̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - James Barrett

Over-hunting walruses contributed to the collapse of Norse Greenland

fpjl2 — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 12:30:00 +0000

Medieval Greenlanders may have chased dwindling walrus herds ever farther north in an effort to maintain their economy, when the value of walrus ivory tanked after the introduction of elephant tusks into European markets in the 1200s.

Lost Norse of Greenland fuelled the medieval ivory trade, ancient walrus DNA suggests

fpjl2 — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 23:53:31 +0000

̽��ֱ��Icelandic Sagas tell of Erik the Red: exiled for murder in the late 10th century he fled to southwest Greenland, establishing its first Norse settlement.

̽��ֱ��colony took root, and by the mid-12th century there were two major settlements with a population of thousands. Greenland even gained its own bishop.

By the end of the 15th century, however, the Norse of Greenland had vanished – leaving only abandoned ruins and an enduring mystery.

Past theories as to why these communities collapsed include a change in climate and a hubristic adherence to failing farming techniques.

Some have suggested that trading commodities with Europe – most notably walrus tusks – may have been vital to sustaining the Greenlanders. Ornate items including crucifixes and chess pieces were fashioned from walrus ivory by craftsmen of the age. However, the source of this ivory has never been empirically established.

Now, researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Oslo have studied ancient DNA from offcuts of tusks and skulls, most found on the sites of former ivory workshops across Europe, in order to trace the origin of the animals used in the medieval trade.

In doing so they have discovered an evolutionary split in the walrus, and revealed that the Greenland colonies may have had a “near monopoly” on the supply of ivory to Western Europe for over two hundred years.

For the latest study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the research team analysed walrus samples found in several medieval trading centres – Trondheim, Bergen, Oslo, Dublin, London, Schleswig and Sigtuna – mostly dating between 900 and 1400 CE.

̽��ֱ��DNA showed that, during the last Ice Age, the Atlantic walrus divided into two ancestral lines, which researchers term “eastern” and “western”. Walruses of the eastern lineage are widespread across much of the Arctic, including Scandinavia. Those of the western, however, are unique to the waters between western Greenland and Canada.

Finds from the early years of the ivory trade were mostly from the eastern lineage. Yet as demand grew from the 12th century onwards, the research team discovered that Europe’s ivory supply shifted almost exclusively to tusks from the western lineage.

They say that ivory from western linage walruses must have been supplied by the Norse Greenlanders – by hunting and perhaps also by trade with the indigenous peoples of Arctic North America.

“ ̽��ֱ��results suggest that by the 1100s Greenland had become the main supplier of walrus ivory to Western Europe – a near monopoly even,” said Dr James H. Barrett, study co-author from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology.

“ ̽��ֱ��change in the ivory trade coincides with the flourishing of the Norse settlements on Greenland. ̽��ֱ��populations grew and elaborate churches were constructed.

“Later Icelandic accounts suggest that in the 1120s, Greenlanders used walrus ivory to secure the right to their own bishopric from the king of Norway. Tusks were also used to pay tithes to the church,” said Barrett.

He points out that the 11th to 13th centuries were a time of demographic and economic boom in Europe, with growing demand from urban centres and the elite served by transporting commodities from increasingly distant sources.

“ ̽��ֱ��demands for luxury goods produced from ivory may have helped the far-flung Norse communities in Greenland survive for centuries,” said Barrett.

Co-author Dr Sanne Boessenkool of the ̽��ֱ�� of Oslo said: “We knew from the start that analysing ancient DNA would have the potential for new historical insights, but the findings proved to be particularly spectacular.”

̽��ֱ��new study tells us less about the end of the Greenland colonies, say Barrett and colleagues. However, they note that it is hard to find evidence of walrus ivory imports to Europe that date after 1400.

Elephant ivory eventually became the material of choice for Europe’s artisans. “Changing tastes could have led to a decline in the walrus ivory market of the Middle Ages,” said Barrett.

Ivory exports from Greenland could have stalled for other reasons: over-hunting can cause walrus populations to abandon their coastal “haulouts”; the “Little Ice Age” – a sustained period of lower temperatures – began in the 14th century; the Black Death ravaged Europe.

"Whatever caused the cessation of Europe’s trade in walrus ivory, it must have been significant for the end of the Norse Greenlanders,” said Barrett. “An overreliance on a single commodity, the very thing which gave the society its initial resilience, may have also contained the seeds of its vulnerability.”

