Place, Practice, and Pathology in Medieval Iceland: A Bioarchaeological Analysis of the Human Skeletal Remains from the Church Cemetery at Haffjarðarey (ca. 1200-1563)

• Main Author: Hoffman, Sarah
• Other Authors: Chevral, Timothy, Anthropology
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: State University of New York at Buffalo 2019
• Subjects: Archaeology; Haffjarðarey; Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10477/79927

Ph.D. This dissertation addresses the complex relationship between human health, place, and economic practice during the establishment of commercial mercantilism, which would go on to become the foundation of later economic globalization. The origins, history, and nature of the Icelandic fishing industry have been the focus of a large body of work concerning social power, economics, gender roles, and resource availability and exploitation. What began as a local subsistence strategy in the 9th century gradually transformed into the dominant economic export of an entire country by the 14th and 15th centuries. Communities that were heavily engaged in the fishing industry became connected to international forces directly and indirectly through ports, temporary trading posts, and local manifestations of the international Catholic Church. Places such as these became focal points within medieval communities. They took on special meaning as community gathering places, sacred spaces, and locals where the local came into direct contact with the non-local. My research contributes to our understanding of the rise of economic globalization and its effects on the creation and transformation of these places as well as the direct and indirect health impacts of early economic globalization through an interdisciplinary study of the island of Haffjarðarey in western Iceland. Methodologically, I consider archaeological data from past and current surveys and excavations as well as osteological data, medieval literature and manuscripts, place name studies, and folklore. Previous studies tend to focus on viking-age farmsteads, chiefly residences, and zooarchaeological analyses when discussing the rise and history of the fishing industry in Iceland. Studies of human health during this time period in Iceland only tangentially address the relationship between economic practice, international contact, place, and human health. For example, a 2014 study on osteoarthritis across Iceland links higher rates of the condition to engagement in the fishing industry, but does not consider why these rates only occur at certain places beyond simple engagement in the industry. Theoretically, as suggested by the title of this dissertation, I discuss the relationship between place, practice, and pathology (human heath). Given the connection between social practice and the creation of place it is important to consider these structural elements together with the impacts they have on human health. Social practice creating and maintaining place, and place reinforcing the continuation of practice. Because humans are both biological and cultural beings (biocultural), the relationship between health and social structure is often complex. Allan Pred (1984) writes that, “The bodies of human beings are biologically constituted and therefore [are] a part of nature…in the becoming of place people are not only internally transformed by social and other experiences, but their physical nature also is altered as their paths wind inexorably from birth to death.” Human beings engage in social practice, which can intentionally or unintentionally create, maintain, and transform place while doing the same to human health. By the 14th century fishing was transformed from local subsistence strategy and minor trade commodity into the predominant economic export of an entire country. Coastal and maritime communities were particularly affected by this transformation. Both in social and economic practice, as well as landscape use and, as this dissertation argues, health status. The islet of Haffjarðarey was the location for a regional Catholic parish church from approximately 1200 – 1563 CE. This structure and holy consecration marked the landscape as sacred space, but its origins are likely much earlier as a settlement period farm with connections to local chieftains. Human remains from the church cemetery represent the entire parish of at least ten farms along the coast, and potentially international traders from the nearby port at Buðarhamar. Bioarchaeological analysis suggests that this church cemetery is among the largest in terms of sample size in Iceland for this period. The human remains suggest multiple lines of evidence connecting the community at Haffjarðarey to economic production and international contact. Finally, the importance of this place within the socio-economic landscape is evident not only from medieval church records, but from the folklore which emerged after the closure and abandonment of the church and cemetery. Folklore that highlights the need to explain and uphold the closure within an acknowledged system of social rules and practice. Place, practice, and pathology therefore intersect at Haffjarðarey in unique and variable ways over the course of more than seven hundred years from consecration to the recording of folklore.