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	The Hvalsey Fjord farms - Excavations at the	The ruins at ruin site Ø83a were first recorded and excavated by Aage Roussell in 1935. Originally eight ruins and three cooking pits were recorded. To day four of the ruins have been removed owing to modern cultivation. Roussell's report on the 1935-excavations is very brief and the excavations in 2004 were to look into the state of the remaining ruins and – if possible – to collect material for radiocarbon dating. In 2004 trenches (2 x 4 m) were made in ruin no. 20 (one trench) and ruin no. 22 (three trenches). The excavations in ruin 20 showed that Roussell's 1935-excavations had been comprehensive here and not much was left. It was however possible to conclude that the house had functioned for a short period only. The excavations in ruin 22 revealed a single-phase house with flagged floors. This house too had functioned for a short period only. No material for radiocarbon dating was collected. After his 1935-excavation Roussell concluded that the site had no dwelling and he interpreted the buildings at Ø83a as byres, stables and barns calling the site a "dairy farm" connected to the adjacent high status farm Hvalsey fjord farm and church, ruin site Ø83 (Roussell 1941). House 20 had a byre in the western part of the building and most probably it had a dwelling in the eastern end (see also: Vésteinsson 2008). The ground plan of the houses, the layout of the site and the fact that the houses seem to have been used for at short period suggest that the farm was built at an early stage – most probably at landnam and abandoned shortly after. Two explanations for this early abandonment seem possible 1) that the area was taken over by the nearby high status farm at Hvalsey (Ø83) or 2) the farm Ø83a was a predecessor for the Hvalsey Ø83 farm (Vésteinsson 2005). References Roussell, Aage 1941. Farms and Churches in the Mediaeval Norse Settlements of Greenland. Meddelelser om Grønland vol. 89(1). Copenhagen Vésteinsson, Orri 2008. Archaeological investigations in Hvalseyjarfjörður, Eystribyggð 2005. Fornleifastofnun Íslands. FS388-05301. Reykjavík Jette Arneborg, Fuuja Larsen & Niels-Christian Clemmensen, 2009: The "Dairy Farm" of the Hvalsey Fjord Farm. Journal of the North Atlantic. Selected papers from the Hvalsey Conference 2008. Special Volume 2:24-29 Collaborators Georg Nyegaard, Greenland National Museum & Archives, Nuuk. Then head of Qaqortoq Museum. Fuuja Larsen, Greenland National Museum & Archives, Nuuk Niels-Christian Clemmensen, KUAS, The Heritage Agency of Denmark.
	Greenland - The Vatnahverfi Project - Settlement, economy, and depopulation.	The aim of the programme is to discuss landnam (landtaking) strategies and the later depopulation in the light of the interplay between the two economic spheres of the Norse Greenland Economy: subsistence based on the resources of the local, settled area in South Greenland and foreing long-distance trade based on the North and East Greeland resources. Identity, mobility, communication and human strategies are key concepts and focus are on the interaction between humans (action), systems (structure) and environment. Status Nov. 2009: Except from a few all Norse sites in the Vatnahverfi region have been GPS Surveyed and excavations have been carried out in middens at several farms. A dating programme of the farms in the area has been initiated. xxxx Publications: Madsen, Christian Koch: Får, geder og folde i det norrøne Vatnahverfi. Grønland 1 2008:4-14 Møller, Niels Algreen & Christian Koch Madsen: Med friske skridt i forgængeres fodspor. Grønland 5-6, 2007:306-314 Jane Benarroch: I nordboernes Fodspor (in the footsteps of the Norse). Polarfronten 1/2008 Bishop, Rosie R., Mike J. Church, Andrew J. Dugmore, Phil Clogg, Christian Koch Madsen & Niels A. Møller: Palaeoenvironmental Investigations at Ø69, Greenland. Submitted to JONA – Journal of the North Atlantic. Uffe Wilken: Mobile nordboer. Polarfronten 1/2010:8-9
	Norse Greenland dietary project - Norse Greenland isotope project	An initial study of the d13 C values for human bone collagen of 27 Norse Greenlanders in the late 1990's suggested a change in the Norse diet from predominantly terrestrial food to predominantly marine food. The shift may indicate a change in diet; the question left open in the limited initial isotope study was however whether the change in diet is a reflection of altered subsistence strategies or altered farming practises. Furthermore, the first study did not convincingly answer the question as to whether the shift in diet occurred gradually over time or within a few years – and in the last case: when? Also, the limited study did not answer questions such as dietary differences between the two Norse settlements, between individual farms, between the sexes and what kind of marine food was digested. Distinguishing local born from foreign (immigrants?) people is yet another matter of discussion. This new study includes 437 samples. 183 samples are from human bones - 118 are Norse and 65 are Inuit – and 254 samples are from animal bones. The samples are from 19 Norse sites (= farms), 13 are from the Eastern Settlement and six are from the Western Settlement. For comparison, we have also included samples of both humans and animals from 22 Inuit sites. Manuscripts submitted to Journal of the North Atlantic fall 2009.
	Ruin site Ø47 Bishop's see Gardar
	Explorer's stories : Ectoparasites and Hygienic studies in North West Greenland, Inglefield land	From the end of the 19th century through to the beginning of the 20th century Northwest Greenland was frequently visited by explorers and others attempting to reach the reach the North Pole. Their adventures elicited amazing descriptions of the land and its inhabitants. However, not all of the descriptions were positive, nor did they praise some aspects of local Inuit life. Many explorers, such as Robert Peary and Elisha Kent Kane, wrote less than favourable accounts of the personal habits of the Greenland Inuit they encountered. But how accurate were those descriptions? Using archaeoentomology to analyse insects and ectoparasites recovered from several houses, we re-examine these notions. Using spatial analysis to study ectoparasite distribution in different activity areas, and by comparing the samples with those from similar contexts taken from Northern Labrador, we propose a different narrative about personal hygiene amongst the Greenland Inuit of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
	Snow, landscape and people: Modelling variations in snow distribution and melt across the landscape and the implications for human activities, Arctic	The quantity and distribution of snow across landscapes and timing of the spring snowmelt is key to a diverse range of processes, from the hydrological cycle and glaciation through to ecological and human-environment interactions. Many snow-covered landscapes are remote, inaccessible and lack observation data, especially at high resolutions and spanning multi-decadal time periods. Models are therefore valuable tools for understanding and simulating temporal and spatial variations in snow cover. The aim is to determine the most robust method of modelling snow distribution and melt across regional landscapes with limited data availability, and to apply models to understand and project variations in snow cover as a result of landscape and climate change. Physically based, high resolution snow distribution and melt models are tested through fieldwork in Sweden and Norway at research sites with detailed landscape and climate data. The impact of pseudo-limiting input data spatially and temporally on model performance and uncertainty is assessed. Methods of snow model transferral (including parameter estimation and transfer) between areas of different spatial scales and over varying time periods are explored alongside the effects on model uncertainty, with the use of additional field data from research sites in North America and Finland. The impact of variations in topography, vegetation and climate on snow distribution and melt is assessed through both fieldwork and model application. At the field sites in Norway (Heidal, Oppland) and Sweden (Abisko), relationships between snowcover (depth, density and water equivalent) and topography, vegetation and climate are determined, with exploration of the implications for landscape processes and populations. Model scenarios (including projected future climate scenarios) will be applied to look at the impact of variations in climate and vegetation on snowcover, and how this may affect human-environment interactions such as water supplies, farming, reindeer herding, hunting and movement across the landscape. In Greenland, the viability of Norse settlement and Thule Inuit migration are likely to have been influenced by 13th-17th Century climate variations, but what was the role of changing snow and to what extent did human practices affect the snowcover? Understanding how past climate variations and human influence on the landscape have affected snowcover enables current populations to prepare for the potential impacts of future climate change. The most robust method of model transferal (as determined for regions with spatially and temporally limited data) will be used to model snow distribution and melt at the Norse eastern settlement site in Greenland. The impact of variations in climate, vegetation and snowcover on past human-environment interactions will be explored using model scenarios. For example, what was the effect of vegetation removal on snow distribution and water availability? How would a series of particularly cold and heavy snowfall years affect the grazing, hunting and herding opportunities? Similarly, model scenarios can then be used to project how future climate variations and potential human influences on the landscape (i.e. vegetation changes) may affect snowcover, and subsequently Arctic processes.
	Ø172 Tatsip Ataa Midden Excavation Project - Subsistence Strategies and Economy in Norse Vatnahverfi, Quaqortoq municipality, Igaliku Fjord	The Norse economy in Greenland was strongly dependent upon a balance of both marine resources (seals, sea birds, walruses) and terrestrial resources (pasture plants, woodland, fertilized soils, domestic mammals, reindeer) (McGovern 1985, 2000, McGovern et al 1996, Enghoff 2003). The Vatnahverfi project aims at improving understanding of the Norse farming and hunting strategies, as well as the use of other local resources (woodland, pasture, marine and freshwater resources) in the Vatnahverfi area, and how they changed in the face of climatic and environmental changes, especially with the arrival of summer sea ice ca. 1250-1300 and the cooling and increased variability of the 15th century (Ogilvie et al 2009, Dugmore et al 2007, 2012). This in turn may have affected the settlement pattern, and the use of landscape and natural resources in this inner fjord part of the Norse Eastern Settlement. Through zooarchaeology and environmental archaeology, we aim to reconstruct the human ecodynamics of that region and collect data that will be basis for a broader comparison with other places in the Norse North Atlantic. The farm site E172 Tatsip Ataa was chosen after the completion of a coring survey and an excavation of a 2x3m trench at this farm complex in 2007, which located and dated the midden (Śmiarowski 2007, Møller et.al. 2007). The overall main objectives for both (2009-10) field seasons were to continue excavations of the midden. The 2007 survey and excavation results confirmed good organic preservation (preserved wood, bark, and small whale baleen artifacts with soil ph 6.2 in most of the midden layers), and produced sizable archaeofauna and artifact collections. Further investigation of bone and artifact density, and excavation of datable patches of cultural deposits to recover a sample of ecofacts and artifacts from the midden layers was the main aim of the 2009-10 excavations.
	Ø68 Timerliit Excavation Project - IPY - 2008, Quaqortoq municipality, Igaliku Fjord	Excavation of a midden at a Norse farm in inland area of Vatnahverfi, Eastern Settlement. Ø68 is a small size Norse farm in the inland district of Vatnahverfi. Even though the main goal to generate a large, well preserved and stratified zooarchaeological collection was not fully achieved, we were still able to generate a small, stratified collection. The thorough excavation throughout the whole midden deposition sequence enabled us to take bone and charcoal (local flora, not driftwood) samples from all layers, which will be used to date the settlement and abandonment of this farm through AMS C14 dating. Soil, micro-morphology, botanical, and ancient DNA samples were taken for analysis by specialists, and we hope to be able to reconstruct the vegetation conditions in this part of Vatnahverfi region prior, and during the human settlement, and compare it to modern conditions.
	RAPID Garðar Collaborative Rescue Project - 2012, Quaqortoq municipality, Igaliku Fjord	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 Garðar E47 at modern Igaliku. Garðar 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 Nørlund 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 (Nørlund 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 Garðar 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.
	Where should I put this shieling?, Vatnahverfi	The project was part of the dissertation submitted for the completion of the course MSc GIS and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. The dissertation aimed to explore the theory of Norse pastoral subsistence system using GIS. The basic assumption was the North Atlantic setup of transhumance that a permanently occupied farmstead always had a seasonally occupied shieling. Further, the research explores the idea that the Norse subsistence system on Greenland manifested itself through the increased 'level of connection' and that the mutual exploit of resources was done through organised labour involving several farmsteads. These hypotheses formed the research question behind the dissertation: was the optimal path through the landscape between farmsteads the key factor in the positioning of the shielings in Vatnahverfi region or is their location purely governed by the distribution of the resource areas. These approaches were tested in GIS, using the least cost analysis and site catchment. After the application of the least cost analysis model in Central Vatnahverfi, where a substantial amount of shielings was known, and establishing that a fair amount of those shielings were indeed in the vicinity of the modelled communication routes, the same model was applied to Alluitsup region in Vatnahverfi where very few pastoral shielings were known. In this way, the model can be used as the basis for future surveys as it suggests the possible locations of new simple and complex pastoral shielings.