E. Guttmann-Bond, J. Dungait, A. Brown, I. Bull, R. Evershed
{"title":"Early Neolithic Agriculture in County Mayo, Republic of Ireland: Geoarchaeology of the Céide Fields, Belderrig, and Rathlackan","authors":"E. Guttmann-Bond, J. Dungait, A. Brown, I. Bull, R. Evershed","doi":"10.3721/037.006.3002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3721/037.006.3002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Céide Fields, Belderrig, and Rathlackan are extensive early Neolithic field systems in County Mayo, Republic of Ireland. The Céide Fields are thought to be the earliest field systems in Europe, and as such they are listed as a potential World Heritage site. For this project, the buried soils of the 3 sites were analyzed in order to determine the nature and extent of the prehistoric land use within the field systems. The aims were twofold: to identify material added as fertilizer, and to determine whether the land was used for pasture or for arable agriculture. Soil phosphates and bile acids from the Neolithic soils indicate low levels of input of herbivore dung, and also some human fecal material in the Céide Fields. The results suggest that the soils may have been fertilized with animal manure.","PeriodicalId":38506,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the North Atlantic","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80511174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Resources, Production, and Trade in the Norse Shetland","authors":"J. Marttila","doi":"10.3721/037.006.2901","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3721/037.006.2901","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this paper, I use the research carried out by scholars in Shetland and the North Atlantic to analyze and discuss the resources available for the Norse in Shetland, including steatite, fishing, whales, seals, birds, animal husbandry, and cultivation of crops. I present the utilization and control of these resources in the context of trade in the North Atlantic, and also investigate the economic changes occurring during the late 1st and early 2nd millennium AD and their effects on the settlement in Shetland.","PeriodicalId":38506,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the North Atlantic","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89831920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Death and Display in the North Atlantic: The Bronze and Iron Age Human Remains from Cnip, Lewis, Outer Hebrides","authors":"I. Armit, F. Shapland","doi":"10.3721/037.002.SP902","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3721/037.002.SP902","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper revisits the series of disarticulated human remains discovered during the 1980s excavations of the Cnip wheelhouse complex in Lewis. Four fragments of human bone, including two worked cranial fragments, were originally dated to the 1st centuries BC/AD based on stratigraphic association. Osteoarchaeological reanalysis and AMS dating now provide a broader cultural context for these remains and indicate that at least one adult cranium was brought to the site more than a thousand years after the death of the individual to whom it had belonged.","PeriodicalId":38506,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the North Atlantic","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86618031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Re-Evaluating the Scottish Thing: Exploring a Late Norse Period and Medieval Assembly mound at Dingwall","authors":"O. O’Grady, D. Macdonald, S. MacDonald","doi":"10.3721/037.002.sp813","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3721/037.002.sp813","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this paper, we make a case for identification of a thing site at Dingwall in Scotland, which has previously only been known from place-name evidence. A complex of features associated with the thing is reconstructed through reference to a mound, known in the medieval period as the Mute hill of Dingwall, which is shown to have been closely associated with a legally bounded field and church. Results are presented from a detailed local historic landscape study with findings from the first modern archaeological exploration at the candidate assembly mound, including geophysical survey and excavation. We discuss the complexities of the site's historical and landscape context with reference to the expansion of Norse lordship into northern Scotland during the Viking Age and Late Norse Period, and a review of recently identified thing sites elsewhere in Scotland. A considered interpretation is achieved of the political context for the thing's establishment and reuse during the medieval period, with reference to radiocarbon dates from the mound and discussion of the potential for Late Norse and Early Gaelic influences.","PeriodicalId":38506,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the North Atlantic","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80740387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Between Marklo and Merseburg: Assemblies and Their Sites in Saxony from the Beginning of Christianization to the Time of the Ottonian Kings","authors":"C. Ehlers","doi":"10.3721/037.002.sp810","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3721/037.002.sp810","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract \u0000 Are there any continuities between the places of assemblies in Saxony before the Frankish conquest and after? What do we know about the sites and their locations, use, and function for the Saxons and the kings of the east-Frankish realm during the 10th century? This paper shows the spatial differences between the western part of Saxonia and the eastern regions and highlights chronological changes evident between the reign of the Carolingians and their successors, the Ottonian kings, which were of Saxon origin. … solam pene famam sequens in hac parte [de origine statuque gentis], nimia vetustate omnem fere certitudinem obscurante. “… I have to follow mostly the legends in this part [on the origins of the elder Saxons] because the distant time is darkening any certainty.” Widukind of Corvey, Res Gestae Saxonicae, book I, chapter 2","PeriodicalId":38506,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the North