Viking to Christian Landscapes across the Norwegian Sea: Agricultural Trajectories and Resilience using sedaDNA and Fecal Lipids (V2C)

The conversion of Viking to Christian culture about a thousand years ago was part of a change in settlement and subsistence that altered southern Norwegian landscapes and biodiversity. But what happened in Arctic Norway – the peripheral zone where both Viking and Christian culture interacted with traditional Sámi societies and lifeways. In the past we used pollen analysis to reveal how landscape and biodiversity changed in the face of both climate and societal changes. However, now there is a new suite of techniques, drawn from molecular biology, that can reveal in much greater depth how the landscape has changed. These methods, analysing ancient DNA (sedaDNA) and lipid biomarkers from lake sediments, are the basis of the Viking to Christian Landscapes (V2C) Project to which this PhD position is attached.

Pictures:

Trondennes Church Harstad, the most northerly stone church in Europe.

A team from UiT coring lakes using a raft.