| Summary: | Methodology for extracting strontium (Sr) isotopes from wool used to trace the movement of cloth and the trade in cloth across the North Atlantic. This methodology presented here is based on work by Karen M. Frei. These are the results from students at Brown, replicating Frei's method for leaching and extracting strontium from archaeological wool samples. Description of the project: This research was part of the project: Archaeological Investigations of the Eastern North Atlantic Trade and Globalizing Economic Systems (Award no. 1733914) and sought to provide new data on patterns of household-scale production and consumption in the eastern North Atlantic islands and assess the ways that textiles from the rural North Atlantic islands were used, consumed, and traded within the emerging medieval and post-medieval urban harbors of Bergen, Trondheim, and Borgund in Norway. Over the course of 1000 years, trade linking the Norse North Atlantic colonies waxed and waned. Early medieval networks linked the North Atlantic islands primarily with Norway for supplies of key resources, yet archaeological data suggest that by the mid-11th century Icelandic women wove in response to demands for products sold in London and beyond. By the 13th century, these networks expanded, with both the North Atlantic and North Sea integrated into the Hanseatic League's networks linking northern Europe and beyond. From the 17th century onwards, the North Atlantic was integrated into increasingly industrial mercantile networks, controlled through monopolistic practices by the Danish state, linking the cities of northwestern Europe with colonies and consumers across the world. This project was: (1) to assess the regional characteristics and trajectories of eastern North Atlantic women's textile production, (2) connect these collections and patterns with textile assemblages from emerging and central trading harbors in Scandinavia and beyond, and (3) link these results with previous NSF-funded work.
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