Atlantic","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83487876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Eddic Poetry: A Gateway to Late Iron Age Ladies of Law","authors":"A. Riisøy","doi":"10.3721/037.002.sp812","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3721/037.002.sp812","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article argues that eddic poetry, where females are described attending assemblies, swearing oaths, receiving compensation, and taking revenge, can provide some insight into the real “ladies of law” of pre-Christian Scandinavia. In Christian times, when “law” was seen to emanate from the male God, considerable changes were introduced.","PeriodicalId":38506,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the North Atlantic","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86097244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assembly Mounds in the Danelaw: Place-name and Archaeological Evidence in the Historic Landscape","authors":"Alexis Tudor Skinner, S. Semple","doi":"10.3721/037.002.sp809","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3721/037.002.sp809","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract \u0000 The mound as a focus for early medieval assembly is found widely throughout Northern Europe in the first millennium AD. Some have argued such features are evidence of early practices situated around places of ancestral importance, others that an elite need for legitimate power drove such adoptions. Elsewhere evidence for purpose-built mounds suggests they were intrinsic to the staging of events at an assembly and could be manufactured if needed. This paper builds on the results presented in the Ph.D. thesis of the first author. Here we take up the issue of meeting mounds, focusing on their role as sites of assembly in the Danelaw. This region of northern and eastern England was first documented in the early 11th century as an area subject to conquest and colonization from Scandinavia in the 9th century and beyond. The county of Yorkshire forms a case study within which we explore the use of the mound for assembly purposes, the types of monuments selected, the origins of these monuments and the activity at them, and finally the possible Scandinavian influences on assembly practices in the region.","PeriodicalId":38506,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the North Atlantic","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84297344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Performing Oaths in Eddic Poetry: Viking Age Fact or Medieval Fiction?","authors":"A. Riisøy","doi":"10.3721/037.002.sp811","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3721/037.002.sp811","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract It is argued here that eddic poetry, where oaths were sworn on items like rings and weapons, can provide insight into practices of swearing oaths in the real world of the Vikings. It is problematic that the earliest surviving manuscripts of the eddic poems date from the late 13th century, but other sources, including written sources from outside Scandinavia, evidence the existence of such oaths. The workings of the oaths rested on beliefs that the gods, and the items invoked in the process, would take vengeance on oath-breakers. When Christianity arrived, the procedure continued, but in a new wrapping: around the year 1000 A.D., God replaced the gods, items like weapons and rings disappeared from the procedure, and instead, people swore on items like the Bible or the cross. This transformation of a legal procedure rooted in heathen times into a procedure accepted in a Christian context seems to have taken place among the other Germanic peoples and Celts who converted to Christianity centuries before the new religion reached Scandinavia.","PeriodicalId":38506,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the North Atlantic","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85235065","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Factors for the Protection of Merchants in Early Medieval Northern Europe","authors":"Carsten Müller-Boysen","doi":"10.3721/037.002.SP814","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3721/037.002.SP814","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The very first historical sources which shed light on economic life in early medieval Scandinavia demonstrate that measures were being taken in order to provide for the security of trade. Merchants themselves made efforts to develop cooperative forms of organization designed to provide the greatest possible protection for life and goods when they were on the move. Kings and other territorial lords were also interested in removing threats to merchants and markets within their dominions, particularly since vigorous trade meant higher tax income for them. Early medieval Northern Europe witnessed the execution of economic policies designed to succor trade and direct it in orderly channels.","PeriodicalId":38506,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the North Atlantic","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74981867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gallows, Cairns, and Things: A Study of Tentative Gallows Sites in Shetland","authors":"J. Coolen","doi":"10.3721/037.002.sp808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3721/037.002.sp808","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract \u0000 In this paper, I summarize the evidence of former gallows sites in Shetland from place-names, oral traditions, historical records, and archaeological remains. I make an attempt to date the alleged places of execution by comparison of their spatial distribution with known or presumed historical assembly or court sites and districts. I argue that the Gallow Hills are associated with the post-medieval judicial organization of Shetland rather than the Norse division and may therefore be later in date than has been suggested before. Furthermore, I show that some of the oral traditions associated with the gallows sites reflect notions of liminality and hidden worlds that have parallels in other parts of northwestern Europe.","PeriodicalId":38506,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the North Atlantic","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74738139","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}