Perspective of landscape change following early settlement (landnám) in Svalbarðstunga, northeastern Iceland

Abstract

A series of peat monoliths was collected from Hjálmarvík, Kúðá and Bægístaðir, three abandoned farm sites located on a transect extending from the coast to 18 km inland in the Svalbarðstunga region (northeastern Iceland) in order to document the impact of human occupation and patterns of land use on landscape change and vegetation. Svalbarðstunga is of considerable interest because of the geographical and ecological features that distinguish it from other regions of Iceland, in particular by the more direct influence of the cold East Greenland Current (EGC). Plant and insect macrofossils and diatoms identified in peat monoliths provided proxy indicators of human settlement and land use that in some cases corroborate, and in others expand upon, existing archaeological and historical dates. Based on the presence of ecofacts (calcined bones, fish bones and charcoal), synanthropic insects and some anthropogenic plant‐indicators (e.g. weeds), we showed that there was a consistent occupation and use of the coastal site of Hjálmarvík since AD 970. At Kúðá, the scenario is quite different. Two periods of occupation or land use were identified: from prior to c. AD 960 to 1190 and from c. AD 1650 to 1870. In the 15th and into the 16th centuries, the decrease in the deposition of traces of fuel wastes around the inland farm sites (Kúðá and Bægístaðir) suggests that they were used much less frequently. The decline of such proxies for human occupation occurred shortly before the occurrence of the coldest conditions from the 16th to the 17th centuries as well as prior to the V1477 eruption, suggesting that these natural factors may not have been the primary or unique driver of changing modes of tenancy. A scenario of famine‐related depopulation would have played a significant role in this decrease in the human impact on vegetation.

Slope Dynamics in Relation to the Occupation and Abandonment of a Mountain Farm in Þistilfjörður, Northeast Iceland

“…The Norse colonization of northeastern Iceland at about A.D. 1000 took place in a very dynamic natural setting. The landscape of settlement and its evolution have been widely discussed by archaeologists, geoarcheologists, and paleoecologists (e.g., [19][20][21][22][23][24]) who have noted the importance of several anthropogenic landscape impacts including widespread cutting of wood and deforestation, manipulation of drainage, and accelerated soil erosion. However, the impact of slope processes on the landscape and on human occupation is not well understood.…”

“…Although fieldwork and historical evidence from the 18th century indicate the existence of fields that were destroyed by debris-flow activity [25,26], it is not clear how this affected land management. This study is part of a large multidisciplinary program that aims to increase our archeological, paleoeconomic and palaeoenvironmental knowledge in the Svalbarðstunga study region (valleys of Svalbarðsá and Sandá rivers) at the local and regional scales (e.g., [24,[27][28][29]). The project examines many factors that could be linked to farm occupation/abandonment and land management, such as: social, economic, and agricultural practices, climate change, natural hazards, epidemics, and disease.…”

“…The project examines many factors that could be linked to farm occupation/abandonment and land management, such as: social, economic, and agricultural practices, climate change, natural hazards, epidemics, and disease. The most recent paleoecological results showed that ecological changes in Svalbarðstunga linked to the Norse and medieval settlement were more limited than in the rest of Iceland, where woodland clearance and erosion have been associated with human settlement [24,28,30,31].…”