CUNY
Archaeologists Receive Vikings Grant
CUNY's Northern Science and Education
Center (composed of Brooklyn and Hunter Colleges and the
Graduate Center) has just been announced as one of four co-applicants
for the largest grant for an archaeological science project
ever made by the prestigious private British Leverhulme Foundation.
The $2 million, four-year award will allow the teams from the
Center and the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Stirling
to continue their exploration of the human and ecological effects
of Viking settlements in Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands,
which lie between Iceland and Scotland. In recent years funding
from the NSF has enabled CUNY undergraduates and graduates to
actively participate in northern field research. A highlight
of last summer's Icelandic expedition was the discovery by Brooklyn
and Hunter researchers of artifacts from a 12th-century Viking
settlement.
"The Vikings were the first people to inhabit Iceland,
and the legacy of their lifestyle is a dramatic change in the
environment of the island," says Prof. Sophia Perdikaris
of the Brooklyn anthropology department. This funding, she believes,
will ultimately help to "better manage not only Iceland's
ecosystem, but other ecosystems around the world." |
