Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (100 page)

evolution"
(Quaternary Research
46:37-47 (1996)); and David Hodell et al., "Pos
sible role of climate in the collapse of Classic Maya civilization"
(Nature
375: 391-394 (1995)). Two articles by the same group of scientists discussing drought inferences from lake cores specifically for the Peten region are: Michael Rosen-
meier, "A 4,000-year lacustrine record of environmental change in the southern
Maya lowlands, Peten, Guatemala"
(Quaternary Research
57:183-190 (2002)); and
Jason Curtis et al., "A multi-proxy study of Holocene environmental change in
the Maya lowlands of Peten, Guatemala"
(Journal of Paleolimnology
19:139-159
(1998)). Supplementing these studies of lake sediments, Gerald Haug et al, "Cli
mate and the collapse of Maya civilization"
(Science
299:1731-1735 (2003)) extract
year-to-year rainfall changes by analyzing sediments washed by rivers into the
ocean.

No one interested in the Maya should miss Mary Ellen Miller,
The Murals of
Bonampak
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), with its beautiful
color as well as black-and-white reproductions of the murals and their grisly tor
ture scenes; nor Justin Kerr's series of volumes reproducing Maya pottery,
The
Maya Vase Book
(New York: Kerr Associates, various dates). The fascinating story of
how Maya writing was deciphered is related by Michael Coe,
Breaking the Maya Code,
2nd ed. (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1999), and Stephen Houston, Os-
waldo Chinchilla Mazareigos, and David Stuart,
The Decipherment of Ancient Maya
Writing
(Norman: University of Oklahoma, 2001). The reservoirs of Tikal are described by Vernon Scarborough and Gari Gallopin, "A water storage adaptation in
the Maya lowlands"
(Science
251:658-662 (1991)). Lisa Lucero's article "The col
lapse of the Classic Maya: a case for the role of water control"
(American Anthro
pologist
104:814-826 (2002)) explains why differing local water problems might
have contributed to the non-uniformity of the Classic collapse, with different cities
meeting differing fates at different dates. Arturo Gomez-Pompa, Jose Salvador Flo-
res, and Victoria Sosa, "The 'pet kot': a man-made tropical forest of the Maya"
(In-terciencia
12:10-15 (1987)) describe Maya cultivation of forest patches with useful
trees. Timothy Beach, "Soil catenas, tropical deforestation, and ancient and con
temporary soil erosion in the Peten, Guatemala"
(Physical Geography
19:378-405
(1998)) shows that the Maya in some areas but not in others were able to reduce
soil erosion by terracing. Richard Hansen et al., "Climatic and environmental vari
ability in the rise of Maya civilization: a preliminary perspective from northern
Peten"
(Ancient Mesoamerica
13:273-295 (2002)) presents a multidisciplinary
study of an area densely populated already in pre-Classic times, and yielding evidence for plaster production as a driving force behind deforestation there.

Chapters 6-8

Vikings: The North Atlanta Saga,
edited by William Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000), is a multiauthored vol-

ume, beautifully illustrated in color, whose 31 chapters cover in detail the Vikings'
society, their expansion over Europe, and their North Atlantic colonies. Shorter,
single-authored overviews of the Vikings include Eric Christiansen,
The Norsemen
in the Viking Age
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), F. Donald Logan,
The Vikings in His
tory,
2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 1991), and Else Roestahl,
The Vikings
(New
York: Penguin, 1987). Gwyn Jones,
Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga,
2nd ed. (Ox
ford: Oxford University Press, 1986) and G. J. Marcus,
The Conquest of the North At
lantic
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1981) are instead concerned specifically
with the Vikings' three remote North Atlantic colonies of Iceland, Greenland, and
Vinland. A useful additional feature of Jones's book is that among its appendices
are translations of the most relevant saga source documents, including the Book of
the Icelanders, both of the Vinland sagas, and the Story of Einar Sokkason.

