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Peat sequences in close proximity to former Norse farmsteads in southern Greenland are valuable palaeoecological archives for exploring the impacts of the 10th century Norse colonisation. Unfortunately they are far from widespread and many would be considered suboptimal for palaeoecological analysis owing to the taphonomic complexities perceived to be associated with their depositional environments. This paper explores the value of one such archive from the Vatnahverfi region of southern Greenland. On the basis of field observations, a problematic depositional context was anticipated and this is borne out in the contradictory palynological results which demonstrate evidence for agriculture and abandonment in contemporary horizons and radiocarbon age-depth reversals. Multiple working hypotheses are developed to explicitly demonstrate the equally plausible, but starkly different, interpretations that are possible from these data. To refine our interpretations we apply pollen preservation analysis and multivariate statistical analysis of this dataset with a large well dated fossil dataset from the same region. In so doing, this paper highlights the value of ordination as a chronological tool and the importance of pollen preservation analysis in interpreting taphonomically-complex depositional environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Palynological research is increasingly revealing the landscape impacts of Norse colonisation in southern Greenland. Typically, although not exclusively, these studies are from depositional environments with highly localised pollen source areas close to fjord-side centres of medieval power. In contrast, this paper presents data from Vatnahverfi, an inland district of the Eastern Settlement, and explores the emergence of a cultural landscape through three pollen sequences at variable distances from Norse farms. Two are from mires with small pollen source areas close to (<100m) and distant from (=1500m) probable farming activities. The other provides a more regional signal of vegetation change, albeit one located close to a Norse settlement. Landnám is marked primarily through an increase in microscopic charcoal and the appearance of pollen from Rumex acetosella, although significant differences between profiles are noted. Close to Norse ruins, pollen productivity from grassland communities increases and woodland and scrub representation declines. Further from archaeological remains, palynologically inferred human activity is primarily characterised by decreased productivity, notably declining influx from woodland and scrub species, reflecting grazing herbivores or coppicing. Abandonment of Vatnahverfi is indicated from the late 14th to early 15th century AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transhumance agriculture formed a key component of subsistence strategies in the Norse economies of the North Atlantic, with evidence of shielings or sæters found in Norway, Scotland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland. It is frequently assumed to have played a role in Norse Greenland, yet little enquiry has been made into such activity. This paper seeks to address this deficit, presenting the first palaeoenvironmental study of a suspected Greenlandic shieling site in the uplands of the former Norse Eastern Settlement. Pollen analysis, 14C and associated proxies are used to date and assess the environmental and landscape impact of shieling activity. Evidence for vegetation disturbance associated with Norse settlement is indicated from c. ad 985, but the shieling itself is interpreted as having been established somewhat later (cal. ad 1050–1150). Initially the site appears to have been used exclusively for grazing of livestock and there is tentative evidence for the use of burning to stimulate the spread of pastures. Pollen influx figures suggest the intensification, or initiation, of hay production c. cal. 1225–1325 reflecting either the spread of settlement from the lowland valleys, or evolution of the site into a full farm in response to population pressure. A reduction of human impact cal. ad 1300–1390 suggests a reversion to shieling activity, indicating similarities to transhumance in northern Iceland. Abandonment of the site dates to cal. ad 1325–1415 and is in agreement with previous evidence from Norse Greenland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim This paper integrates pollen-analytical data from sites across southern Greenland to revisit the debate regarding which plants may have been introduced during the Norse colonization or landnám c. ad 985. Location Palynological data are drawn from 14 sites (lakes and mires) located within the former Eastern Settlement of Norse Greenland ( c. 60.9° N, 45.5° W). Methods Maps are presented displaying palynological data for three taxa ( Rumex acetosella, Polygonum aviculare and Achillea millefolium), which earlier scholars have argued are 'Old Norse' anthropochores. The maps display pollen frequencies at regular ( c. 100-year) intervals across a period ( ad 800-1500) encompassing Norse settlement. Results Maps for c. ad 800 and 900 (prior to Norse arrival) display the taxa as locally absent, with the appearance and expansion of their pollen at multiple sites from c. ad 1000 ( landnám) providing support for the assumption that each taxon arrived with the first settlers. A general and widespread decline in pollen frequencies for these 'Old Norse' elements on the c. ad 1500 map (following Norse abandonment) demonstrates a close connection between these plants and a cultural landscape that was shaped and maintained predominantly via animal husbandry. Main conclusions Patterns emerging from this exercise may initiate wider debates related to the pattern and character of the Norse colonization of Greenland. It is suggested that differences in the function or role of farm sites could have led to the creation of greater areas of favourable habitat for ' Old Norse' flora in some locations relative to others, and that uneven patterns of colonization and the spread of ' Old Norse' plants might be explained if their introduction - presumably from Iceland - first occurred at only a few locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]