The Vikings were not the first colonizers of the Faroe Islands

Citation

Church MJ, Arge SV, Edwards KJ, Ascough PL, Bond JM, Cook G, Dockrill SJ, Dugmore AJ, McGovern TH, Nesbitt C & Simpson I (2013) The Vikings were not the first colonizers of the Faroe Islands. Quaternary Science Reviews, 77, pp. 228-232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.06.011

Abstract
We report on the earliest archaeological evidence from the Faroe Islands, placing human colonization in the 4th-6th centuries AD, at least 300-500 years earlier than previously demonstrated archaeologically. The evidence consists of an extensive wind-blown sand deposit containing patches of burnt peat ash of anthropogenic origin. Samples of carbonised barley grains from two of these ash patches produced 14C dates of two pre-Viking phases within the 4th-6th and late 6th-8th centuries AD. A re-evaluation is required of the nature, scale and timing of the human colonization of the Faroes and the wider North Atlantic region.

Keywords
Faroe Islands; Earliest human settlement; 14C Dating

Journal
Quaternary Science Reviews: Volume 77

People

Professor Ian Simpson

Professor, Biological and Environmental Sciences