A palynological view of selected Norse-era cultural landscapes and subsistence strategies in Greenland

Abstract

This thesis is a palynological examination of Norse-era landscape change and subsistence strategies at the Norse Western Settlement of southern Greenland. A central focus is an attempt to understand Norse settlers' actions to maximize the agricultural potential of what many have characterized as a marginal landscape. This thesis accomplishes that task by reporting sheep and goat (caprine) foddering/husbandry strategies at several sites in the Western Settlement and a single Eastern Settlement site. A second chapter explores environmental data from the high-status Western Settlement farm of Sandnes. Landscape management and modification practices of Norse farmers have been a topic of study through several generations of researchers, and I add to this discussion by focusing on the less investigated Western Settlement and ancillary sites of the Eastern settlement using palynological techniques on a probable anthrosol and midden recovered caprine coprolites. These are two potentially significant sources of data that have rarely been utilized. The first chapter reveals caprine foddering strategies in a Western Settlement farm, Eastern Settlement farm, and a potential shieling. The results reinforce previous assumptions regarding the Norse usage of seasonally available resources in foddering strategies. The second chapter led to new interpretations of chronology and land use at Sandnes, a chiefly farm. Notably, the curation of this Norse cultural landscape was a slowly occurring process and may have ended before previously thought. The data presented here offers an example of the Greenlanders' subsistence strategies that allowed them to persist on the western arctic edge of the Norse cultural sphere for at least 425 years.