Human impact at Advent City (RiS ID 10516). August 5 - August 16, 2016. Post-excavation assessment report

• Main Authors: Kruse, Frigga, Nobles, Gary, de Jong, Martha, van Bodegom, Rosanne
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: Svalbard; Spitsbergen; Advent City; archaeology; botany; fieldwork; natural resources; mining; exploitation; human impact; Arctic ecosystem; Arctic; Norway; Spitzbergen
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/6309899; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6309899

From August 5 till 16, 2016, a team of archaeologists and botanists carried out interdisciplinary fieldwork at Advent City in Adventfjord on Spitsbergen (Svalbard, Arctic Norway). Coal had first been claimed at this location in summer 1901, and from summer 1904, the settlement of Advent City was the focal point of the mining activities of the Spitzbergen Coal and Trading Company. The company town was abandoned in autumn 1908, and by 1917, all buildings and most plant had been removed, much of it to Hiorthhamn, and the site had fallen out of use. Advent City is therefore a well-delineated archaeological site and a powerful reminder of a bygone industrial era.