Re: Cod Fish, Walrus, and Chieftains


Philip Deitiker wrote:
> In sci.archaeology, Peter Alaca created a message ID
> news:4381d39e$0$76650$dbd41001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>
> > The Icelanders drew upon an Iron Age heritage to
> > intensify a staple goods economy based
> > increasingly upon preserved cod-family fish that
> > ultimately linked them closely to the expanding
> > proto-capitalist economies of later medieval
> > Europe.
> > Greenlanders instead intensified the hunting of
> > walrus to produce the prestige goods component
> > of the Viking Age chiefly economy.
> > As social and environmental change intensified in
> > the later Middle Ages, Greenland's economy failed
> > and the colony became extinct while Icelanders
> > survived. New zooarchaeological approaches to
> > the study of pre-state chiefly economics are
> > transforming our understanding of the history of
> > this key region.
>
> Iceland has trees although not a great many, Greenland did
> not. Its hard to work Iron without wood.
> Iceland was frozen in a few times, also population
> collapses did occurred.

It is estimated that ca 30-40% of Iceland was tree covered when it was
settled but the tree cover declined slowly at first until the almost
the entire tree cover had disappeared by the end of the 19th century.
(ca 2% of Iceland is tree covered today)
Iceland was never "frozen" since the end of the last ice age, the
glaciers started to grow after 1400 and reached maximum around 1880,
they have been slowly reatreating since then, with the exception of the
period 1970-2000 when many of the glaciers started to grow again.
The population of Iceland did never collapse, it is estimated to have
been around 75 000 in 930 and slowly declined until the late 18th
century when the population was around 40 000 after a volcanic eruption
that devastated a large area in the south east of Iceland.

.

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