Landscapes of Settlement: Historical Ecology in Northern Iceland

在国家科学基金会的支持下，托马斯·麦戈文博士和他的同事们将在冰岛的一个中世纪定居点霍夫斯塔尔遗址进行为期三个季节的考古调查。1908年首次挖掘，研究人员发现了一个大型大厅结构，中央有一个长壁炉和侧凳，并假设它的功能是寺庙。最近的工作进一步揭示了这座建筑，并对周围的一系列房屋遗址进行了定位，表明该建筑群具有复杂的职业历史，可能主要是一个全面的高地位农庄。麦戈文博士将指导对该遗址的进一步研究，以了解它的功能如何随着时间的推移而变化，以及它的居住者如何从环境中获取食物，进而影响环境。他们将进行广泛的水平挖掘，并将其与农场内卫星站点和田地的广泛调查和测试相结合。他们还将对更广泛地区的遗址和特征进行取样。在维京时代，来自斯堪的纳维亚半岛和不列颠群岛的人类首先在冰岛定居，大量的当代文学描述了这一占领的后期阶段。这些文献记录（传奇、法典、编年史）为社会复杂的非国家社会提供了丰富的证据。这些著作被历史学家和人类学家用来研究冰岛和发展酋长制的一般理论。然而，尽管早期的定居时期是在传奇故事和其他后来的记载中描述的，但所有这些文件都可以追溯到公元1100年之后，显然是受中世纪而不是维京时期社会和经济背景影响很大的二手资料。前225年实际上是史前的，因此只有通过系统的考古和古生态调查才能理解。麦戈文博士的研究将有助于实现这一目标。这项工作将为人类与环境的相互作用以及人类行为对岛屿生态系统的影响提供重要的新线索。人类对当地动物、植被、土壤和排水模式的影响是迅速而深刻的。到公元950年，大约80%的原生灌丛林地已被清除，高海拔地区开始出现水土流失。到中世纪后期，地被物的加速流失导致了更广泛的侵蚀，大约40%的表土在人类定居和河流排水模式的大规模改变之前就存在了。因此，冰岛代表了工业化前人类对环境影响的一个极端案例，并为理解这种相互作用提供了一个极好的实验室。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Thomas McGovern and his colleagues will conduct three seasons of archaeological investigation at the site of Hofstadir, a medieval settlement in Iceland. First excavated in 1908, researchers uncovered a large hall structure with a central long fireplace and side benches and postulated it functioned as a temple. More recent work which has further uncovered the building and located a series of surrounding house sites indicates that the complex has a complicated occupational history and likely was primarily a full scale high status farmstead. Dr. McGovern will direct additional research at this site to understand how its function changed over time and how its occupants derived their sustenance from and in turn influenced the environment. They will conduct extensive horizontal excavation and combine this with extensive survey and test-pitting of satellite sites and fields within the farm. They will also sample sites and features in the broader region. Iceland was first settled by humans from Scandinavia and the British Isles during the Viking age and extensive contemporary literature describes the latter stages of this occupation. This documentary record (sagas, law codes, annals) provides rich evidence for a socially complex non-state society. These writings have been employed by historians and anthropologists for studies of Iceland and the development of general theories of chieftainship. However, although the early settlement period is described in sagas and other later accounts, all these documents date to after AD 1100 and are clearly secondary sources much influenced by medieval rather than Viking period social and economic contexts. The first 225 years are, in effect, prehistoric and thus can be understood only through systematic archaeological and paleoecological investigation. Dr. McGovern's research will help to accomplish this goal.The work will shed important new light on human environment interactions and the effect of human behavior on island ecosystems. Human impact on local animals, vegetation, soils and drainage patterns was rapid and profound. By 950 AD ca 80% of the native scrub woodlands had been cleared and soil erosion had begun in the higher elevations. By the later Middle Ages, accelerated loss of groundcover led to more widespread erosion of ca 40% of the topsoil present before human settlement and massive alteration of river drainage patterns. Iceland thus represents an extreme case of pre-industrial human impact on the environment and provides an excellent laboratory to understand such interactions.