Human Ecodynamics in the North Atlantic: environmental and interdisciplinary reconstructions of the emergence of fish trade in Iceland and the Faeroes, c.800-1480

• Main Author: Dufeu, Valerie
• Other Authors: Oram, Richard, Simpson, Ian, This work was fully funded by the AHRC, Financial support has been provided by the Economic Society and the Viking Society for Northern Research who funded this project’s fieldworks in Iceland and the Faeroes University who partly funded the Faeroes fieldwork. NABO (North Atlantic Biocultural Organization)partly sponsored fieldworks in Iceland
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: Environmental history; Iceland medieval history; Fishing history; Economic history of Viking Age Iceland; Faeroes environmental history; Settlement patterns of fishing communities in the North Atlantic; Faeroes medieval history; Human ecodynamics in the North Atlantic from the ninth century; Iceland economic settlement; Fish trade in Iceland and the Faeroes; Emergence of commercial fishing in Iceland and the Faeroes; c.800-1480; Multi-disciplinary research in History; Emergence of commercial fishing in Viking Age North Atlantic Realm; Viking Age and Early Medieval socio-economic patterns in Iceland and the Faeroes; Fish trade Iceland History To 1500; Fish trade Faroe Islands History; Human ecology North Atlantic Region; Faroe Islands; Iceland; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/3652; http://en.aup.nl/books/9789462983212-fish-trade-in-medieval-north-atlantic-societies.html; http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/3652/3/STORRE%20-%20PhD.pdf

Over the past two decades, environmental history as an approach to the understanding and explanation of historical processes has become gradually fashionable amongst academics; empirical data collected over the North Atlantic proposed new trends with regards to economic patterns during the Viking Age. The increasing number of Viking Age sites exposed in Iceland, the amount of zooarchaeological collections highlighting an abundant presence of fish bones in the overall archaeofauna, together with one’s expertise in environmental history as well as a strong interest in socio-economic development during the Viking Age and medieval periods were many factors which help identify strengths and weaknesses with regards to the understanding of the emergence of commercial fish trade in Iceland, and to a lesser extent, the Faeroe Islands. The thesis proposes a new theory with regards to human adaptation to new environments, and subsequent economic developments based on the commercial exploitation of fish. The interdisciplinary aspect of this project using cultural sediment analysis and zooarchaeology, as well as concepts from anthropology and economic anthropology, allows for the theory to be tested by empirical data. This thesis has been published as a monograph which can be found at: http://en.aup.nl/books/9789462983212-fish-trade-in-medieval-north-atlantic-societies.html