Challenges and solutions Northern Worlds – Report from workshop 2 at the National Museum, 1 November 2011 Edited by Hans Christian Gulløv, Peter Andreas Toft and Caroline Polke Hansgaard Challenges and solutions Report from workshop 2 at the National Museum, 1 November 2011 Copyright © The National Museum and the authors 2012 Edited by Hans Christian Gulløv, Peter Andreas Toft and Caroline Polke Hansgaard Translated and revised by James Manley Layout Anne Marie Brammer Printed in Denmark by Rosendahls – Schultz Grafisk ISBN: 978-87-7602-192-4 Published with financial support from the Augustinus Foundation and the National Museum A digital version of the publication can be found on the home page of the National Museum: http://nordligeverdener.natmus.dk Front cover illustration: Rødøy in Flatøysund, Alstahaug area, Helgeland, South Nordland Photo: Flemming Kaul Northern Worlds – Challenges and solutions Report from workshop 2 at the National Museum, 1 November 2011 Edited by Hans Christian Gulløv, Peter Andreas Toft and Caroline Polke Hansgaard Copenhagen 2012 2 Contents • Challenges and solutions – status of Northern Worlds 6 Hans Christian Gulløv • A sense of snow? Archaeology, weather and the conception 9 of northernness | Bjørnar Olsen Research theme A Climate changes and society: When climate boundaries move 24 • The landscape and climate of the early Mesolithic hunters 26 of Lundby Mose, southern Zealand – The end of the last glacial period and the Preboreal warming | Catherine Jessen • ’Small trees’ from North East Greenland | Claudia Baittinger 30 • Kitchen middens and climate change – what happens if 36 permafrozen archaeological remains thaw? Henning Matthiesen, Jørgen Hollesen and Jan Bruun Jensen • Conservation and drying methods for archaeological 42 materials modified for use in northern areas Martin Nordvig Mortensen, Inger Bojesen-Koefoed, Jan Bruun Jensen, Poul Jensen, Anne Le Boëdec Moesgaard, Natasa Pokubcic, Kristiane Strætkvern, David Gregory, Lars Aasbjerg Jensen, Michelle Taube and Nanna Bjerregaard Pedersen • The Weather War: The German operation ‘Bassgeiger’ 46 on Shannon Island 1943/44 | Tilo Krause and Jens Fog Jensen • Depopulation of the Cape Farewell region | Einar Lund Jensen 55 • The whaler and the ostrich egg – Introduction to a project 58 on life on the North Frisian Islands and whaling in the Arctic Ocean | Christina Folke Ax Research theme B Farming on the edge: Cultural landscapes of the North 70 • Agricultural landscapes of Arctic Norway | Flemming Kaul 72 • Pioneering farmers cultivating new lands in the North 87 – The expansion of agrarian societies during the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Scandinavia | Lasse Sørensen • Shetland – the Border of Farming 4000-3000 B.C.E. 125 Ditlev L. Mahler • Resources, mobility and cultural identity in Norse Green- 137 land 2005-2010 | Jette Arneborg and Christian Koch Madsen • Pastures Found… Farming in Greenland (re)introduced 142 Christian Koch Madsen • Churches, Christianity and magnate farmers in the Norse 167 Eastern Settlement | Jette Arneborg • Greenland dietary economy | Jette Arneborg 171 • Agriculture on the edge – the first finds of cereals in Norse 174 Greenland | Peter Steen Henriksen Northern Worlds Workshop 2 4 Contents Research theme C Networks in the North: 178 Communication, trade and culture markers • A common sea – the Skagerrak and the Kattegat in the 180 Viking Age | Anne Pedersen • Networks in the north – foreign artifacts in the hands of 187 the Vikings | Maria Panum Baastrup • Nørremølle – the largest Viking silver hoard of Bornholm 192 – Interactions in the Baltic Sea | Gitte Tarnow Ingvardson • Greenlandic runic inscriptions | Lisbeth M. Imer 200 • Skin Clothing from the North | Anne Lisbeth Schmidt 205 Close-up of a string of beads on an amaut, a woman’s jacket, combining large worn 18th-century glass beads with unworn seed beads produced in the 19th century. Photo: Peter Andreas Toft. Pinhoulland seen from the • Challenges of cultural and colonial encounters – European 209 north west down commodities in the Historical Thule Culture | Peter Andreas Toft towards Voe of Browland. Photo: D. Mahler. • Timber houses in Greenland – diffusion and innovation 228 Niels Bonde, Thomas S. Bartholin, Claudia Baittinger and Helge Paulsen • Tunit and the birds – echoes of another world 231 Martin Appelt and Mari Hardenberg • Memory of a myth – a unique Late Dorset ritual structure 247 Ulla Odgaard • Pre-Christian Cult Sites – archaeological investigations 261 Josefine Franck Bican, Anna Severine Beck and Susanne Klingenberg • Contributors 269 Northern Worlds Workshop 2 6 Challenges and solutions – status of Northern Worlds Hans Christian Gulløv Koordinator On 1 November 2011 the National Mu- hind this theme was to evaluate the seum’s cross-disciplinary research initi- various solution models that the individ- ative ‘Northern Worlds’ held a workshop ual projects had to make use of in order with a presentation and discussion of a to tackle the challenges that had number of projects which, under the emerged since the formulation of the heading ‘Challenges and solutions’, tasks set. demonstrated