̽��ֱ��heyday of the walrus ivory trade saw the material used for exquisitely carved items during Europe’s Romanesque art period. ̽��ֱ��church produced much of this, with major ivory workshops in ecclesiastical centres such as Canterbury, UK.

Ivory games were also popular. ̽��ֱ��Viking board game hnefatafl was often played with walrus ivory pieces, as was chess, with the famous Lewis chessmen among the most stunning examples of Norse carved ivory.

Tusks were exported still attached to the walrus skull and snout, which formed a neat protective package that was broken up at workshops for ivory removal. These remains allowed the study to take place, as DNA extraction from carved artefacts would be far too damaging.

Co-author Dr Bastiaan Star of the ̽��ֱ�� of Oslo said: “Until now, there was no quantitative data to support the story about walrus ivory from Greenland. Walruses could have been hunted in the north of Russia, and perhaps even in Arctic Norway at that time. Our research now proves beyond doubt that much of the ivory traded to Europe during the Middle Ages really did come from Greenland”.

̽��ֱ��research was funded by the Leverhulme Trust, Nansenfondet and the Research Council of Norway.

New DNA analysis reveals that, before their mysterious disappearance, the Norse colonies of Greenland had a “near monopoly” on Europe’s walrus ivory supply. An overreliance on this trade may have contributed to Norse Greenland’s collapse when the medieval market declined.

̽��ֱ��very thing which gave the society its initial resilience, may have also contained the seeds of its vulnerability

James Barrett

Left: James H. Barrett. Right: Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Left: Upper jaw bones of a walrus, with tusks removed. Right: an elaborately-carved ecclesiastical walrus ivory plaque.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Frozen in time: glacial archaeology on the roof of Norway

lmb97 — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 09:49:48 +0000

Climate change is one of the most important issues facing people today and year on year the melting of glacial ice patches in Scandinavia, the Alps and North America reveals and then destroys vital archaeological records of past human activity.

Enter the glacial archaeologists – specialists who rescue now-threatened artefacts and study the relationship between variability in climate and the intensity of human use of alpine landscapes.

Focusing on Jotunheimen and the surrounding mountain areas of Oppland, which include Norway’s highest mountains (to 2649m), an international team of researchers have conducted a systematic survey at the edges of the contracting ice, recovering artefacts of wood, textile, hide and other organic materials that are otherwise rarely preserved.

To date, more than 2000 artefacts have been recovered. Some of the finds date as far back as 4000 BC and include arrows, Iron Age and Bronze Age clothing items and remains of skis and packhorses.

By statistical analysis of radiocarbon dates on these incredibly unusual finds, patterns began to emerge showing that they do not spread out evenly over time. Some periods have many finds while others have none. What could have caused this chronological patterning – human activity and/or past climate change?

These questions are the focus of a new study published today in Royal Society Open Science.

“One such pattern which really surprised us was the possible increase in activity in the period known as the Late Antique Little Ice Age (c. 536 – 660 AD)," says Dr James H. Barrett, an environmental archaeologist at Cambridge's McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and senior study author.

"This was a time of cooling; harvests may have failed and populations may have dropped. Remarkably, though, the finds from the ice may have continued through this period, perhaps suggesting that the importance of mountain hunting (mainly for reindeer) increased to supplement failing agricultural harvests in times of low temperatures. Alternatively, any decline in high-elevation activity during the Late Antique Little Ice Age was so brief that we cannot observe it from the available evidence.

“We then see particularly high numbers of finds dating to the 8th – 10th centuries AD, probably reflecting increased population, mobility (including the use of mountain passes) and trade – just before and during the Viking Age, when outward expansion was also characteristic of Scandinavia.

"One driver of this increase may have been the expanding ecological frontier of the towns that were emerging around Europe at this time," says Barrett. "Town-dwellers needed mountain products such as antlers for artefact manufacture and probably also furs. Other drivers were the changing needs and aspirations of the mountain hunters themselves."

There is then a decrease in the number of finds dating to the medieval period (from the 11th century onwards). Lars Pilø, co-director of the Glacier Archaeology Program at Oppland County Council and lead author on the study further explains, “There is a sharp decline in finds dating from the 11th century onwards. At this time, bow-and-arrow hunting for reindeer was replaced with mass-harvesting techniques including funnel-shaped and pitfall trapping systems. This type of intensive hunting probably reduced the number of wild reindeer.”

