![]() ![]() These needs were met by driftwood: long, straight logs, mostly of conifer wood, driven onto the North Atlantic coasts by Arctic Ocean currents.įrom the Viking Age and earlier through to Early Modern times, timber was a dynamic and unpredictable marine resource in these regions. Although such trees rarely provide wood suitable for construction or the production of larger objects, the inhabitants of these areas still relied on wood for these purposes. The latitude, climate, and topography of subarctic Norway and the North Atlantic islands of the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland mean that few trees grow there, and those that do are often small and twisted. However, at the northern- and westernmost fringes of the Norse world, wood was less abundant. The region’s dense forests provided wood not just for domestic and industrial fuel, but also for construction, boatbuilding, and the production of all manner of objects, from containers and utensils to weapons and art pieces. Timber has always been a vital resource in Scandinavia. Furthermore, it asserts that this line of research should be pursued with some urgency, as anthropogenic climate change threatens both driftwood delivery and the preservation of archaeological wood remains. This paper presents a comprehensive review of current historical and archaeological research on the exploitation of driftwood timber in the Medieval North Atlantic and explores potential future directions in this field. Similarities in the microscopic anatomy of boreal wood taxa preclude definitive provenancing through taxonomic analysis, and material traces of immersion in seawater are often either impermanent or ambiguous, especially in archaeological wood remains. The use of driftwood is difficult to demonstrate through macroscopic, microscopic, or (geo-)chemical analysis. There is also ongoing debate regarding the relative importance of imported timber, which is for example often referenced in the Icelandic sagas. However, driftwood was an unstable resource, and its delivery depended on a range of unpredictable factors related to climate and ocean currents. Historical documentary evidence shows that wealthy landowners bought driftwood rights as valuable assets, and ethnohistorical sources reveal a wide range of local and regional customs related to driftwood exploitation. As in subarctic Norway, where trees are also scarce, driftwood use and ownership were prescribed in medieval law codes. Nevertheless, timber was vital to the material culture of the Norse settlers of these islands, and driftwood often met this need. The North Atlantic islands of the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland have always been relatively poor in terms of native timber resources, due to their cold climate and exposed topography. ![]()
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