Humans Reached Remote North Atlantic Islands
Centuries Earlier Than Thought
By Kevin Krajick
The Faroe Islands, a small, rugged archipelago midway between Norway and Iceland, is one of the few places on Earth that remained unsettled by humans until historical times. Towering cliffs dominate the coasts, and strong winds rake the tundra interior. Archaeological excavations have suggested that the first people to find them and stay were Viking seafarers, who arrived around 850 AD.
Evidence recovered from the bottom of a lake by Lamont scientists shows that an unknown band of humans settled there some 350 years before the Vikings. They found sediments containing signs that domestic sheep suddenly appeared on the previously mammal-free islands around the year 500.
The researchers sailed in a small inflatable vessel onto a lake near the site of an ancient Viking locale on the island of Eysturoy. Here, they dropped weighted open-ended tubes to the bottom to collect sediments dropped year-by-year and built up over millennia, forming a long-term environmental record. The cores penetrated about nine feet of muck, recording some 10,000 years of environmental history. The scientists were looking to investigate the long-term climate of the islands, not the history of their inhabitants, but came up with a surprise.
Starting at 51 centimeters (ca. 20 inches) down in the sediments, they found signs that large numbers of sheep had suddenly arrived, most likely between 492 and 512, but possibly as early as 370. The giveaways: fragments of sheep DNA, and two distinctive types of lipids produced in sheep digestive systems—so-called fecal biomarkers. An overlying layer of ash deposited from a known Icelandic volcano eruption in 877 helped them reliably date the sediment sequences.
PEOPLE
OF THE PAST
Cores of ice, sea-floor sediments and rocks pulled from deep below the surface help Lamont researchers reconstruct our planet as it was millions, sometimes billions, of years ago–a time long before humans walked and settled the land. These records have been critical to our understanding of macro processes such as plate tectonics, sea-level changes and changes in atmospheric composition. However, to better understand the relationship humans have had with their natural environments, and the conditions that were dominant when past societies rose and fell, our researchers look for clues in shorter-lived, organic materials. They may have to travel halfway around the world hunting for these clues, but sometimes all it takes is a subway ride.
Edward Cook, Caroline Leland, and other scientists of Lamont's Tree-Ring Laboratory are used to trekking into some pretty remote places in search of ancient trees: the Peruvian Andes, the rainforests of Myanmar, the Himalayas of Nepal and Bhutan, and the steppes of central Mongolia.
But in 2019, they took their tree corers and chain saws to Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood to salvage joists removed from New York City's gigantic 1891 Terminal Warehouse, an iconic structure that still occupies an entire city block between 27th and 28th Streets. The joists they brought back to Lamont for analysis revealed centuries of climate data and other historical information about the region no longer available from living trees. The wood came from longleaf pines–some of which were mere saplings in the 1500s–that grew in ancient, long-gone forests of the northeastern United States. Studying these timber species, their ages, and provenances, unlocks information about the history of U.S. logging, commerce and transport. Tree-ring scientist Mukund Palat Rao considers the old wood a wonderful resource for science. "They’re inside old buildings, which are being demolished at a rapid pace. We’re trying to collect whatever we can.”
More than 3,000 miles (ca. 4,800 km) to the east, in the remote Faroe Islands, Lorelei Curtin and William D’Andrea were also after secrets left by past societies. The data they sought was not trapped in old timbers, but in the remnants of sheep poop buried in lake-bottom sediments. Archeologists have long believed the Vikings were the first people to reach the archipelago, but the Lamont team's analysis confirmed the presence of a previously unknown population that settled the area around 500 AD—some 350 years before the Vikings. Scroll down for a deeper dive into this extraordinary finding.
Humans Reached Remote North Atlantic Islands
Centuries Earlier Than Thought
By Kevin Krajick
The Faroe Islands, a small, rugged archipelago midway between Norway and Iceland, is one of the few places on Earth that remained unsettled by humans until historical times. Towering cliffs dominate the coasts, and strong winds rake the tundra interior. Archaeological excavations have suggested that the first people to find them and stay were Viking seafarers, who arrived around 850 AD.
Evidence recovered from the bottom of a lake by Lamont scientists shows that an unknown band of humans settled there some 350 years before the Vikings. They found sediments containing signs that domestic sheep suddenly appeared on the previously mammal-free islands around the year 500.
The researchers sailed in a small inflatable vessel onto a lake near the site of an ancient Viking locale on the island of Eysturoy. Here, they dropped weighted open-ended tubes to the bottom to collect sediments dropped year-by-year and built up over millennia, forming a long-term environmental record. The cores penetrated about nine feet of muck, recording some 10,000 years of environmental history. The scientists were looking to investigate the long-term climate of the islands, not the history of their inhabitants, but came up with a surprise.
Starting at 51 centimeters (ca. 20 inches) down in the sediments, they found signs that large numbers of sheep had suddenly arrived, most likely between 492 and 512, but possibly as early as 370. The giveaways: fragments of sheep DNA, and two distinctive types of lipids produced in sheep digestive systems—so-called fecal biomarkers. An overlying layer of ash deposited from a known Icelandic volcano eruption in 877 helped them reliably date the sediment sequences.
“You see the sheep DNA and the biomarkers start all at once. It’s like an off-on switch,” said Lamont paleoclimatologist William D’Andrea, who co-led the study.
The study is not the first to suggest that someone was there before the Vikings. The first physical evidence came with a 2013 study by other researchers of charred barley grains found underneath the floor of a Viking longhouse. The researchers dated the grains to between 300 and 500 years before the Norse; barley was not native to the island, so someone must have brought it. However, archaeologists wanted to see corroboration before declaring the case closed.
