Fish Trade in Medieval North Atlantic Societies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Val Dufeu
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Environmental Models ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
Fish Trade ◽  
Written Sources

Val Dufeu here reconstructs settlement patterns of fishing communities in Viking Age Iceland and proposes socio-economic and environmental models relevant to any study of the Vikings or the North Atlantic. She integrates written sources, geoarchaeological data, and zooarchaeological data to examine how fishing propelled political change in the North Atlantic. The evolution of survival fishing to internal fish markets to overseas fish trade mirrors wider social changes in the Vikings’ world.

Sailing Directions of the North Atlantic Viking Age (from about the year 860 to 1400)

1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Søren Thirslund
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Fresh Water ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
New Settlements

As long as man has ventured to go to sea, sailing directions have existed. Man's survival depended upon knowing the best fishing and hunting places and how to find these were secrets, told only to family or friends.Later, sailing directions covered areas in the world where trade or new settlements had begun and, as early as 500 years B.C., some of these sailing directions were written down. They covered the Mediterranean Sea and part of western Europe and they were called PERIPLUS meaning ‘sailing around’. They contained almost the same information as sailing directions today, namely: harbours, anchorages, currents, possibilities for fresh water, provisions and other supplies.

The Evolution of a New Nato for a New Europe

1998 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Woodliffe
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Change ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Military Alliance ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
Set Up

History suggests that a military alliance will rarely survive major political change that results in the disappearance of the original danger that the alliance was first set up to combat. Since 1989 the reshaping of the political and strategic map of Europe has proceeded on a scale and at a pace such as to give rise to an expectation that the North Atlantic Alliance would become a victim of historical inevitability and thus be either formally dissolved or left to atrophy. Instead, the North Atlantic Alliance has embarked on a root and branch transformation of its structures, procedures and strategies for the twenty-first century. What is equally remarkable is that these changes have been accommodated within the framework of the original text of the North Atlantic Treaty drawn up in 1949,1thus obviating the need for large-scale formal amendment.

Vaðmál and Cloth Currency in Viking and Medieval Iceland

2018 ◽  
pp. 251-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michèle Hayeur Smith
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
The North ◽  
Commodity Money ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
The Way

In medieval Iceland, apparently alone among the North Atlantic Norse colonies, cloth evolved into a highly standardized form of currency within a broader-based commodity-money system imported from Norway. Within the Icelandic economy, the production of currency cloth (vaðmál or vöruvaðmál) was legally regulated and was used within Iceland to pay debts, taxes, and tithes. This chapter presents the first detailed analyses of over 1,000 archaeological textiles stored in Icelandic museum collections. The way in which this ‘legal cloth’ was woven and constructed provides insights into the emergence of standardized cloth currency and its use across Iceland. Analyses challenge the assumption that organic forms of commodity-currency are unavailable to archaeologists studying early economic systems. Cloth currency, produced chiefly by women, emerged around the end of the Viking Age. It was central to the Icelandic economy until the mid 1500s, after which its role progressively declined as Iceland entered into the increasingly globalized trade networks of the early modern industrialized world.

The Discovery of an Early Bearing-Dial – Further Investigations

1993 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Thirslund
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
First Person ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Supportive Evidence ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Atlantic

The first part of the above title was used in the Journal in 1953 for a paper by Captain Carl V. Solver. His special interest was to discover how the Norse navigators of the Viking age found their way across the North Atlantic. He was the first person to interpret the small wooden disc shown in Fig. i as a fragment of an early bearing-dial and investigations since his paper was published provide considerable supportive evidence. At the time, there was some strong opposition to his views, but he persisted with his theory and wrote a book, Vestervejen. This formed a basis for other researchers to carry his work further and, as a result, there have been many international contributions over some 40 years. The archaeological find from southern Greenland seems to show that the Norse navigator used the path of the Sun's shadow during the day as the basis of a compass.

scholarly journals Hanseatic fish trade in the North Atlantic: evidence of fish remains from Hanse cities in Germany

AmS-Skrifter ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 75-92
Author(s):  
Hans Christian Küchelmann
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Isotopic Data ◽  
High Frequencies ◽  
Size Classes ◽  
Atlantic Trade ◽  
The North ◽  
Large Size ◽  
Fish Remains ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
Fish Trade

This paper reviews the evidence for the Hanseatic fish trade in the North Atlantic from the perspective of the consumer sites: the Hanse cities in Germany. Stockfish, the most important good in the North Atlantic trade, are discussed from an archaeozoological perspective. The evidence from Hanse cities accumulated thus far is presented and evaluated. The amount of fish remains analysed from Hanse cities in Germany is still very low, which precludes in-depth research and wider conclusions. Nevertheless, overall patterns appear that are generally consistent with the assumptions of patterns for imported stockfish: high frequencies of Gadidae among the fish remains of coastal Hanse cities, overrepresentation of postcranial skeletal elements, prevailing remains of large size classes, and isotopic data supporting the hypothesis.

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