(Im)mobile Vikings? Environmental stress, adaptation, and the decision not to leave Iceland

Several thousand settlers from Norway and the British Isles started migrating to the North Atlantic in the late ninth century. The inhospitable environment of their main settlement earned it the name Ísland, “the land of ice”. This rapid colonization swiftly showed its ecologically destructive impact: deforestation resulted in soil erosion, while overgrazing and depletion of fish populations triggered famines and conflicts over agricultural land and natural resources. This article aims to survey the anthropogenic impact on the basis of palaeoecological proxies obtained from pollen, tephra, and stable isotopes and to complement them with written accounts from the North such as the Icelandic sagas, annals, and law codes. Furthermore, the article investigates how medieval Icelanders adapted to environmental and socioeconomic challenges such as overexploitation of the land and natural hazards like volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. This article discusses the central question: Why did medieval Icelanders not continue their migration to more hospitable lands like the British Isles or the North American Vinland? In other words, what immobilised the intrepid Vikings?