Tracing the Development of Fishing Settlement From the Iron Age to the Modern Period in Northern Norway: A Case Study From Borgvær in the Lofoten Islands

ABSTRACT

Although models for the development of fishing settlement in northern Norway from the Iron Age to the early modern period have been debated for many years, archaeological documentation of the process remains inadequate. This article employs a case study from the small island of Borgvær in the Lofoten Islands, to elucidate the shift from temporary, fishing-based occupation in the Merovingian Period (AD 550–800) to more permanent farm mound settlement established by the late Viking Age to the early medieval period (ca. AD 1000–1100) and continuing up until the eighteenth century, followed by intensive fishing station settlement in the nineteenth to early twentieth century. Borgvær offers an important case study documenting the transformation of fishing settlement from small-scale seasonal activity to more formalized control as part of a redistributive economy in the Viking Age and followed by intensive commercialized cod fishing in the medieval to early modern period.

Keywords:

• fishing settlement
• Iron Age
• Lofoten Islands
• medieval period
• northern Norway

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Funding for the Borgvær archaeological fieldwork was provided to the senior author by Tromsø University Museum. The Borgvær project received additional financial support from the Nansen Fund, Norwegian Archaeological Society, and Lofotr Viking Museum for radiocarbon dating and faunal analysis. We are especially grateful to Lofotr Viking Museum and director Geir Are Johansen for supporting the Borgvær field investigations. Our thanks to Yassin Nyang Karoliussen for ceramic identification. Comments by three anonymous reviewers helped to improve the content and clarity of the article.