Professor in medieval archaeology Brit Solli, of the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, who led the study of the recovered artefacts, comments: “Once the plague arrived in the mid-14th century, trade and markets in the north also suffered. With fewer markets and fewer reindeer the activity in the high mountains decreased substantially. This downturn could also have been influenced by declining climatic conditions during the Little Ice Age.”

̽��ֱ��ongoing research of the Glacier Archaeology Program in Oppland can be followed on the Secrets of the Ice blogpost: http://secretsoftheice.com/

Artefacts revealed by melting ice patches in the high mountains of Oppland shed new light on ancient high-altitude hunting.

Town-dwellers needed mountain products such as antlers for artefact manufacture and probably also furs

James Barrett

Johan Wildhagen, Palookaville

Glacial archaeologists systematically survey the mountainous areas of Oppland, Norway

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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DNA from Viking cod bones suggests 1,000 years of European fish trade

fpjl2 — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 19:02:03 +0000

Norway is famed for its cod. Catches from the Arctic stock that spawn each year off its northern coast are exported across Europe for staple dishes from British fish and chips to Spanish bacalao stew.

Now, a new study published today in the journal PNAS suggests that some form of this pan-European trade in Norwegian cod may have been taking place for 1,000 years.

Latest research from the universities of Cambridge and Oslo, and the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology in Schleswig, used ancient DNA extracted from the remnants of Viking-age fish suppers.

̽��ֱ��study analysed five cod bones dating from between 800 and 1066 AD found in the mud of the former wharves of Haithabu, an early medieval trading port on the Baltic. Haithabu is now a heritage site in modern Germany, but at the time was ruled by the King of the Danes.

̽��ֱ��DNA from these cod bones contained genetic signatures seen in the Arctic stock that swim off the coast of Lofoten: the northern archipelago still a centre for Norway’s fishing industry.

Researchers say the findings show that supplies of ‘stockfish’ – an ancient dried cod dish popular to this day – were transported over a thousand miles from northern Norway to the Baltic Sea during the Viking era.

Prior to the latest study, there was no archaeological or historical proof of a European stockfish trade before the 12th century.

While future work will look at further fish remains, the small size of the current study prevents researchers from determining whether the cod was transported for trade or simply used as sustenance for the voyage from Norway.

However, they say that the Haithabu bones provide the earliest evidence of fish caught in northern Norway being consumed on mainland Europe – suggesting a European fish trade involving significant distances has been in operation for a millennium.

“Traded fish was one of the first commodities to begin to knit the European continent together economically,” says Dr James Barrett, senior author of the study from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

“Haithabu was an important trading centre during the early medieval period. A place where north met south, pagan met Christian, and those who used coin met those who used silver by weight.”

“By extracting and sequencing DNA from the leftover fish bones of ancient cargoes at Haithabu, we have been able to trace the source of their food right the way back to the cod populations that inhabit the Barents Sea, but come to spawn off Norway’s Lofoten coast every winter.

“This Arctic stock of cod is still highly prized – caught and exported across Europe today. Our findings suggest that distant requirements for this Arctic protein had already begun to influence the economy and ecology of Europe in the Viking age.”

Stockfish is white fish preserved by the unique climate of north Norway, where winter temperature hovers around freezing. Cod is traditionally hung out on wooden frames to allow the chill air to dry the fish. Some medieval accounts suggest stockfish was still edible as much as ten years after preservation.

̽��ֱ��research team argue that the new findings offer some corroboration to the unique 9th century account of the voyages of Ohthere of Hålogaland: a Viking chieftain whose visit to the court of King Alfred in England resulted in some of his exploits being recorded.

“In the accounts inserted by Alfred’s scribes into the translation of an earlier 5th century text, Ohthere describes sailing from Hålogaland to Haithabu,” says Barrett. Hålogaland was the northernmost province of Norway.

“While no cargo of dried fish is mentioned, this may be because it was simply too mundane a detail,” says Barrett. “ ̽��ֱ��fish-bone DNA evidence is consistent with the Ohthere text, showing that such voyages between northern Norway and mainland Europe were occurring.”