the breadth of this initia- tive. The theme was thus meant to challenge the individual researcher’s choice of At present the initiative consists of 20 method and the theoretical content of separate investigations and PhD projects the project, which was associated with as well as two associated research pro- one of the three overall research sub- grammes, all of which are presented in jects that constitute the bearing idea of the following pages of this publication. Northern Worlds: Climate changes and Some of the investigations have been society – Farming on the edge – Net- concluded since the initiative was offi- works in the North. cially launched on 1 January 2010, but subsequently a few new ones have been A cross-disciplinary initiative like North- added. ern Worlds, built up on the basis of projects that came in from seven of the The theme of the workshop was ‘Chal- museum’s ten research-conducting lenges and solutions’, and it was meant units, is thus not a project in itself. It is to follow up on the workshop held ear- rather a concept that can concentrate lier with the title ‘Changes and chal- and challenge thinking as long as one lenges’ (Gulløv et al. 2011). The idea be- knows what ‘the northern’ actually is. However, there seems to be no doubt gen, with her analytical challenges to about this in the following presentations Northern Worlds. She introduced the of the projects involved; and yet there is concepts ‘perspectivization’, perceived a search for another approach to the in terms of similarities and differences, concept than geography and climate, and ‘scales’, perceived in terms of rela- both of which are postulated to consti- tions and connections (Hastrup 2011). tute and determine ‘the northern’. The concept of ‘the northern’ can how- At the previous workshop such a new ever also be perceived in terms of an ar- approach was presented by Professor chaeological point of view, as it is in the Kirsten Hastrup of the Department of following by Professor Bjørnar Olsen, Anthropology, University of Copenha- Department of Archaeology and Social Northern Worlds Workshop 2 8 Anthropology, University of Tromsø, who As will be evident from this stocktaking as the invited guest speaker turned the of the projects presented, these have focus on ‘A sense of snow’. His lecture come a long way in the extensive work is featured here in full. with the collected empirical data, and solutions to the issue of the projects can The main point of Bjørnar Olsen’s pres- be outlined. Kirsten Hastrup and Bjørnar entation is to underscore the vital differ- Olsen have made it clear to us that ence between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’, Northern Worlds as a concept can be whose significance as concepts can only analysed phenomenologically, that the be clarified when we begin to form con- discursive approach (Hastrup) and an in- ceptions of mankind’s use of the land- tuitive approach (Olsen) to the concept scape, which in the northern hemisphere of Northern Worlds are both necessary lies barren for large parts of the year. to our understanding, and that it is in “The inclusion of winter and snow adds the context of the interaction of human to our already rich portfolio of experi- beings, landscapes and histories that ences and memories achieved through we must see the new results of the re- our ordinary summer fieldwork and in- search initiative. creases the interpretative and heuristic potential of our discipline [...] Bringing winter and snow to this experiential References record may prove decisive for how we Gulløv, H.C., Paulsen, C. & Rønne, B. 2011. activate this difference and make it Ændringer og udfordringer – Nord lige traceable as manifest deposits in the Verdener. Rapport fra workshop 1 på texts and images we are producing [...] Nationalmuseet 29. september 2010. to activate our material experiences of Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen. being in the north, activate the tacit knowledge achieved through many en- Hastrup, K. 2011. Perspektiver og ska- counters with northern places, with north- laer: Analytiske udfordringer til Nordlige ern people and things and the skills they Verdener. In Gulløv, H.C., Paulsen, C. & possess about being in the north”. With Rønne, B. (eds.), Ændringer og udfordrin- his personal experiences as his point of ger, pp. 6-17. departure Bjørnar Olsen succeeds in vita- lizing the concept of Northern Worlds and shedding clarifying light on the cross- disciplinary research initiative. A sense of snow? Archaeology, weather and the conception of northernness Bjørnar Olsen University of Tromsø When asked to give this keynote address I was on my summer vacation. I was in a surprisingly good mood (for me), and I immediately and carelessly accepted; the workshop seemed ages ahead anyway. Autumn came, and in my initial preparations I slowly and with increasing clear-sightedness started to realize how extensive and varied the interdisci- plinary Northern Worlds research programme of the Danish National Muse- um really was. My confidence was not boosted much by discovering that the theme chosen for the workshop was “challenges and solutions”.