Fluorine poisoning in victims of the 1793-84 eruption of the Laki fissure	The eruption of the Laki fissure was the greatest calamity to affect Iceland since its settlement. It is estimated that 20% of the population died from starvation and disease. The aim of this project is to investigate causes of death in people who lived near the eruption. Written sources suggest that many may have died from fluorine posining. This is done by observing skeletal material - which first had to be located in graveyards known to have been in use at the time of the eruption.
	Arnórsstaðamúli	A site close to Arnórsstaðamúli, E-Iceland, was threatened by imminent roadworks and a preliminary excavation demanded by the National Heritage Agency.
	Communication, Settlements and Landscape – Social Dimensions in Norse Societies in the Viking and Early Medieval periods (c. 800-1200 AD)	This four year PhD project focus on the dynamics between the physcial landscape, communication in various shapes, settlement structure and the society. Focus areas in the Orkneys, Iceland, Greenland and Canada provide the empirical base of the project. The project is concerned with various types of communication within the periods, and analyse active transportation strategies as well as static visual communication between e.g. farm sites or farm sites and travellers.
	From Iceland to New Iceland. The Archaeology of 19th-century Emigration	The project is apart of Agusta Edwald's current PhD research project at the Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen. The project is supervised by Dr. Karen Milek and Dr. Jeff Oliver. It aims to shed light on the experience of Icelandic immigrants to Canada in the late 19th century. It has been estimated that around 20,000 individuals emigrated from Iceland to North America in the late 19th century in the period from 1870-1914. The emigration amounted to an exodus from Iceland, which at the time was a sparsely populated colony of Denmark. Around one in five people left the country, an estimated 20% of the nation, with the majority settling in Manitoba. Adjustment to new cultures and environments is not automatic but involves conscious choices, decisions and actions of both individuals and groups. Archaeologists are well equipped to study periods of cultural contact as these decisions and actions are often manifested in the material culture of individuals and/or groups and are evident in the material record they left behind. By focusing on two farmsteads, one in Iceland and one in the former colony of New Iceland, Manitoba, the research aims to detect nuanced changes that were experienced during the emigration period and to narrate personal stories of peoples' lives. These narratives can then be juxtaposed with other research focussing on broad social changes and political reform during this transformative period in the history of both Iceland and Canada. The Icelandic farmstead was home to a family who emigrated to Canada in 1876. It is called Hornbrekka and is located in Skagafjörður in North Iceland. The excavation at Hornbrekka took place in August 2009. The Canadian homestead was claimed by an Icelandic family in 1878, it is called Vidivellir and is on the outskirts of Riverton, Manitoba. The excavation at Vidivellir took place in June 2010.
	Parent Project: Eyjafjallajokull 2010- the formations of an enduring record The ash-fall from the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland: The formation of an environmental record, natural and cultural impacts	This project will hold workshops to establish the best way to study the transformations and impacts of the volcanic ash fall from 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland. This eruption offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a new understanding of the formation of the enduring environmental record of eruptions and transform our knowledge of the environmental data preserved within volcanic ash layers. It would also refine our understanding of both past eruptions and their impacts on society and landscape. If the ways in which volcanic ash layers become transformed are better understood, then this could achieve four important goals: 1) we will be able to know more about the nature of the landscape onto which the ash fell and 2) the post depositional environmental processes operating on it; 3) we will be able to have a better idea of the nature of the initial ash fall and so 4) be able to better reconstruct the initial eruption. In the aftermath of the 2010 eruption the social and environmental impacts can be tracked in detail as they happen and it will be possible to discuss unfolding events and their consequences with the affected community. How does volcanic ash affect vegetation, water quality and drainage? What are the impacts on livestock? How does the ash-fall affect grazing, soil erosion and soil fertility? Where the ash was cleared, how was this done? What other impacts (negative and positive) has the eruption caused and how does this affect the viability of farming and other rural activities?
	Parent Project: The Assembly Project - Meeting-places in Northern Europe AD 400-1500 The Assembly Project - Meeting-places in Northern Europe AD 400-1500	The Assembly Project – Meeting-places in Northern Europe AD 400-1500 (TAP) is an international collaborative research project. TAP aims to investigate the role of assemblies (things) in the creation of collective identities and emergent kingdoms in medieval Northern Europe (AD 400-1500). Main research questions are: What was the role of assemblies (things) in the creation, consolidation and maintenance of collective identities, emergent polities and kingdoms in early medieval Northern European populations and communities? The project will, in its entirety, contribute an entirely new combined data set for the study of early governance and administrative organisation in the societies of North West Europe. It will achieve a range of objectives including: - the establishment of a relative chronology of assembly sites - new knowledge on the role of assemblies in processes of territorialisation. - a study of how law and collective norms and values were established and enforced onto colonised/conquered areas. - a study of gender perspective concerning power relations and assembly access - a historiography of assemblies and their relevance to the concepts of national identity and statehood
	Geophysical survey at Tingwall, Shetland	The present report summarizes the geophysical survey at Tingwall, which is home of the most important assembly site of Shetland. The survey was undertaken in May 2010 and is part of The Assembly Project.
	Geophysical survey at Housa Voe, Papa Stour, Shetland	A geophysical survey at Housa Voe, Papa Stour, was undertaken in May 2010. The survey forms part of The Assembly Project.
	Tephrochronology and landscape change in Skaftartunga	This project used very high resolution sediment accumulation records to analyse the environmental impact of population changes in this region of Iceland since Landnam, and finished in 2011. The main results are in Richard Streeter's PhD thesis and in publications in PNAS and the Holocene (see links below). Skaftartunga has one of the best resolution tephra records in Iceland - tephra layers from Hekla in 1341 and 1389, Katla 1416, Veidivotn 1477, Katla 1500 and Hekla 1597 document the period before, during and after the 15th century with great precision. This is important because this time sees large changes in the form of two plagues in AD 1402 and AD 1494, which kill c30-50% (Karlsson 1996) of the population. Elsewhere in Europe the black death creates an environmental record of land use regression (e.g. Van Hoof et al. 2007) but thus far there has been no attempt to correlate changes in geomorphology in Iceland with these major demographic events. Through fieldwork in 2008, 2009 and 2010 we have generated a database containing over 220 soil profiles in the region, which consists of nearly 3000 dated tephra layers, and many thousand high resolution (+/- 1mm) photogrammetric measurements of sediment accumulation (further details in the thesis and Holocene paper). This database can be used not only to investigate changes in the period immediately following the plauge in the early 15th Century, but the relationship between population changes and the geomorphic record more generally. By analysing the relationship between climatic records for the region, and population changes over the whole settlement period we hope to begin to quantify how the geomorphic record (which is influenced by many factors) is made. In particular the influence of other major demographic events such as the 1707 smallpox epidemic, 1755 famine and 1783 haze famine will be considered. As part of this analysis agent based population modelling to establish the resilience and recovery time after demographic shock is also being developed. Initial results indicate that there was an easing of landscape pressure after the first plague in AD 1402, which is seen as a reduction in sediment accumulation rates in the period AD 1389-1416 to levels which are comparable to the pre-Landnam level and the lowest in the post Landnam sequence. While this effect is short lived with rates returning to average post-Landnam rates in the period AD 1416-1477, this easing of landscape pressure may have increased overall landscape resilience. This may explain the lag between climatic deterioration in the 14th century and the geomorphic effects appearing in the late 18th century.
	Snow, landscape and people: Modelling variations in snow distribution and melt across the landscape and the implications for human activities	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.

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