Ledger Paul M., Norse landnám and its impact on the vegetation of Vatnahverfi, Eastern Settlement, Greenland,

Norse landnám (initial settlement) in Greenland is dated to AD 985 and witnessed the introduction of pastoral farming to a landscape where people using settled agricultural systems had hitherto been absent. The Norse colony was centred on two locations: the Western (c. 64°N) and Eastern Settlements (c. 61°N), which historical, palaeoecological and archaeological data suggest were abandoned by the mid-14th and 15th centuries respectively. Vatnahverfi is an inland district of the Eastern Settlement that has been described as a rich, bountiful landscape and an excellent location for farming. This thesis presents an enquiry into the nature and impact of Norse land use in this inland region, and examines how it compares to patterns from more typical coastal farms. High-resolution pollen analysis, associated proxies and radiocarbon dating have produced eight detailed vegetation reconstructions of the pre-settlement landscape, vegetation and land-use changes consequent upon settlement, and the period following abandonment.
Prior to landnám, the inland valleys of Vatnahverfi supported Betula-Salix scrub and areas of Betula pubescens woodland. This vegetation cover thinned towards the coasts where open grasslands were more common. The presence of woodland in the interior indicates the availability of a key resource and late 10th to early 11th century dates for landnám point to the region having been a desirable settlement location. Data from pollen influx and coprophilous fungal spores associated with grazing animals, suggest a rich and productive cultural landscape. Poaceae pollen influx values, for instance, are often double those of farms elsewhere in the Eastern Settlement, implying higher hay yields that may have supported larger numbers of domesticates. Radiocarbon age-depth modelling of pollen sequences indicates that abandonment of farms in the region may have begun from the mid-13th century AD. This process likely culminated in the late 14th century when all the farms studied had fallen into disuse.