Using pollen to assess local environmental variation during the Viking Age in Skagafjordur, Iceland

使用花粉评估冰岛斯卡加峡湾维京时代当地的环境变化

• 批准号: 0909393
• 负责人: John Steinberg
• 金额: $ 9.49万
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts Boston
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-07-01 至 2011-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0909393&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Using; pollen; assess; local; environmental

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Drs. John Steinberg, Heather Trigg, Douglas Bolender and their colleagues will use pollen samples to assess the parameters of environmental change around Viking Age farmsteads in Skagafjörður, Iceland. This work, if successful, will be a prelude to a larger project where the sampling strategy and analysis methods developed during the 2009 season would be applied across a whole range of socio-economic contexts and through the profound changes of Viking Age Iceland.The PI's seek to develop pollen sampling protocols and analysis strategies for investigating local environmental variation during the Viking Age in Iceland. The pollen record can provide a wealth of information about past regional and local environments and how they have changed. Properly assessing these changes around archaeological sites requires a high sampling density (temporal and spatial) as well as suitable counts of tree and non-arboreal pollen. Variation in these parameters can substantially change quality of data recovered beyond issues of time, cost, and area represented. Data collected in this experimental season will assess these parameters in preparation for a much larger future micro-environmental reconstruction project that would incorporate these methods into a regional study of settlement sequence and variation in farmstead production strategies. To establish sampling protocols and analytic strategies the team will investigate two farmsteads in the same region: Reynistaður and Medalheimur. Reynistadur, was one of the first farms settled in the region and was politically and economically prominent during the Viking Age and medieval periods. In contrast, Medalheimur was, in all likelihood, a poor sharecropper farm. The Skagafjörður Archaeological Settlement Survey (SASS) has extensively investigated both farmsteads as part of three previous grants from NSF. Pollen samples will be obtained from already identified archaeological and natural deposits at these two sites. Pollen results will be compared with macrobotanical and faunal evidence. The group will take pollen samples from occupational contexts (middens & dwelling floors), agricultural fields and pastures, and at nearby bogs. At both targeted farms there is macrobotantical evidence of barley consumption, and at Reynistaður, a suggestion of local barley production. Barley does not release a great deal of pollen and it does not travel far. A goal of this proposal is to determine if the team can identify cereal pollen and if so, the location of its production. If not, the potential of using a spectrum of pollen that is associated with grain agriculture as a proxy for local production, will be evaluated. The explicit comparison of the environmental history of successful large farmsteads against small, poor and sometimes unsuccessful farmsteads will allow the research team to answer basic questions about the intersecting roles of landscape change, farm production, and political economy in the early history of Iceland. From that data, The PI's and their colleagues hope to begin to understand the role of the fragile arctic environment in the social evolution of Viking Age chiefdoms to medieval manorial states.

该奖项由 2009 年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法 111-5）资助。约翰·斯坦伯格（John Steinberg）、希瑟·特里格（Heather Trigg）、道格拉斯·博伦德（Douglas Bolender）和他们的同事将使用花粉样本来评估冰岛斯卡加峡湾维京时代农场周围环境变化的参数。 这项工作如果成功，将成为一个更大项目的前奏，2009 年季节期间开发的采样策略和分析方法将应用于整个社会经济背景，并贯穿维京时代冰岛的深刻变化。PI 寻求开发花粉采样协议和分析策略，以调查冰岛维京时代的当地环境变化。 花粉记录可以提供有关过去区域和当地环境及其变化的丰富信息。 正确评估考古遗址周围的这些变化需要高采样密度（时间和空间）以及适当的树木和非树木花粉计数。 这些参数的变化可以极大地改变恢复的数据的质量，而不仅仅是时间、成本和所代表的面积问题。 在这个实验季节收集的数据将评估这些参数，为未来更大的微环境重建项目做准备，该项目将把这些方法纳入对定居序列和农田生产策略变化的区域研究中。为了建立采样方案和分析策略，该团队将调查同一地区的两个农场：Reynistaður 和 Medalheimur。 雷尼斯塔杜尔 (Reynistadur) 是该地区最早定居的农场之一，在维京时代和中世纪时期在政治和经济上具有重要地位。相比之下，梅达尔海姆很可能是一个贫穷的佃农农场。 作为国家科学基金会之前三项拨款的一部分，斯卡加峡湾考古聚落调查 (SASS) 对这两个农庄进行了广泛的调查。 花粉样本将从这两个地点已确定的考古和自然沉积物中获取。花粉结果将与宏观植物学和动物学证据进行比较。 该小组将从职业环境（垃圾堆和住宅地板）、农田和牧场以及附近的沼泽中采集花粉样本。 在两个目标农场都有大麦消费的宏观植物证据，而在 Reynistaður，则有当地大麦生产的迹象。 大麦不会释放大量花粉，也不会传播很远。 该提案的目标是确定该团队是否可以识别谷物花粉，如果可以，则确定其生产地点。如果没有，将评估使用与粮食农业相关的一系列花粉作为当地生产的替代品的潜力。通过将成功的大型农庄与小型、贫困甚至有时不成功的农庄的环境历史进行明确比较，研究小组将能够回答有关冰岛早期历史中景观变化、农业生产和政治经济的交叉作用的基本问题。 根据这些数据，PI 和他们的同事希望开始了解脆弱的北极环境在维京时代酋长国向中世纪庄园国家社会演变中的作用。