Footprints on the Edge of Thule: Landscapes of Norse-Indigenous Interaction

A Major New Research Programme

Abstract

In 2001 in response to a call for proposals on the topic of “Long-term settlement in the Ancient World” under The Leverhulme Trust Research Programmes Scheme, several of the current authors submitted a successful application for a project “Landscapes circum-Landnám: Viking settlement in the North Atlantic and its human and ecological consequences.” Fundamental to this was the examination of the nature of human impacts on the landscapes of what were then essentially unoccupied North Atlantic islands
(the Faroe Islands, Iceland and southern Greenland, see Fig. 1), and the use of a suite of interdisciplinary alaeoenvironmental techniques to address questions of change. The project had a 5-year currency (June 2002–May 2007); papers relating to that project are still being published, and more than 80 refereed publications have already appeared.

Following a review by The Leverhulme Trust, we were invited to submit a proposal for further support with the recommendation that while a new award, if granted, should be “related” to the first, it should inter alia consider new questions in different geographical and thematic areas. Consequently, a proposal submitted by the first four authors of this paper sought to develop
the notion of Norse impacts via not simply the signal deriving from the Norse period sensu stricto, but also any subtle indications of Norse-indigenous interactions in peripheral areas of the near-Arctic North Atlantic region, including Greenland and northern Scandinavia. We aimed to build upon and develop further the lessons and understanding acquired from the initial Landnám project to:

• examine the landscapes of interaction between incoming and indigenous
  groups around the Atlantic Arctic periphery;
• investigate the human and environmental interactions prior to, and set in
  motion by, successive colonization events;
• assess local interactions between environment, settlement, economy and
  subsistence within the context of medieval and later climate change;
• consider the impact of European demand for commodities on the biota of
  the near-Arctic North Atlantic, and the resulting adaptation of subsistence
  hunter-fisher and herding systems;
• foster international and interdisciplinary collaboration, including the encouragement
  of a new generation of researchers.

The proposal was successful and support for the new project, “Footprints on the edge of Thule: Landscapes of Norse-indigenous interaction,” was granted for a 4-year period (September 2007–August 2011). Within our own institutions, the project involves most directly 14 researchers (including 5 post-doctoral fellows and 5 PhD students). In addition to this, there is valuable cooperation from within the UK and internationally.