Two recent books summarizing Iceland's history are Jesse Byock,
Viking Age Ice
land
(New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001), which takes the story up to the end of the
Icelandic Commonwealth in 1262-1264, and which builds on the same author's
earlier
Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Present
(Berkeley: University of Califor
nia Press, 1988); and Gunnar Karlsson,
Iceland's 1100 Years: The History of a Mar
ginal Society
(London: Hurst, 2000), which covers not only the medieval but also
the modern era.
Environmental Change in Iceland: Past and Present
(Dordrecht:
Kluwer, 1991), edited by Judith Maizels and Chris Caseldine, is a more technical,
multiauthored account of Iceland's environmental history. Kirsten Hastrup,
Island
of Anthropology: Studies in Past and Present Iceland
(Viborg: Odense University
Press, 1990) collects the author's anthropological papers on Iceland.
The Sagas of
Icelanders: A Selection
(New York: Penguin, 1997) offers translations of 17 of the
sagas (including the two Vinland sagas), drawn from a five-volume
The Complete
Sagas of Icelanders
(Reykjavik: Leifur Eiriksson, 1997).

Two related papers on landscape change in Iceland are Andrew Dugmore et al.,
"Tephrochronology, environmental change and the Norse settlement of Iceland"
(Environmental Archaeology
5:21-34 (2000)), and Ian Simpson et al., "Crossing the thresholds: human ecology and historical patterns of landscape degradation"
[Catena
42:175-192 (2001)). Because each insect species has specific habitat and
climate requirements, Paul Buckland and his colleagues have been able to use in
sects preserved at archaeological sites as environmental indicators. Their papers include Gudrun Sveinbjarnardottir et al. "Landscape change in Eyjafjallasveit, Southern Iceland"
(Norsk Geog. Tidsskr
36:75-88 (1982)); Paul Buckland et al., "Late Holocene palaeoecology at Ketilsstadir in Myrdalur, South Iceland"
(Jokull
36:41-55 (1986)); Paul Buckland et al., "Holt in Eyjafjallasveit, Iceland: a paleoeco-logical study of the impact of Landnam"
(Acta Archaeologica 61:252-271
(1991));
Gudrun Sveinbjarnardottir et al, "Shielings in Iceland: an archaeological and his
torical survey"
(Acta Archaeologica
61:74-96 (1991)); Paul Buckland et al.,
"Palaeoecological investigations at Reykholt, Western Iceland," pp. 149-168 in
C. D. Morris and D. J. Rackhan, eds.,
Norse and Later Settlement and Subsistence in

the North Atlantic
(Glasgow: Glasgow University Press, 1992); and Paul Buckland
et al., "An insect's eye-view of the Norse farm," pp. 518-528 in Colleen Batey et al., eds.,
The Viking Age in Caithness, Orkney and the North Atlantic
(Edinburgh: Edin
burgh University Press, 1993). The same insect-based approach to understanding
environmental change in the Faeroe Islands is used by Kevin Edwards et al., "Landscapes at landnam: palynological and palaeoentomological evidence from Toftanes,
Faroe Islands"
(Frodskaparrit
46:177-192 (1998)).

Two books assemble in detail the available information on Norse Greenland:
Kirsten Seaver,
The Frozen Echo: Greenland and Exploration of North America ca.
a.d.
1000-1500
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996), and Finn Gad,
The History of Greenland, vol. I: Earliest Times to 1700
(Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1971). A subsequent book by Finn Gad,
The History of Greenland, vol. II: 1700-1782
(Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1973), continues the
story through the period of Greenland's "rediscovery" and Danish colonization.
Niels Lynnerup reported on his analysis of the available Norse skeletons from Greenland in his monograph
The Greenland Norse: A Biologic-Anthropological
Study
(Copenhagen: Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland, 1998). Two
multiauthored monographs with many papers on the Inuit and their Native Ameri
can predecessors in Greenland are Martin Appelt and Hans Christian Gullov, eds.,
Late Dorset in High Arctic Greenland
(Copenhagen: Danish Polar Center, 1999), and
Martin Appelt et al, eds.,
Identities and Cultural Contacts in the Arctic
(Copen
hagen: Danish Polar Center, 2000). An intimately personal insight into the lives of
Greenland Inuit was gained from the discovery of six women, a child, and an infant
who died and were buried around 1475, and whose bodies and clothing remained
well preserved because of the cold dry climate. Those mummies are described and
illustrated in Jens Peder Hart Hansen et al., eds.,
The Greenland Mummies
(London:
British Museum Press, 1991); the book's cover is a haunting, unforgettable photo
graph of the face of the six-month-old infant.

