RAPID Garšar Collaborative Rescue Project - 2012
| Project Connections: | This project is not linked to any other projects |
Project Details | |
| Title: | RAPID Garšar Collaborative Rescue Project - 2012 |
| Permalink: | https://www.nabohome.org/cgi-bin/explore.pl?seq=161 |
| Abstract: | RAPID is an intensive international multi-disciplinary effort to salvage critical organic remains (zooarchaeological, archaeobotanical, artifactual, geoarchaeological, bioarchaeological, and archaeoentomological) from rapidly degrading cultural deposits at the unique site of Garšar E47 at modern Igaliku. Garšar was the bishops’ manor farm with a large stone cathedral and stalling space for well over 100 cattle. Major excavations at the site were carried out by Poul Nųrlund in 1926 that documented the unusual size and layout of the church and manor farm and recovered some human and animal bone, but without observing stratigraphy or employing any systematic recovery strategy (Nųrlund 1929). This site is key to understanding the changing structure and organization of Norse Greenland and its societal response to climate change and culture contact, but its unique archaeological record is now under urgent threat. As in other portions of the circumpolar north, rapid warming in the past decade has drastically degraded once outstanding conditions of organic preservation, as seasonally frozen ground now thaws completely every year and organic deposits preserved for thousands of years are rapidly decaying. In Greenland, a major finding of the 2007-10 International Polar Year effort is the rapidity and scope of loss of once well-preserved organics all across South Greenland.
At Garšar medieval irrigation systems had created substantial wet meadows around the bishops’ manor farm, but in 2004 -05 modern farmers began cutting a series of deep drainage trenches in this meadow area. Site visits (Kapel 2005) confirmed that these ditches had exposed extensive midden deposits with well preserved bone and wood visible in profile.
The RAPID project is aimed at rescuing these deposits, but intensive excavation during July-August 2012. |
| Keywords: | Greenland, Norse, Zooarchaeology, Climate, Subsistance, Eastern Settlement |
| Sponsors/Funders: | NSF Office of Polar Programs |
| Country: | Greenland |
| Region: | Quaqortoq municipality, Igaliku Fjord |
| Project Start Year: | 2012 |
| Projected End Year: | 2013 |
Account Owner | |
| Contact: | Konrad Smiarowski |
| Institution: | HERC - CUNY Graduate School and Univeeersity Center |
| Postal Address: | 365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY |
| Post Code: | 10016 |
| Telephone: | +19175742674 |
| Email: | zaglobax@yahoo.com |
Project Collaborators | |
| Name: | Jette Arneborg |
| Address: | Frederiksholms Kanal 12 DK-1220 COPENHAGEN K |
| Country: | Denmark |
| Phone: | +45 3347 3441 |
| Email: | jette.arneborg@natmus.dk |
| Website: | http://www.natmus.dk |
| Name: | Tom McGovern |
| Institution: | Dept Anthropology, CUNY |
| Country: | USA |
| Name: | Georg Nyegaard |
| Institution: | Greenland National Musuem & Archives |
| Address: | Hans Egedes vej Postboks 145 Nuuk |
| Postcode: | 3900 |
| Country: | Greenland |
| Phone: | +299 322611 |
| Email: | georg.nyegaard@natmus.gl |
| Website: | http://www.natmus.gl |
| Name: | Ian Simpson |
| Institution: | School of Biological & Environmental Sciences, University of Stirling |
| Address: | Stirling |
| Postcode: | FK9 4LA |
| Country: | Scotland, UK |
| Phone: | +44 (0)1786 467850 |
| Email: | i.a.simpson@stir.ac.uk |
| Name: | Konrad Smiarowski |
| Institution: | HERC Center & CUNY Graduate School and University Center |
| Address: | 365 Fifth Avenue New York, NY |
| Postcode: | 10016 |
| Country: | USA |
| Email: | zaglobax@yahoo.com |
| Website: | http://www.polarfield.com/blog/tag/konrad-smiarowski/ |
| Name: | Orri Vésteinsson |
| Institution: | Icelandic Archaeological Institute ( FSĶ), University of Iceland |
| Address: | Bįrugata 3 , Reykjavķk |
| Postcode: | 101 |
| Country: | Iceland |
| Email: | orri@instarch.is |
| Website: | http://www.instarch.is |
Project Content
|
E47 Preliminary Zooarchaeology Report Konrad Smiarowski [1.05 MB] Preliminary zooarchaeology Report for the 2012 excavation, data current as of September 2013. |
Project Location
Latitude: 60.98871°N
Longitude: 45.4212°W