Zooarchaeology and Icelandic Fisheries- Progress and Potentials

• In Event: Navigating the North Atlantic Past through Archaeology, History and the Environmental Humanities

Abstract

While fishing is arguably the cornerstone of the success of the Norse colony on Iceland little attention has been paid to the medieval dried fish production sites that dot Iceland’s coast. Emerging in Iron Age Scandinavia, a method for air drying gadids was imported to Iceland during the Viking Age; servicing the domestic trade in this durable protein. It’s during the 15th century that continental European mercantile organizations begin to trade in Iceland for considerable quantities of dried fish products fueling the growth of large fishing stations as well as a backlash from the Icelandic elite class. The proto-industrial level of dried fish production had serious social and likely environmental ramifications which have been explored archaeologically through the excavation of a handful of fishing sites around Iceland by members of the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO). This paper will provide an overview of some of this work and discuss the potential for future transdisciplinary research involving historians, archaeologists, aDNA specialists, marine biologists, fisheries managers and others.

Authors

• Francis Feeley, Graduate Center of the City University of New York

• Ramona Harrison, University of Bergen