Formation, cultural use and management of Icelandic wet meadows - a palaeoenvironmental interpretation

• Main Author: Barclay, Rebecca
• Other Authors: Simpson, Ian A, Tisdall, Eileen W
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Stirling 2016
• Subjects: palaeoenvironmental; homefield; wet meadow; Iceland; pollen analysis; soil micromorphology; palynology; resilience; human ecodynamics; North Atlantic; Wet meadows Iceland; Wet meadow ecology; Arctic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/24823; http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/24823/1/ThesisMaster.pdf

This thesis offers the first detailed palaeoenvironmental analysis of wetland areas within sub-Arctic enclosed homefield’s. Significance of meadows were previously mentioned only briefly in the literature, suggesting influences in settlement site selection as well as importance in quality fodder production, producing up to two thirds of total hay resources in a somewhat marginal agricultural landscape. Given the importance of hay resources in Iceland it seems unusual these areas have received so little attention to date, despite extensive research on all other aspects of the Norse farm system. The organic sediments within the meadows, given their development in-situ over extended time periods, have the ability to record aspects of the intimate relationship between societal and environmental change, and so in a robust and holistic way our methods set integrates radiocarbon measurement, tephrochronology, palynology and thin section micromorphology from the same core; reflecting these findings against existing paleoclimate and archaeological site data. This combined application of the core techniques – palynology and soil micromorphology, has proven successful in creating effective human ecodynamic records from each of the study farms. Records obtained from the three farm sites in northwest and northern Iceland exposed the varying importance and differing utilisation of these wetland areas. Meadows would appear to have played an import role in choice of settlement site across northern Iceland, through the provision of open areas, and additional and immediately available fodder resources at settlement, in a landscape dominated by dense scrub. Meadows were found to have been in continuous use, albeit at varying levels of intensity, from settlement to the present day. In this respect the semi-natural resources are found to be remarkably resilient, demonstrating little alterations to their composition following severe climatic downturns, including that of the Little Ice Age, and volcanic eruption. Acting as a robust ...