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

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。John Steinberg, Heather Trigg， Douglas Bolender和他们的同事将使用花粉样本来评估冰岛Skagafjörður维京时代农场周围环境变化的参数。这项工作，如果成功，将是一个更大的项目的前奏，在这个项目中，2009年季节开发的采样策略和分析方法将应用于整个社会经济背景，并通过维京时代冰岛的深刻变化。该项目旨在开发花粉取样协议和分析策略，以调查冰岛维京时代当地环境的变化。花粉记录可以提供关于过去区域和当地环境以及它们如何变化的丰富信息。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花粉计数。这些参数的变化会大大改变恢复数据的质量，而不仅仅是时间、成本和所表示的面积的问题。在这个试验季节收集的数据将评估这些参数，为将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关于定居顺序和农场生产战略变化的区域研究。为了建立采样方案和分析策略，研究小组将调查同一地区的两个农场：reynista - ður和Medalheimur。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都很突出。相比之下，Medalheimur很可能是一个贫穷的佃农农场。Skagafjörður考古聚落调查（SASS）广泛调查了这两个农场，作为NSF之前三笔赠款的一部分。将从这两个地点已经确定的考古和自然沉积物中获得花粉样本。花粉结果将与大型植物学和动物学证据进行比较。该小组将从职业环境（花园和住宅地板）、农田和牧场以及附近的沼泽中采集花粉样本。在这两个目标农场都有大麦消费的宏观植物证据，在reynista - ður，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。这项提议的一个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有关的花粉谱作为当地生产的代表的潜力。将成功的大型农场与小的、贫穷的、有时不成功的农场的环境历史进行明确的比较，将使研究小组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交叉作用的基本问题。根据这些数据，PI和他们的同事们希望开始了解脆弱的北极环境在维京时代酋邦到中世纪庄园国家的社会演变中的作用。

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.