Project Details: Evaluation of Archaeoentomology for Reconstructing Rural Life-Ways and the Process of Modernisation in Iceland

Project Description

Title:	Evaluation of Archaeoentomology for Reconstructing Rural Life-Ways and the Process of Modernisation in Iceland
Description	This project was initiated with Véronique Forbes's PhD dissertation at the University of Aberdeen 'Evaluation of Archaeoentomology for Reconstructing Rural Life-Ways and the Process of Modernisation in 19th and Early 20th-Century Iceland' (2013). The project seeks to evaluate the potential of archaeoentomology, the study of insects preserved in archaeological contexts, to help understand when and how the social, ideological and economic changes associated with modernization took place in various parts of Iceland. So far, the project has examined insects preserved in 19th and 20th century deposits from 3 archaeological sites from northern Iceland: Hornbrekka, Vatnsfjörður and Þverá. These have yielded the earliest records of now-cosmopolitan insect species including cattle ectoparasites as well as stored food pests originally found in tropical and subtropical regions. These insects can be used to clarify the timing and processes by which individual sites began tapping into international trade networks, farming came to be modernized and people's everyday practices and attitude were affected by ideologies of 'improvement'.
Keywords:	Archaeoentomology Modernization Iceland
Sponsors/Funders	University of Aberdeen, Fornleifastofnun Íslands, Commonwealth Scholarship Commission
Country	Iceland
Project Start Year	2009
Project End Year	Ongoing

Contact:	Veronique Forbes
Address	St Mary's, Elphinstone Rd, Aberdeen
Postcode	AB24 3UF
Telephone	07771459684
Email	veroforbes@gmail.com