“Baa, Baa Black Sheep, Have You Any Wool?” Wool Trade Networks Evaluated through Strontium Isotope Analyses at Borgund

The town of Borgund Kaupang, on Norway’s western coast, was founded in the late Viking Period and flourished during the Middle Ages. As a regional commercial center, it occupied a poorly studied position linking smaller hinterland communities to coastal networks that linked ports such as Bergen and Trondheim with the North Atlantic Islands and continental Europe. A large, international roject organized by the University of Bergen is currently reviewing and revitalizing legacy collections from excavations of the 1950s-1970s at Borgund Kaupang. Textiles are surprisingly well-preserved in its excavated contexts and provide one avenue for examining the roles of local versus imported products in trade and the life of the town. Initial strontium isotope analyses suggest that most of these are of Norwegian origin, rather than imports from the North Atlantic islands or other parts of Europe. This differs from the situation in Bergen and Trondheim, where imports seem to have been more significant. Yet, if this pattern appears strong at Borgund Kaupang, questions remain about whether the woolen textiles found there were produced exclusively in its local hinterland or came from other parts of Norway through internal trade routes competing with or linked to the networks connecting Norway’s main ports. Comparative samples of modern wool are helping us to establish strontium baselines for wool from different parts of Norway and will be compared to Borgund Kaupang’s archaeological samples. Already, evidence for local production of woolens from the earliest phases of the site raises questions about whether Borgund Kaupang produced specialized cloth for exchange or was a node within internal or local trade networks. Were these textiles produced in Borgund for trade with its periphery or were they produced elsewhere in the periphery to supply early urban centers such as this one?Rediger