“ ̽��ֱ��Viking world was complex and interconnected. This is a world where a chieftain from north Norway may have shared stockfish with Alfred the Great while a late-antique Latin text was being translated in the background. A world where the town dwellers of a cosmopolitan port in a Baltic fjord may have been provisioned from an Arctic sea hundreds of miles away.”

̽��ֱ��sequencing of the ancient cod genomes was done at the ̽��ֱ�� of Oslo, where researchers are studying the genetic makeup of Atlantic cod in an effort to unpick the anthropogenic impacts on these long-exploited fish populations.

“Fishing, particularly of cod, has been of central importance for the settlement of Norway for thousands of years. By combining fishing in winter with farming in summer, whole areas of northern Norway could be settled in a more reliable manner,” says the ̽��ֱ�� of Oslo’s Bastiaan Star, first author of the new study.

Star points to the design of Norway’s new banknotes that prominently feature an image of cod, along with a Viking ship, as an example of the cultural importance still placed on the fish species in this part of Europe.

“We want to know what impact the intensive exploitation history covering millennia has inflicted on Atlantic cod, and we use ancient DNA methods to investigate this,” he says.

̽��ֱ��study was funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Leverhulme Trust.

New research using DNA from the fish bone remains of Viking-era meals reveals that north Norwegians have been transporting – and possibly trading – Arctic cod into mainland Europe for a millennium.

Our findings suggest that distant requirements for this Arctic protein had already begun to influence the economy and ecology of Europe in the Viking age

James Barrett

One of the ancient Viking cod bones from Haithabu used in the study

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Cod bones from Mary Rose reveal globalised fish trade in Tudor England

sc604 — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 23:09:30 +0000

New stable isotope and ancient DNA analysis of the bones of stored cod provisions recovered from the wreck of the Tudor warship Mary Rose, which sank off the coast of southern England in 1545, has revealed that the fish in the ship’s stores had been caught in surprisingly distant waters: the northern North Sea and the fishing grounds of Iceland – despite England having well developed local fisheries by the 16^th century.

Test results from one of the sample bones has led archaeologists to suspect that some of the stored cod came from as far away as Newfoundland in eastern Canada.

̽��ֱ��research team say that the findings show how naval provisioning played an important role in the early expansion of the fish trade overseas, and how that expansion helped fuel the growth of the English navy. Commercial exploitation of fish and the growth of naval sea power were “mutually reinforcing aspects of globalisation” in Renaissance Europe, they say.

“ ̽��ֱ��findings contribute to the idea that the demand for preserved fish was exceeding the supply that local English and Irish fisheries were able to provide in order to feed growing – and increasingly urban – populations. We know from these bones that one of the sources of demand was naval provisions,” said Dr James Barrett, from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

“ ̽��ֱ��existence and development of globalised fisheries was one of the things that made the growth of the navy possible. ̽��ֱ��navy was a key mechanism of maritime expansion, while at the same time being sustained by that expansion. ̽��ֱ��story of the cod trade is a microcosm of globalisation during this pivotal period that marked the beginning of an organised English navy, which would go on to become the Royal Navy,” he said.

̽��ֱ��study, led by researchers from the universities of Cambridge, Hull and York, is published today in the open access journal Royal Society Open Science.

Built in 1510, the Mary Rose was one of the most famous ships in England, a former flagship of Henry VIII’s fleet, when it mysteriously heeled over and sank in the Solent channel during a battle with an invading French fleet in 1545, taking almost all of its crew – over 400 men – down with it, as well as a full store of provisions. Rediscovered in the 1970s and raised in 1982, the remains are an extraordinary time capsule of naval life during the Tudor period.

Among the remains of the ship’s supplies were thousands of bones from dried or salted cod from casks and baskets – staples of Tudor naval diet. ̽��ֱ��researchers took a small selection of eleven bones from the various different holds of the ship, and analysed them using two techniques: stable isotope analysis, which reflects the diet and environmental conditions of the fish based on the bone’s protein chemistry, and ancient DNA analysis, which reflects genetic drift, gene flow and natural selection.

Separately, the techniques gave very broad answers, but when cross-referenced with each other and the historical record they provided researchers with increasingly reliable evidence for which waters the cod had been fished from almost 500 years ago.

̽��ֱ��best indication for three of the samples was that they were fished in the northern North Sea, possibly the Scottish Northern Isles, where there were known fisheries that produced dried cod preserved in salt.

