Hard Times at Hofstaðir

NE Iceland ca. 1250-1300

0 5kilometres

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HofstaðirHofstaðirHofstaðirHofstaðirHofstaðirHofstaðirHofstaðirHofstaðirHofstaðir

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Settlement site

Pagan burial

Pagan burial(Location inferred)

The Hofstaðir Problem A Failed Faith Based

Initiative ?

• The site of Hofstaðir has a huge long hall (>300 sq m vs. ca 60 sq m average).

• Clearly a working farm- BUT:• It had at least 24 cattle skulls

(including several bulls) set around the exterior walls.

• Cattle and sheep harvest profiles suggest some concentrations of animals killed in spring (prob. June), a pattern unlike other Mývatn archaeofauna.

• Abandoned (hall demolished). Small Christian chapel built ca AD 1000 just across field.

• Probably only 2-3 generations of use?

• In later medieval and early modern periods, Hofstaðir is a middle ranking farm, nothing special, but continuously occupied.

Christian Chapel AreaHildur Gestsdóttir FSI

Unreadable table 1-

AMS C14 indicate late 13th-early 14th c

cattle deaths,

Midden deposit is just on top of H 1300 tephraAMS Radiocarbon Chronology, Hofstaðir group (5114)(data courtesy Scottish Univ. Environmental Research Center SUERC)Lab Ref. # Material Context delta C-13 delta N-15 Radiocarbon age Calibrated 1 Sigma Calibrated 2 SigmaSUERC-45390 (GU 30005) Cattle bone collagen [5155] -21.8% 4.5% 735 +/- 45 BP 1227 -1292 (66.2%) 1211-1310 (88.3%)

1360-1387 (7.1%)

SUERC-45391 (GU 30006) Cattle bone collagen [5123] -21.4% 3.0% 809 +/-45 BP 1188-1199 (7.1%) 1058-1074 (1.7%)1206-1269 (61.1 %) 1154-1282 (93.7%)

Unreadable table 2

Lost dogs and cat…

Icelandic Annals for 1287 state that: “At this time, many severe winters came at once, and following them people died of hunger.”

Time & TEK

Iceland 875-1250 AD375 years~ 25 human generations

Greenland 985-1250 AD265 years~18 generations

13th Century environmental

managers: slightly

distracted

Civil War !

•Age of the Sturlungs:

•Five Great Families struggle to control all Iceland.

•Icelandic warlords seek kingship.

•Everyone loses.

•Iceland submits to Norway 1264.

From Miller et al (2012) “(a) Total solar irradiance (VSK [Schmidt et al.,2011]). (b) Global stratospheric sulfate aerosol loadings [Gao et al., 2008]. (c) Ice cap expansion dates based on a composite of 94 Arctic Canada calibrated 14C PDFs. (d) 30-year running mean varve thickness in Hvítárvatn sediment core HVT03-2 [Larsen et al., 2011]. (e) Arctic Ocean sea ice recorded in a sediment core on the north Iceland shelf [Massé et al., 2008]; heavy sea ice years correlate with anomalously cold summers across Iceland. (f) Temperature anomalies over southern Greenland (wrt 1881–1980 AD mean) from the borehole temperature inversion at DYE-3 [Dahl-Jensen et al.,

1998]”. Superposed box is one sigma range of HST 5114 C14 , red dotted line is Icelandic Annals report of famine in N Iceland.,

Conjunctures

• Proto-world system of ca. 1250-1300• Gásir (and other) trading centers• Competition to conflict 1200-1264 • Volcanic eruption c. 1257 • Sea ice formation, rapid cooling, onset of drift

ice in summer.• Harp seal biogeography• Hunger in Iceland & Adaptive Response