tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post7311808360022230968..comments2024-03-26T14:19:33.332-07:00Comments on Bench Grass: Walrus Ranching: Early Settlement of the Norse High Atlantic?Erik Lundhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-23937212824407713492016-01-19T07:05:49.508-08:002016-01-19T07:05:49.508-08:00Walrus ivory is a prominent early Medieval luxury ...Walrus ivory is a prominent early Medieval luxury good.Further, it was used for cover panels on illuminated manuscripts, which brings us into the heart of monastic production. <br /><br />However, it is also a signifier for a less visible trade in rendered blubber, highly appreciated as an illuminant. This is more of a bulk trade good, and it's a bit hard to imagine it being exported from Greenland, or even driving voyages to Iceland. It would account for the early wealth of the Nordmark "chieftanships," prior to the stockfish trade, though. <br /><br />As for the pan-Arctic confederation of the skin boat peoples --well, duh. Except that they didn't cross the Atlantic. The migration was pretty clearly counter-clockwise, not clockwise, and, if recorded examples are anything to go on, was pretty fast when people had reason to move. I <i>highly</i> doubt that the Mesolithic peoples of the British Isles needed to be taught how to take seals from skin boats by Finnish migrants, who, given all that we know about the rebound of the Scandinavian peninsula (and the prehistory of Finno-Ugric, to touch on a sensitive point), probably didn't yet exist. Don't forget that the use of marine resources fell off considerably in Neolithic times. Again, Neolithic peoples had all the protein they needed, and the seals were already being depleted. (Probably.)<br /><br />Walrusses (and narwhal) are another matter, never mind right whales. Taking these larger animals virtually requires cooperative hunting from boats. We're pretty clear that this isn't a subsistence hunt. It's unreliable, and it is dangerous. <br /><br />So when we see it, it is already entangled in commercial exchange --and that exchange can't be in "trinkets," but rather goods that can substitute for subsistence activities. Iron (and ideally blacksmiths, too), and blankets, thank you very much. That stuff isn't crossing the Atlantic in curraghs --nor, probably, even knorrs. Erik Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-88825113523993080262016-01-18T10:58:46.741-08:002016-01-18T10:58:46.741-08:00The oh-so-speculative Farley Mowat's "Far...The oh-so-speculative Farley Mowat's "Farfarers" I remember as an interesting case for the importance of walrus ivory in medieval Europe - I don't know if it was used in late Antiquity or not - and the idea (likely enough mistaken in the specifics) of a North Atlantic seagoing culture/s.<br /><br />Though this man has an alternative view http://www.paabo.ca/uirala/Farfarers.html and here http://www.paabo.ca/uirala/uiralamenubig.html<br /><br />Though you'd be a better judge on all this.youngdoughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15155148341331873442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-37590260546338448552016-01-18T10:23:11.226-08:002016-01-18T10:23:11.226-08:00Hey, I read Language, Society and Identity in Earl...Hey, I read <i>Language, Society and Identity in Early Iceland</i> a few years back. Don't remember there being much in it that would be useful for your thesis (though that wasn't what I was looking for), but it had a very interesting explanation for why Icelandic vocabulary and grammar have been so improbably conservative.Lameen Souag الأمين سواقhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00773164776222840428noreply@blogger.com