Norsemen/Viking seafarers navigated unpredictable waters to create colonies in remote lands. Dr. Bolender explains how archaeologists locate and reconstruct the far-flung settlements in Greenland, Iceland and elsewhere. The ancient ruins suggest how the Norsemen/Vikings adapted to new territories and transformed the environment in ways still felt today. Dr Bolender discusses the known settlements and also the question of Viking settlements in North America. Dr. Bolender appeared in the BBC/PBS Nova documentary, Vikings Unearthed.
Douglas Bolender’s research interests focus on the Viking Age and medieval North Atlantic, the archaeology of property, environmental archaeology, and geographic information systems and spatial analysis. He has conducted fieldwork in Iceland, Greenland, Denmark, Hungary, and Eastern North America. He is co-director of the Skagafjörður Church and Settlement Survey in Iceland. His scholarly work includes the edited volume, Eventful Archaeologies: Approaches to Structural Change in the Archaeological Record, published by the State University of New York Press in 2010.