Faroe Islands: Remote archipelago was occupied 300 years earlier than we thought

By Chen Ly

People arrived on the Faroe Islands – a North Atlantic archipelago between Iceland, Norway and the British Isles – earlier than we thought, predating the arrival of Norse Vikings by about 300 years.

The earliest direct evidence of human settlement on the Faroe Islands dates back to the arrival of the Vikings in around AD 800. But charred barley grains and cereal grain pollen on the islands dating back to around AD 500 indirectly hint that farming must have existed on the islands pre-Viking.

Now, William D’Andrea at …