Some Medieval texts are suggestive. St. Brendan, an early Irish navigator, was said to have set out across the Atlantic with comrades from 512 to 530, and supposedly found a land dubbed the Isle of the Blessed. Later speculations and maps say this was the Faroes—or the far southerly Azores, or the Canary Islands—or that Brendan actually reached North America. In 825, the Irish monk and geographer Dicuil wrote that hermits had been living in some unidentified northern islands for at least 100 years. There was no proof for any of this.
The Lamont scientists speculate that the early settlers could have been Celts, though not necessarily monks. Many Faroese place names derive from Celtic words, and ancient Celtic grave markings dot the islands. DNA studies of the modern Faroese show that their paternal lineages are mainly Scandinavian, but their maternal lineages are mainly Celtic.
“We see this as putting the nail in the coffin that people were there before the Vikings,” said lead author Lorelei Curtin, who did the research as a Lamont graduate student. She noted that while the Faroes look rugged and wild today, practically all the vegetation feeds Faroese sheep, who in turn provide food and wool for the human population.
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People
of the Past
Cores of ice, sea-floor sediments and rocks pulled from deep below the surface help Lamont researchers reconstruct our planet as it was millions, sometimes billions, of years ago–a time long before humans walked and settled the land. These records have been critical to our understanding of macro processes such as plate tectonics, sea-level changes and changes in atmospheric composition. However, to better understand the relationship humans have had with their natural environments, and the conditions that were dominant when past societies rose and fell, our researchers look for clues in shorter-lived, organic materials. They may have to travel halfway around the world hunting for these clues, but sometimes all it takes is a subway ride.
Edward Cook, Caroline Leland, and other scientists of Lamont's Tree-Ring Laboratory are used to trekking into some pretty remote places in search of ancient trees: the Peruvian Andes, the rainforests of Myanmar, the Himalayas of Nepal and Bhutan, and the steppes of central Mongolia.
But in 2019, they took their tree corers and chain saws to Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood to salvage joists removed from New York City's gigantic 1891 Terminal Warehouse, an iconic structure that still occupies an entire city block between 27th and 28th Streets. The joists they brought back to Lamont for analysis revealed centuries of climate data and other historical information about the region no longer available from living trees. The wood came from longleaf pines–some of which were mere saplings in the 1500s–that grew in ancient, long-gone forests of the northeastern United States. Studying these timber species, their ages, and provenances, unlocks information about the history of U.S. logging, commerce and transport. Tree-ring scientist Mukund Palat Rao considers the old wood a wonderful resource for science. "They’re inside old buildings, which are being demolished at a rapid pace. We’re trying to collect whatever we can.”
More than 3,000 miles (ca. 4,800 km) to the east, in the remote Faroe Islands, Lorelei Curtin and William D’Andrea were also after secrets left by past societies. The data they sought was not trapped in old timbers, but in the remnants of sheep poop buried in lake-bottom sediments. Archeologists have long believed the Vikings were the first people to reach the archipelago, but the Lamont team's analysis confirmed the presence of a previously unknown population that settled the area around 500 AD—some 350 years before the Vikings. Scroll down for a deeper dive into this extraordinary finding.
“You see the sheep DNA and the biomarkers start all at once. It’s like an off-on switch,” said Lamont paleoclimatologist William D’Andrea, who co-led the study.
The study is not the first to suggest that someone was there before the Vikings. The first physical evidence came with a 2013 study by other researchers of charred barley grains found underneath the floor of a Viking longhouse. The researchers dated the grains to between 300 and 500 years before the Norse; barley was not native to the island, so someone must have brought it. However, archaeologists wanted to see corroboration before declaring the case closed.
Some Medieval texts are suggestive. St. Brendan, an early Irish navigator, was said to have set out across the Atlantic with comrades from 512 to 530, and supposedly found a land dubbed the Isle of the Blessed. Later speculations and maps say this was the Faroes—or the far southerly Azores, or the Canary Islands—or that Brendan actually reached North America. In 825, the Irish monk and geographer Dicuil wrote that hermits had been living in some unidentified northern islands for at least 100 years. There was no proof for any of this.
The Lamont scientists speculate that the early settlers could have been Celts, though not necessarily monks. Many Faroese place names derive from Celtic words, and ancient Celtic grave markings dot the islands. DNA studies of the modern Faroese show that their paternal lineages are mainly Scandinavian, but their maternal lineages are mainly Celtic.
“We see this as putting the nail in the coffin that people were there before the Vikings,” said lead author Lorelei Curtin, who did the research as a Lamont graduate student. She noted that while the Faroes look rugged and wild today, practically all the vegetation feeds Faroese sheep, who in turn provide food and wool for the human population.
Donate today to SUPPORT LAMONT SCIENCE
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Editors: Francesco Fiondella, Marian Mellin, Stacey Vassallo I Contributing Writers: Kevin Krajick, Sarah Fecht, Marie DeNoia Aronsohn I Design: Carmen Neal
Columbia Climate School Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Annual Report FY2022
© 2022 by The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. All rights reserved.
Editors: Francesco Fiondella, Marian Mellin, Stacey Vassallo I Contributing Writers: Kevin Krajick, Sarah Fecht, Marie DeNoia Aronsohn I Design: Carmen Neal
Columbia Climate School Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Annual Report FY2022
© 2022 by The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. All rights reserved.