High-resolution paleoenvironmental data from a peat profile with a small pollen source area are used to reconstruct the impacts oflandnámon vegetation and soils at a Norse farm complex (∅2 at Tasiusaq) comprising two farms in the Eastern Settlement of Greenland. Analyses include the AMS14C dating of plant macrofossil samples and the use of Bayesian radiocarbon calibration to construct improved age–depth models for Norse cultural horizons. The onset of a regionallandnámmay be indicated by the clearance ofBetula pubescenswoodland immediately prior to local settlement. The latter is dated to AD 950–1020 (2σ) and is characterised by possible burning ofBetula glandulosascrub to provide grassland pasture for domestic stock. Clearance and grazing resulted in accelerated levels of soil erosion at a westerly farm. This was followed by an easterly migration of settlement and agriculture. Site constraints prevent an assessment of the demise of the easterly farm, but pressures of overgrazing and land degradation may have been the major factors responsible for the abandonment of the earlier farm.

Aim The objective of this paper is to explore the relationships that exist between vegetation and modern pollen rain in the open, largely treeless landscape of subarctic Greenland. The implications of these results for the interpretation of fossil pollen assemblages from the time of the Norse landnám are then examined.Location The study area is the sheep farming district of Qassiarsuk in the subarctic, subcontinental vegetational and climatic zone of southern Greenland (61°N, 45°W). Between c. ad 1000-1500 this region was contained within the Norse Eastern Settlement.Methods Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) of harmonized plantpollen data sets is used to compare plant cover in 64 vegetation quadrats with pollen assemblages obtained from moss polsters at matching locations. Presence/ absence data are also used to calculate indices of association, over-and underrepresentation for pollen types.Results Good correspondence between paired vegetation-pollen samples occurs in many cases, particularly in locations where Salix glauca-Betula glandulosa dwarf shrub heath is dominant, and across herbaceous field boundaries and meadows. Pollen samples are found to be poor at reflecting actual ground cover where ericales or Juniperus communis are the locally dominant shrubs. Dominant or ubiquitous taxa within this landscape (Betula, Salix and Poaceae) are found to be over-represented in pollen assemblages, as are several of the 'weeds' generally accepted as introduced by the Norse settlers.Main conclusions Due to their over-representation in the pollen rain, many of the Norse apophytes and introductions (e.g. Rumex acetosa and R. acetosella) traditionally used to infer human activity in Greenland should be particularly sensitive indicators for landnám, allowing early detection of Norse activity in fossil assemblages. Pteridophyte spores are found to be disassociated with the ground cover of ferns and clubmosses, but are over-represented in pollen assemblages, indicating extra-local or regional sources and long residence times in soil/sediment profiles for these microfossils. A pollen record for Hordeum-type registered in close proximity to a field containing barley suggests that summer temperatures under the current climatic regime are, at least on occasion, sufficient to allow flowering.

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Palaeoenvironmental data are presented from the site of Garðar (modern Igaliku), the location of the cathedral and the bishop's farm in the Norse Eastern Settlement of Greenland. The latter was founded from c. AD 985 and abandoned some time during the fifteenth century. Inspection of drainage ditches located in close proximity to the settlement ruins revealed inter alia an organic-rich unit containing cultural debris (worked wood, animal bone, stone and charcoal) dated by AMS radiocarbon dates on seeds to the period c. AD 1110—1370. Fossil insect and pollen assemblages contained within the deposit appear representative of natural environments (primarily wet eutrophic meadows) but are mixed with high frequencies of a range of synanthropic insects, including human and animal ectoparasites that could only derive from indoor habitats. This is strongly indicative of the manuring of fields with waste from houses and byres in order to increase yields of hay. Large amounts of hay would have been necessary to provide winter fodder for the bishop's herd of cattle — the largest known in Norse Greenland — and dung from these animals seems likely to have been a significant component of the material used to fertilize the fields. The process of spreading the manure at Garðar was probably integrated with the careful manipulation of water resources across the site, indicated by the presence of a network of irrigation channels and dams in the archaeological record, and comparisons are drawn with similar systems elsewhere in Mediaeval Europe.

ABSTRACT. Tidewater glaciers in Greenland experienced widespread retreat during the last century. Information on their behaviour prior to this is often poorly constrained due to lack of observations, while determining the drivers prior to instrumental records is also problematic. Here we present a record of the dynamics of Kangiata Nunaata Sermia (KNS), southwest Greenland, from its Little Ice Age maximum (LIAmax) to 1859 -the period before continuous air temperature observations began at Nuuk in 1866. Using glacial geomorphology, historical accounts, photographs and GIS analyses, we provide evidence KNS was at its LIAmax by 1761, had retreated by $5 km by 1808 and a further 7 km by 1859. This predates retreat at Jakobshavn Isbrae by 43-113 years, demonstrating the asynchroneity of tidewater glacier terminus response following the LIA. We use a one-dimensional flowband model to determine the relative sensitivity of KNS to atmospheric and oceanic climate forcing. Results demonstrate that terminus forcing rather than surface mass balance drove the retreat. Modelled glacier sensitivity to submarine melt rates is also insufficient to explain the retreat observed. However, moderate increases in crevasse water depth, driving an increase in calving, are capable of causing terminus retreat of the observed magnitude and timing.