Contact, Continuity, And Collapse: Norse Colonization Of North America (sem 5) (studies In The Early Middle Ages)

This collection of ten papers investigates the Norse colonization of the North Atlantic region, starting with Viking expansion in Arctic Norway and ending with a discussion of the longterm implications of medieval Scandinavian exploration of the New World. Each chapter provides a short regional synthesis of the archaeological evidence and, where appropriate, addresses three interrelated themes: the relationship between native and newcomer; the creation of local identities in the settlement period; the relationship between archaeology, history and the construction of modern national identities. In sequence, the chapters focus on North Norway, the Faeroes, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, the Inuits of Smith Sound, L'Anse aux Meadows and Vinland, together with introductory and concluding chapters. "This volume explores the Viking Age colonization and exploration of the North Atlantic, from Arctic Norway to Vinland in eastern North America. Its contributors, predominately archaeologists by training, bring new evidence and an interdisciplinary perspective to a subject often dominated by sources of variable historicity. They explore the creation and transformation of ethnicity in new lands - some occupied, others empty. They also address the historiography of Norse Landnam, unravelling the processes by which scholarly interpretations of the Viking Age have been created. The result illuminates the consequences of migration in the early Middle Ages and the interplay of local and large-scale socio-economic processes. In concluding, the volume assesses the relationship between Norse expansion and later European 'rediscovery' of the New World."--Jacket Preliminaries 1 Contents 7 Introduction -1 Belligerent Chieftains and Oppressed Hunters -1 The Early Settlement of the Faroe Islands -1 Culture Contact in Viking Age Scotland -1 The Vikings and Ireland Ethnicity Identity and Culture Change -1 Norse Greenland: Reflections on Settlement and Depopulation 179 Inuit-Norse Contact in the Smith Sound Region 199 L’Anse aux Meadows and Vinland: An Abandoned Experiment 223 Epilogue 255 Index 265 Preliminaries......Page 1 Contents......Page 7 The Vikings and Ireland Ethnicity Identity and Culture Change......Page 0 Norse Greenland: Reflections on Settlement and Depopulation......Page 179 Inuit-Norse Contact in the Smith Sound Region......Page 199 L’Anse aux Meadows and Vinland: An Abandoned Experiment......Page 223 Epilogue......Page 255 Index......Page 265 Edited By James H. Barrett. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.