The Vikings were not the first colonizers of the Faroe Islands

We report on the earliest archaeological evidence from the Faroe Islands, placing human colonization in the 4th–6th centuries AD, at least 300–500 years earlier than previously demonstrated archaeologically. The evidence consists of an extensive wind-blown sand deposit containing patches of burnt pe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Quaternary Science Reviews
Main Authors: Church, Mike J., Arge, Símun V., Edwards, Kevin J., Ascough, Philippa L., Bond, Julie M., Cook, Gordon T., Dockrill, Steve J., Dugmore, Andrew J., McGovern, Thomas H., Nesbitt, Claire, Simpson, Ian A.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: Elsevier 2013
Subjects:
Faroe Islands
Faroes
North Atlantic
Online Access:http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/85301/
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.06.011
Description
Summary:We report on the earliest archaeological evidence from the Faroe Islands, placing human colonization in the 4th–6th centuries AD, at least 300–500 years earlier than previously demonstrated archaeologically. The evidence consists of an extensive wind-blown sand deposit containing patches of burnt peat ash of anthropogenic origin. Samples of carbonised barley grains from two of these ash patches produced 14 C dates of two pre-Viking phases within the 4th–6th and late 6th–8th centuries AD. A re-evaluation is required of the nature, scale and timing of the human colonization of the Faroes and the wider North Atlantic region.

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