Human Ecodynamics in the North Atlantic

In Human Ecodynamics in the North Atlantic: A Collaborative Model of Humans and Nature through Space and Time, Ruth A Maher and Ramona Harrison have compiled a series of separate research projects conducted across the North Atlantic region that each contribute greatly to the area of study. Thus assembling a regional model through which the reader is presented with a vivid and detailed image of the climatic events and cultures who have occupied these seas and lands for roughly a 5000-year period. It provides a model of adaptability, resilience, and sustainability that can be applied globally. Visiting the Northern Isles of Scotland, in the Orkney Islands the reader is taken through the Archeology from the Neolithic Period through World War II in the face of sea-level rise and rapidly eroding coastlines. Moving to the Shetland Islands we see a deep-time study of one large-scale Iron Age excavation. We then go to the northern coasts of Norway to learn about late medieval maritime peoples. Next is Iceland, with human-environment interaction and implications of climate change presented from the Viking Age through the Early Modern Era. Rounding out the North Atlantic Region, we have Greenland, where we shed light on the Norse in the late Viking Age and the Middle Ages.