Speculations on farming development during the early Iron Age of southern Norway (500 bc–ad 550), focusing on the Dobbeltspor Dilling Project

Abstract

British and international geoarchaeologists, with major practitioners such as Professor French at Cambridge, have developed a worldwide reputation for innovative interdisciplinary study. Such workers have been privileged to be involved with expert teams around the globe. Here, representatives of a large multi-national archaeological and paleoenvironmental team present an interdisciplinary thematic case – the prehistoric development of mixed farming in Norway. A decade of research, including a two-year investigation of the c. 5.5-hectare site of Dobbeltspor Dilling, Østfold, has produced a large database for improving our modelling of early Iron Age (500 bc–ad 550) mixed farming in southern Norway. At Dilling, 137 houses/different house phases (e.g. three-aisled buildings), and other settlement features such as fields, trackways and pit houses were excavated, with environmental archaeology samples undergoing geochemical, macrofossil, and soil micromorphological analyses. This new dataset, archaeological stratigraphy and finds recovery allow speculation on the development of sustainable farming during this early Iron Age period, which is not only relevant to Norway but appears to be consistent with findings from western Europe as a whole.