Another seven of the samples probably came from waters off the cost of Iceland. Due to the cold and dry climate, many Icelanders preserved cod by air-drying it during winter months, a product known as ‘stockfish’, which was frequently traded with the English. English fishermen also worked Icelandic waters themselves, to produce salt cod. At the time, England to Iceland was a three to six month round trip, usually departing in spring and returning in early autumn after a season of trade and/or fishing.

One bone sample appeared to have come from the other side of the Atlantic. While not definitive, the most likely evidence pointed to Newfoundland, an island off the northeast Canadian coast famous for its historical cod fishery. While such distances for fishing may seem surprising for the time, James Barrett says that – as the English Newfoundland fishery had begun in 1502, in the wake of John Cabot’s exploratory voyage of 1497 – this is entirely plausible. French, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen also took advantage of this new source of cod.

“At the time of the Mary Rose in 1545, Newfoundland was a small-scale seasonal fishery where mariners went to fish and then come home. Within a century the Newfoundland fishery had become a major economic concern, of greater value than the fur trade, for example,” said Barrett.

“ ̽��ֱ��need for fish stocks was an important driver of involvement in north-eastern North America. ̽��ֱ��fish trade was one of the key links in the causal chain of European expansion to that continent,” he said. A typical outbound journey time from England to Newfoundland was around five weeks.

Records from just after the time of the Mary Rose show that a standard daily ration of preserved cod was a quarter of a fish served with ship biscuit, two ounces of butter and a gallon of beer. This was dished up three times a week. ̽��ֱ��bone samples show that these fish could range from approximately 70cm to over a metre in length, so a quarter of cod was a significant portion. “Preserved cod was great value for money as a provision, particularly as space and durability were an issue on board a ship,” said Barrett.

Before the reign of Henry VIII, another driver for the cod fisheries was the fact that fish was a suitable food during Christian fasts such as Lent as an alternative to milk and cheese, and, as Barrett points out, “urban populations didn’t have room for cows in their back yards”.

Once Henry VIII split from the church and the Reformation was ushered in, religious associations with meals of fish started to dissipate, threatening to send England’s fisheries, and subsequently its navy, into decline.

Thus Elizabeth I, Henry’s successor, instigated weekly ‘fish days’ to encourage domestic consumption and consequently a commercial fleet to not only help feed the navy but also ensure a supply of mariners to help run it when needed.

“ ̽��ֱ��importance of ‘victualling’ the navy continued to grow in the seventeenth century, most famously during the Restoration when its administration was systematized under Samuel Pepys,” said Barrett.

“Military sea power was a prerequisite for the concurrent – and subsequent – development of England’s sea-borne colonialism. Yet by sourcing the cod bones from the Mary Rose, we see that the navy itself was first sustained, in part, by fishermen working distant northern and transatlantic waters,” he said.

Arguably the most challenging aspect of the research was creating the historical context, the ‘base map’, for the researchers to compare their Mary Rose specimens to. Due to chemical pollution of the world’s oceans over the last few hundred years, and changes in the genetic structure of cod populations due to fishing pressures and climate change, the team had to find and use ancient cod bones for their study’s comparison controls, as modern cod bones would have been useless.

“Thankfully, when making dried cod, part of the process was chopping the head off,” said Barrett. “This meant we could use skull bones from archaeological sites to get both genetic and isotopic signatures for all these regions. ̽��ֱ��lion’s share of the work was finding and analysing the over 300 control samples.”

̽��ֱ��research was funded by the Leverhulme Trust, with an accompanying grant from the Fishmongers’ Company, one of the twelve livery companies of the City of London.

Reference:
Hutchinson WF, et al. 2015 ̽��ֱ��globalization of naval provisioning: ancient DNA and stable isotope analyses of stored cod from the wreck of the Mary Rose, AD 1545. R. Soc. open sci. 2: 150199. DOI: 10.1098/rsos.150199

New analysis shows warship’s dried fish provisions were sourced from as far away as Icelandic and possibly even transatlantic waters. Researchers show how boom in fishing trade helped fuel the growth of the English navy, and vice versa.

̽��ֱ��story of the cod trade is a microcosm of globalisation during this pivotal period that marked the beginning of an organised English navy, which would go on to become the Royal Navy

James Barrett

Left: Copyright Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge Right: Cluny Johnstone

Left: ̽��ֱ��Mary Rose as depicted in the Anthony Roll. Right: one of the cod bones used in the study.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes