Collapse_ How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Jared Diamond [350]
The two most important series of archaeological studies of the Greenland Norse within the last 20 years have been by Thomas McGovern and by Jette Arneborg and their colleagues. Among McGovern’s papers are Thomas McGovern, “The Vinland adventure: a North Atlantic perspective” (North American Archaeologist 2:285-308 (1981)); Thomas McGovern, “Contributions to the paleoeconomy of Norse Greenland” (Acta Archaeologica 54:73-122 (1985)); Thomas McGovern et al., “Northern islands, human era, and environmental degradation: a view of social and ecological change in the medieval North Atlantic” (Human Ecology 16:225-270 (1988)); Thomas McGovern, “Climate, correlation, and causation in Norse Greenland” (Arctic Anthropology 28:77-100 (1991)); Thomas McGovern et al., “A vertebrate zooarchaeology of Sandnes V51: economic change at a chieftain’s farm in West Greenland” (Arctic Anthropology 33:94-121 (1996)); Thomas Amorosi et al., “Raiding the landscape: human impact from the Scandinavian North Atlantic” (Human Ecology 25:491-518 (1997)); and Tom Amorosi et al., “They did not live by grass alone: the politics and paleoecology of animal fodder in the North Atlantic region” (Environmental Archaeology 1:41-54 (1998)). Arneborg’s papers include Jette Arneborg, “The Roman church in Norse Greenland” (Acta Archaeologica 61:142-150 (1990)); Jette Arneborg, “Contact between Eskimos and Norsemen in Greenland: a review of the evidence,” pp. 23-35 in Tvaerfaglige Vikingesymposium (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University, 1993); Jette Arneborg, “Burgundian caps, Basques and dead Norsemen at Herjolfsnaes, Greenland,” pp. 75-83 in Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1996); and Jette Arneborg et al., “Change of diet of the Greenland Vikings determined from stable carbon isotope analysis and 14C dating of their bones” (Radiocarbon 41:157-168 (1999)). Among the Greenland sites that Arneborg and her colleagues excavated was the remarkable “Farm beneath the sand,” a large Norse farm sealed under a thick layer of sand at Western Settlement; that site and several other Greenland sites are described in a monograph edited by Jette Arneborg and Hans Christian Gullóv, Man, Culture and Environment in Ancient Greenland (Copenhagen: Danish Polar Center, 1998). C. L. Vebaek described his excavations from 1945 to 1962 in three monographs: respectively numbers 14, 17, and 18 (1991, 1992, and 1993) in the series Meddelelser om Grónland, Man and Society, Copenhagen: The Church Topography of the Eastern Settlement and the Excavation of the Benedictine Convent at Narsarsuaq in the Uunartoq Fjord; Vatnahverfi: An Inland District of the Eastern Settlement in Greenland; and Narsaq: A Norse Landnáma Farm.
Among important individual papers on Norse Greenland are Robert McGhee, “Contact between Native North Americans and the medieval Norse: a review of the evidence” (American Antiquity 49:4-26 (1984)); Joel Berglund, “The decline of the Norse settlements in Greenland” (Arctic Anthropology 23:109-135 (1986)); Svend Albrethsen and Christian Keller, “The use of the saeter in medieval Norse farming in Greenland” (Arctic Anthropology 23:91-107 (1986)); Christian Keller, “Vikings in the West Atlantic: a model of Norse Greenlandic medieval society” (Acta Archaeologica 61:126-141 (1990)); Bent Fredskild, “Agriculture in a marginal area: South Greenland from the Norse landnam (1985 A.D.) to the present 1985 A.D.,” pp. 381-393 in Hilary Birks et al., eds., The Cultural Landscape: Past, Present and Future (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Bent Fredskild, “Erosion and vegetational changes in South Greenland caused by agriculture” (Geografisk Tidsskrift 92:14-21 (1992)); and Bjarne Jakobsen “Soil resources and soil erosion in the Norse Settlement area of Østerbygden in southern Greenland” (Acta Borealia 1:56-68 (1991)).
Chapter 9
Three books, excellent in different ways, that portray New Guinea highland societies are: a