Being crudely made of more than one piece of wood, their ships were fire hazards.
The Vikings are better known as the Haida of the North Atlantic, so I am sure locals will be delighted to know that Victoria’s newly emplaced Viking Archaeologist, UVIC’s own Dr. Erin McGuire, will be speaking at this month’s Archaeological Society of BC, Victoria Chapter meetings. As ever, these talks are free and open to the public – they just require a modicum of navigational skill to make it to the Pacific Forestry Centre (see the map below). Unfortunately, I am on a bad skid of not being able to make the ASBC so regrets in advance, and if the winner of the mystery quiz (below) shows, they will not be getting their free beer.
You want to live where? Living and dying in Viking Iceland
Dr Erin McGuire, University of Victoria
Tuesday October 19th at 7.30, Pacific Forestry Centre, 506 West Burnside Road (map)
Abstract:
More than 1100 years ago a group of settlers decided that Iceland looked like a suitable place to live. They established farms in a virgin landscape and attempted to recreate, and perhaps reinvent, the lives they had been living in their homelands. These settlers were one wave of an extended period of migration that defined what we call the Viking Age. In their new Icelandic homes, they lived, farmed, fought, loved, and died, much as they would have in Norway. But subtle differences in the landscape and resources available to them, as well as the new opportunities and challenges that arise when people start fresh, provided them with the opportunity to forge distinct identities. In this talk, we will look at what life would have been like for the Icelandic Viking settlers, using evidence drawn from archaeological excavations across the country. Although the evidence is fragmentary, as is the case in any archaeological research, the stories we can tell are compelling, and I hope that they will inspire you, much as they have inspired me.
Biography:
Dr Erin McGuire is a Senior Instructor in Anthropology at the University of Victoria. Her research looks at human migration and burial practices in the context of the Viking North Atlantic. Recently moved to Victoria from Glasgow, Scotland, Erin has been on the move most of her life, and studying the emergence of migrant identities seemed like a natural choice for her. At the University of Glasgow, she completed her PhD in archaeology and taught for both the Department of Archaeology and the University of Glasgow’s Learning and Teaching Centre. Although she spends much of her time these days teaching about the discipline of Anthropology, the Vikings still hold a special place in her heart, and she enjoys speaking about them when the opportunity arises.
For information, phone 250-384-6059
or
e-mail asbcvictoria@gmail.com
This would be the "dying" part of which she speaks. Damn pterodactyls bork bork bork....
Northwest Coast Archaeology 