Douglas Bolender

Douglas Bolender is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His research focuses on the archaeology of the North Atlantic region, particularly Iceland and Greenland, with an emphasis on Viking Age and medieval societies. He employs interdisciplinary methods including GIS, geoarchaeology, and political economy analysis to investigate themes like landscape modification, social inequality, property relations, and environmental sustainability.

Key projects include the Skagafjörður Archaeological Settlement Survey in northern Iceland, which examines settlement patterns, farmstead relocations, and the transition to a landlord-tenant system. His work on subsurface imaging techniques (GPR/TDR) has advanced archaeological survey methodologies in challenging environments. Bolender’s research explores how material culture and spatial organization reflect broader socio-economic transformations, such as Christianization processes, resource exploitation, and the entanglement of environmental and social crises.

He has conducted excavations at sites like Glaumbær and Hólar, analyzing burial practices, domestic structures, and agricultural intensification. His publications address theoretical frameworks for eventful archaeology, emphasizing the role of abrupt social changes and human-environment interactions. Current research continues to interrogate the genealogy of social inequality in medieval Iceland through archaeological and historical evidence.