Settlement Landscapes in the North Atlantic

The Northern Isles in Context, ca. 800-1150 AD

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4629145
AutoresJane Harrison (0000-0002-8162-088X), Jane Ellen Harrison (Oxford Archaeology, autor de correspondencia)
Año2013
Volumen2013
Númerosp4
Páginas129
Fecha de publicación2013-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of the North Atlantic (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1935-1933 • E-ISSN: 1935-1933
EditorialJournal of the North Atlantic (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3721/037.004.sp420
OpenAlexW1906637762
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas27

During the Viking-Late Norse period (ca. 800–1150 AD), a complex network of cultural connections were forged between Scandinavia and areas of Viking settlement in the North Atlantic. This article focuses on how diaspora communities settling in the Northern Isles of Scotland adapted familiar ways of constructing their settlement landscape to new environments. Viking people in this period lived mostly on the coast and islands. Their dispersed settlements were often developed on natural mounds or mounds created by earlier clusters of buildings. Throughout the Viking-Late Norse age, many such mounds were built up in a tell-like layering of buildings, yards, and middens, visually dominating the surrounding landscape and coastal waters. This article argues that the people building settlement mounds were thus monumentalizing claims to local power. Mounds also physically represented social networks and adapted symbolism already associated with mounds in Scandinavia

Archaeology · Geography · Human settlement · Viking Age · Yard · Historical and Archaeological Studies