The two most important series of archaeological studies of the Greenland Norse within the last 20 years have been by Thomas McGovern and by Jette
Arneborg and their colleagues. Among McGovern's papers are Thomas McGovern,
"The Vinland adventure: a North Atlantic perspective"
(North American Archaeolo
gist
2:285-308 (1981)); Thomas McGovern, "Contributions to the paleoeconomy of
Norse Greenland"
(Acta Archaeologica
54:73-122 (1985)); Thomas McGovern et al.,
"Northern islands, human era, and environmental degradation: a view of social and ecological change in the medieval North Atlantic"
(Human Ecology
16:225-270 (1988)); Thomas McGovern, "Climate, correlation, and causation in Norse Green
land"
(Arctic Anthropology
28:77-100 (1991)); Thomas McGovern et al., "A verte
brate zooarchaeology of Sandnes V51: economic change at a chieftain's farm in
West Greenland"
(Arctic Anthropology
33:94-121 (1996)); Thomas Amorosi et al,
"Raiding the landscape: human impact from the Scandinavian North Atlantic"
(Human Ecology
25:491-518 (1997)); and Tom Amorosi et al, "They did not live by

grass alone: the politics and paleoecology of animal fodder in the North Atlantic re
gion"
(Environmental Archaeology
1:41-54 (1998)). Arneborg's papers include
lette Arneborg, "The Roman church in Norse Greenland"
(Acta Archaeologica
61:142-150 (1990)); Jette Arneborg, "Contact between Eskimos and Norsemen in
Greenland: a review of the evidence," pp. 23-35 in
Tvaerfaglige Vikingesymposium
(Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University, 1993); Jette Arneborg, "Burgundian caps, Basques and dead Norsemen at Herjolfsnaes, Greenland," pp. 75-83 in
National-
museets Arbejdsmark
(Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1996); and Jette Arneborg et
al., "Change of diet of the Greenland Vikings determined from stable carbon iso
tope analysis and
^I4
C dating of their bones"
(Radiocarbon
41:157-168 (1999)).
Among the Greenland sites that Arneborg and her colleagues excavated was the re
markable "Farm beneath the sand," a large Norse farm sealed under a thick layer of
sand at Western Settlement; that site and several other Greenland sites are described
in a monograph edited by Jette Arneborg and Hans Christian Gullov,
Man, Culture and Environment in Ancient Greenland
(Copenhagen: Danish Polar Center, 1998).
C. L. Vebaek described his excavations from 1945 to 1962 in three monographs: respectively numbers 14, 17, and 18 (1991, 1992, and 1993) in the series
Meddelelser
om Gronland,
Man and Society, Copenhagen:
The Church Topography of the Eastern
Settlement and the Excavation of the Benedictine Convent at Narsarsuaq in the Uu-
nartoq Fjord; Vatnahverfi: An Inland District of the Eastern Settlement in Greenland;
and
Narsaq: A Norse Landndma Farm.

Among important individual papers on Norse Greenland are Robert McGhee,
"Contact between Native North Americans and the medieval Norse: a review of the
evidence"
(American Antiquity
49:4-26 (1984)); Joel Berglund, "The decline of
the Norse settlements in Greenland"
(Arctic Anthropology
23:109-135 (1986));
Svend Albrethsen and Christian Keller, "The use of the saeter in medieval Norse farming in Greenland"
(Arctic Anthropology
23:91-107 (1986)); Christian Keller,
"Vikings in the West Atlantic: a model of Norse Greenlandic medieval society"
(Acta Archaeologica
61:126-141 (1990)); Bent Fredskild, "Agriculture in a marginal
area: South Greenland from the Norse landnam (1985
a.d.)
to the present
1985
a.d."
pp. 381-393 in Hilary Birks et al, eds.,
The Cultural Landscape: Past,
Present and Future
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Bent Fredskild,
"Erosion and vegetational changes in South Greenland caused by agriculture"
(Geografisk Tidsskrift
92:14-21 (1992)); and Bjarne Jakobsen "Soil resources and
soil erosion in the Norse Settlement area of 0sterbygden in southern Greenland"
(Acta Borealia
1:56-68 (1991)).

Chapter 9

Three books, excellent in different ways, that portray New Guinea highland societies are: a historical account by Gavin Souter,
New Guinea: The Last Unknown
(Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1964); Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson,
First