Abstract

Iceland has often been perceived as a society isolated from the rest of Europe owing to its location on an island in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. This article challenges such interpretations by arguing that Iceland was neither inaccessible nor culturally remote. Rather than functioning solely as barriers, oceans can facilitate mobility and sustain interaction between societies across open seas. Material and literary sources demonstrate that Icelandic society, from the time of its earliest settlement, was embedded within wider European cultural and social networks. The settlement of Iceland during the Viking Age, by processes of both voluntary and forced migration, further underscores the significance of maritime connectivity in shaping the North Atlantic world. These connections were reinforced through religious networks and later the establishment of ecclesiastical institutions that integrated Iceland into broader European political structures. Drawing on evidence from archaeological excavations, in addition to written sources, this article demonstrates the persistence of cultural interaction across the North Atlantic, even during periods of profound social and religious transformation. The material evidence examined here reveals forms of cultural communication and exchange shaped by religious beliefs and practices. Taken together, the evidence encounters enduring narratives of Icelandic isolation and instead advances an understanding of islandness as fundamentally relational—from island to island—constituted through dynamic connections among people, objects, institutions, and maritime spaces.

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