Ancient sheep's faeces reveals unknown inhabitants on Faroe Islands, claims study

New research has revealed that the isolated Faroe Islands were home to some unknown inhabitants in 500 AD before the Vikings arrived. The evidence comes from ancient sheep faeces, which has led some researchers to propose that others had lived on the islands centuries earlier. Faroe is a remote archipelago between Norway and Iceland that the Vikings discovered after developing long-distance sailing ships, and researchers believe they were the first inhabitants of the Faroe Islands. Prior to this research, the only evidence proving the presence of the first human inhabitants on the Faroe Islands ahead of the Vikings came from mentions in medieval texts. Lorelei Curtin, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, said "This is the first unequivocal evidence of people being on the Faroes," before 900 CE and "This really revises the timeline for the population of the North Atlantic," the proceedings of the study were published in Communications Earth and Environment.

Ancient sheep's faeces reveals earliest settlers on the Faroe Islands: Study

Earlier, in 2013, researchers discovered ancient carbonised barley grains on the Faroese island of Sandoy. The barley grains were found to be 300 to 500 years old before Vikings started living on the rugged Faroes. However, it was found that Barely was not native to the islands before humans lived. To get more gathered evidence, the research team conducted an investigation into a lake on the Faroese island of Eysturoy. 

"Lakes are amazing archives of environmental information because they accumulate material from the surrounding landscape in sequential layers in their sediments," said Curtin. She further explained, "Each member of our team uses different tools to analyse the lake sediments, and by working together, we gain a holistic understanding of changes in the environment, including human impacts on the landscape," reported CNN citing the research report. The researchers collected cores from the lake bottom and it was found that the region had the presence of domesticated sheep in large numbers, arriving between 492 and 512. During the researcher, the team used samples of sheep faeces, which have distinctive biomarkers and can easily be traced. During the research, the experts also used a layer of ash, which erupted from an Icelandic volcano in 877, to find out dates. The researchers observed that no mammals were present on the islands, and sheep must have been brought by people arriving on the Faroes. "After humans arrived and brought sheep with them, the vegetation changed," Curtin said.

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