1. Sustainability and
Resilience in the North
Atlantic

2. Norse migration and potential subsequent trade
Norse settlement of North Atlantic
routes

3. The Vikings

4. Viking helmets?
Mad men?
(berserkers)

5. Viking Age Westward Expansion

6. The Viking Age &
the Norse Westward Expansion
• Norse “landnám package”
– Farming-based domestic economy
• Domestic animals
• Barley, flax, rye, oats, hay
– Supplemental use of wild food resources – “Natural
Capital”
• Fish, sea mammals, birds, reindeer, etc.

7. Natural Capital
• Wild species & lush landscapes serve to underwrite
landnám by reducing consumption of imported
domesticates
• Some resources might be expended - “natural capital” is
totally drawn down
• Others might be managed sustainably for long period of
time
• Participation in a community network was key for
continued access to most important wild resources
• Human impact story is NOT simple

8. Norse North Atlantic
Different choices- different outcomes to
climate changes
Communities in the
Atlantic islands
faced different
challenges, made
different choices
and faced different
outcomes.

9. Norse N. Atlantic: Different Geographies
Greenland: Iceland: Faroes:
Very large island- Large island- Everywhere close to sea
Distant resources Extensive interior Close to Europe
Short summer/pack ice Woodlands Open landscape
No accessible iron Bog iron deposits Marginal grain production
Pastoralism challenging Very marginal arable cultivation Pilot whales
Caribou No terrestrial mammals Birds and fish
Migrating seals Birds and fish
Other societies

10. Three 1: The unsurprising part. In the Faroe
contrasting Islands, sustainable practice, effective
utilization of wild resources, limited
outcomes in landscape impacts and successful
the face of adaptation to climate change on centennial
climatic time scales is associated with long-term
settlement success and the development
hazards of a prosperous society.

11. Sandur, Sandoy

12. Unðir Junkarinsfløtti

15. Communal
provisioning

16. Three
contrasting
outcomes in
the face of
climatic
hazards
2: In Iceland we have the
puzzle of Norse
sustainable practice,
successful adaptation Soil
and long-term success erosion
linked to extensive 2009
landscape degradation.

17. Same Beginnings, different
outcomes- deforestation & erosion

18. The Great Hall at Hofstaðir

19. Sveigakot
“Great Hall”

20. Skutustaðir, Lake Myvatn
Iceland

21. Three
contrasting
outcomes in
the face of
climatic
hazards
3: In Greenland, sustainable practice, limited landscape
impacts and successful adaptation to climate change on
centennial time scales was followed by settlement
abandonment in the mid 15th century.

23. Western Settlement, Greenland

24. Eastern Settlement, Greenland

28. Different choices & outcomes 1: Faroes

29. Human Impacts: Faroe Islands
• Little to no tree cover at settlement
– Grasses & peat
• Topography limited settlement locations
– Settlements clustered

30. Human Impacts: Faroe Islands
• Importance of Natural
Capital
– Coastal & marine
resources
– Peat
– Grasslands

32. Birding cliffs
Sea Village
(Infield)
Outfield

33. Homefields
Outlying field systems

35. Disruption of upland vegetation
generates sediment flux
KAM 3
First introduction of
herbivores to hill tops?

36. Deflation of Faroese
summits and dispersal
of silt a notable local
impact of landnám…
..a modest effect compared
to change in Iceland

37. The Faroes as success story
• Environmental:
– Creation of managed infield system
– No woodland to clear
– Limited soil erosion & peat removal
• Wild resources heavily, sustainably exploited
– Continued legacy
• Nucleated settlement
– Reinforces social interactions

38. Different choices & outcomes 2: Iceland

44. Legislated management system
• Exclusive grazing rights to hreppur
• Farm quotas for maximum number of sheep
– Penalty if exceeded
• Regulated grazing season
– Began given week in June
– Ended given week in September

46. 30
Proportions of cattle and sheep change
over time from 9th-11th c, varying from ca 2
25
-6 sheep per cow.
However, a major transition takes place ca
20 AD 1200: now 20-25 sheep per cow.
Caprine per cattle bone
This pattern continues to the 18th century
15
The wool-producing part of the flock – which
uses the highlands – dramatically increases
ca 1200
10
l 9th - e 10th c
10th c 11th-12th c
Creates far greater chance of upland
5
degradation
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47. 13th Century environmental
managers were slightly
distracted...
Civil W !
ar
•Age of the Sturlungs:
- Five Great Families struggle to control
all Iceland
- Icelandic warlords seek kingship
- Everyone loses
- Iceland submits to Norway 1264

48. The human impacts of climate
changes that were extreme (in terms
of their deviation for the mean of the
previous 15 years) were buffered by
the drawdown of natural (landscape)
capital and resulted in threshold-
crossing events.

49. Iceland: success at a cost
• Early establishment of environmental management &
regulation; sustainable exploitation of finite resources
(e.g. birds)
• When faced with predictable changes (e.g. woodland
clearance) adaptations were made to conserve a
landscape fit for purpose
• When faced with unpredictable change (e.g. climate
hazards) natural capitals could be drawn down to
maintain settlement

50. Different choices & outcomes 3:
Greenland

55. Travel time & connectedness
• With a 12-hr travel time, all settlement connected to each other
• Outer parts of fjord and skerries (seal hunting grounds) are only marginally
reached or not at all

56. Travel time & connectedness
• With deteriorating climate, travel conditions become more difficult
• Settlements concentrate on best farmland & in greater concentration
• But crucial marine food resources are now further away

57. Changing world systems – a double
exposure?
Plague may have reached Greenland
in 15th century; it certainly caused the
collapse of the Norwegian economy
(and market for ivory)
Triple
exposure?
Inuit contacts:
source of
conflict, or
source of
Exposure to step-wise climate trade goods
(furs)?
change
Settlement focused on marine
mammals for subsistence & trade
did not endure past the climate
hazards of mid 14th century

58. Lessons from the Viking Age
• In Greenland, successful adaptation led to the
development of a rigidity trap
– Path chosen by the Greenlanders created a society that could
not endure the conjunctures of climate hazard, economic
change & culture contact of the mid 15th century
• In contrast to Iceland & Faroe Islands, the exploitation of
marine resources in Greenland had greater exposure to
climate hazards
– Faroe Islands faced less extreme climate change
– Icelanders could utilise greater pastoral resources (and drawn
down landscape capitals)
– Greenlanders died

59. Lessons from the Viking Age
People can...
• Creatively adapt to new environments
• Build up centuries of community-based managerial
experience
• Wisely conserve fragile resources
• Maintain long-term (century-scale) sustainable patterns
of life & society
• …and still face localized collapse and extinction

60. Lessons from the Viking Age
Scales & cross-scale interactions
• Distances matter
– Utilization of dispersed resources carries cost, especially when
settlements are fixed
– Dispersed systems are vulnerable to increased travel costs
• Strong communal interaction can be a strength, but
collapse of a well-integrated system can kill everyone…