Historical Ecology and Longitudinal Research Strategies around Lake Mývatn Iceland

• Main Authors: McGovern, Thomas, Hambrecht, George, Hicks, Megan
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: CUNY Academic Works 2019
• Subjects: Historical; Ecology; Iceland; Archaeological Anthropology; Mývatn
• Online Access: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_pubs/633; https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1678&context=hc_pubs

Historical Ecology has proven to be a very influential tool kit for thinking about complex human interactions with changing landscapes, climate, and other humans. It has also provided concrete and practical frameworks for carrying out sustained long- term place-based research projects that break through traditional periodization to look at the dialectical interaction of human economies and local and regional ecosystems through time. The “longitudinal perspective” pioneered by Carole Crumley’s work in Burgundy has proved to be a very effective tool for carrying out sustained multi-year, multi-investigator, and multi- generational investigations in landscapes around the globe. This paper presents an overview of the application of a longitudinal historical ecology research agenda to the Mývatn high altitude lake basin in Northern Iceland and the often-unexpected outcomes resulting from decades long investigation of millennial scale processes in the same research area by expanding teams of researchers that include the local residents.