Environmental change has a human dimension, and has had so for at least the last 10 000 years. The prehistoric impact of people on the Arctic landscape has occasionally left visible traces, such as house and field structures. More often than not, however, the only evidence available is at the microscopic or geochemical level, such as fossil insect and seed assemblages or changes in the physical and chemical properties of soils and sediments. These records are the subject of SEAD, a multidisciplinary database and software project currently underway at Umeå University, Sweden, which aims to create an online database and set of tools for investigating these traces, as part of an international research infrastructure for palaeoecology and environmental archaeology.

This document lays out a strategy for the development of SEAD – A Strategic Environmental Archaeology Database, which will facilitate the digitisation and accessibility augmentation of MAL’s existing data from nearly thirty years of work in the fields of archaeology and environmental science. SEAD will also provide a framework for the entry of data from all future research and consultancy work at MAL, and allow guest researchers and external partners to contribute to, and work with the same data. The planned system will be implemented at both local and internet levels, and be designed with an aim towards broadening its scope with external partners in the future. SEAD will be made available online in order to increase the ease of access to environmental archaeology data and encourage an expansion of both the discipline and Sweden’s role in it. This is inline with current EU strategies on enhancing research infrastructure, and providing a greater insight into human-environment interactions for long term planning.

A total of 322 bulk samples, 267 bulk subsamples and 1632 survey samples from the excavation of Iron Age settlements at Ørland, Vik, Sør-Trondelag, were analysed at the Environmental Archaeology Laboratory (MAL) at Umeå University. The overall aim of these analyses was to look for evidence which could help identify possible prehistoric activity areas, understand building functions and divisions, and shed light on land management around the farmsteads.

This paper uses the currently available data on the immediate post-glacial landscape of Fennoscandia, along with relevant palaeoenvionmental reconstructions for the Barents region, to paint a picture of the landscape and resources available to the early colonisers of this area. In addition, the aim is to provide a source of up to date references for those interested in integrating the archaeological and environmental evidence, towards an holistic model of the Early Holocene landscape.

Analysis of insect fossil remains retrieved from a bog close to the abandoned farm at Gammelhemmet, near Lycksele in Swedish Lapland, enabled the reconstruction of environmental changes at the site over the last 2500years. These results represent the first late Holocene palaeoentomological succession studied for insect remains in the Vasterbotten interior, and they provide new evidence for landscape change in the area. Around 2000years ago, at the end of the early Iron Age, disappearance of the tree and leaf litter fauna and an increase in aquatic species indicate the expansion of wetlands in the area. Patches of a multi-aged mixed woodland with a diverse assemblage of forest-dwelling beetles succeeded the wetland approximate to 1500years ago, at the beginning of the late Iron Age. A marked change to open and drier conditions, and the presence of species often found in grassland and cultivated ground took place during the post-Medieval period. Our evidence indicates drainage of the area prior to the 18th century, placing the initiation of agricultural activities in Gammelhemmet earlier than the documentary record. Our research shows the potential of the use of fossil insects for understanding environmental change and also human impact on the landscape, even of limited scale, from natural contexts.