such as burning, water management, and soil amendment exists, what were their long-term effects on soil health and food production?
5. Are there regional or chronological patterns in land management practices that suggest how settlement, practice-based learning, and adaptation developed in Iceland?
6. How does Norse land management compare to modern land management and agricultural practices in the North Atlantic region?
7. Can lessons learned about sustainability or unsustainability of past practices be applied to modern northern agricultural practices and contribute to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 2 (food security), 11 (sustainable communities), and 15 (life on land)?

To address the research questions and current gaps in understanding about Norse land management, soil samples and botanical remains from two recently excavated Viking Age sites in Iceland will be analysed: the large, high status farm at Vatnsfjörður in the Westfjörds, which remains occupied today (Milek 2011), and (2) the small, low status farm at Hegranes, Skagafjörður, which was abandoned by c. AD 1100 (Catlin 2021). Combined, these sites present excellent research targets. They represent initial areas where the Norse settled and hold clues to adaptive practices and their successful or unsuccessful execution. The geographic differences but cultural and temporal similarities facilitate comparison as samples from each site can be contrasted. Both sites provide excellent chronological control of soils and botanical data using combined radiocarbon dating and tephrochronology (Arnalds 2015).

Three types of complementary samples will be taken for integrated geoarchaeological and archaeobotanical analyses:

1) Undisturbed soil blocks taken from exposed soil sections in excavations and soil test pits in areas immediately surrounding the sites will be thin-sectioned for micromorphological analysis, which provides high-resolution information about soil development processes, burning, water management, soil amendment, and depositional context of macro- and microbotanical remains (Macphail and Goldberg 2018).

2) Small bulk samples taken from soil test pits and cores from areas immediately around the sites will be analysed using magnetic susceptibility, organic matter and nutrient content, pH, and multi-element (XRF) analyses to provide evidence for past and present burning, erosion, and long-term soil health (Goldberg et al. 2022).

3) Plant macrofossils and microfossils (phytoliths) from the sites and test pits excavated in nearby peat bogs will be analysed to understand plant use and use of fire as a landscape management tool (Wade et al. 2021; Ryberg et al. 2022). Selected charred seeds and cereal grains will be analysed for carbon, nitrogen, and sulphur isotopes to assess the types and intensities of soil amendment (Gröcke et al. 2020; Gron et al. 2021).

Year 1

• Literature review on the North Atlantic research context, past and present land use and soil management in the north, and the project methods.
• Laboratory training and pilot studies using a sub-set of the samples collected during excavations at Vatnsfjörður and Kotið, Iceland, including soil micromorphology, magnetic susceptibility, XRF, organic matter and nutrient content, phytolith extraction and analysis, the identification of plant macrofossils, and the application of stable isotope analysis of plant macrofossils.

Year 2

• Laboratory analyses, data collection and interpretation, and inter-site comparisons.

Year 3

• Completion of laboratory analyses.
• Writing of thesis papers and chapters.
• Dissemination of one case study a national conference.

Year 3.5

• Completion of thesis writing.
• Dissemination of project results at an international conference.

The project will provide all the skills training required to complete the research. The range of laboratory techniques will include: soil micromorphological analysis, elemental analysis using XRF, phytolith analysis, magnetic susceptibility analysis, organic matter content by loss-on-ignition, plant macrofossil analysis, and C, N, and S isotope analyses.