Perspective of landscape change following early settlement (landnám) in Svalbarðstunga, northeastern Iceland

Abstract

A series of peat monoliths was collected from Hjálmarvík, Kúðá and Bægístaðir, three abandoned farm sites located on a transect extending from the coast to 18 km inland in the Svalbarðstunga region (northeastern Iceland) in order to document the impact of human occupation and patterns of land use on landscape change and vegetation. Svalbarðstunga is of considerable interest because of the geographical and ecological features that distinguish it from other regions of Iceland, in particular by the more direct influence of the cold East Greenland Current (EGC). Plant and insect macrofossils and diatoms identified in peat monoliths provided proxy indicators of human settlement and land use that in some cases corroborate, and in others expand upon, existing archaeological and historical dates. Based on the presence of ecofacts (calcined bones, fish bones and charcoal), synanthropic insects and some anthropogenic plant‐indicators (e.g. weeds), we showed that there was a consistent occupation and use of the coastal site of Hjálmarvík since AD 970. At Kúðá, the scenario is quite different. Two periods of occupation or land use were identified: from prior to c. AD 960 to 1190 and from c. AD 1650 to 1870. In the 15th and into the 16th centuries, the decrease in the deposition of traces of fuel wastes around the inland farm sites (Kúðá and Bægístaðir) suggests that they were used much less frequently. The decline of such proxies for human occupation occurred shortly before the occurrence of the coldest conditions from the 16th to the 17th centuries as well as prior to the V1477 eruption, suggesting that these natural factors may not have been the primary or unique driver of changing modes of tenancy. A scenario of famine‐related depopulation would have played a significant role in this decrease in the human impact on vegetation.