Position

Assistant Professor

Contact

Email: vforbes [@] mun.ca
Office: QC 4014
Phone: 

Research Interests 

My research centres on the archaeology and ecology of northern communities’ changing relationships with subarctic and arctic environments. My methodological expertise is in environmental archaeology, and I specialize in the analysis of insect remains and the excavation of sod/turf-built dwellings, which allows me to examine past lifeways and living conditions as well as long-term human-mediated landscape and biodiversity change.

Most of my fieldwork experience involved excavating turf and sod houses (and associated middens) and undertaking small-scale surveys of modern beetles in Iceland (2006-2013), southwestern Alaska (2013-2017) and Newfoundland (2018-today). Over the last few years I have begun to turn my attention to peat bogs as archives of long-term biocultural footprints and biodiversity data, which led me to begin developing, in collaboration with colleague Paul Ledger, a methodology to effectively excavate, record and sample peat for high-resolution palaeoecological analyses.

I am currently leading the SSHRC-IG-funded project ‘Biocultural and Archaeological Legacies at L’Anse aux Meadows’, which aims to revitalize research at this UNESCO World Heritage site through an examination of legacy data combined with cutting-edge environmental-archaeological analyses. I am also maintaining international collaborations through involvement in interdisciplinary projects focusing on the Yup’ik site of Nunalleq in southwestern Alaska, and my involvement in an NSF-funded project focusing on southern Greenland. For more information on these projects, I invite you to have a look at the PEAT Lab web page.

Please note that due to my current commitments I will not be accepting new graduate students until the 2024 application year (for a start in Fall 2025).

Publications 

• _{Speller, J. &  Forbes, V. (2022) On the role of peat bogs as components of Indigenous cultural landscapes in Northern North America. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 54 (1): 96-110.}
• _{Kuitems, M., Wallace, B.L., Lindsay, C., Scifo, A., Doeve, P., Jenkins, K., Lindauer, S., Erdil, P., Ledger, P.M., Forbes, V., Vermeeren, C., Friedrich, R. & Dee, M.W. (2021) Evidence for European presence in the Americas in ad 1021. Nature.}
• _{Forbes, V., Huchet, J.-B., McManus-Fry, E., Gómez Coutouly, Y.A., Masson-MacLean, J., Masson-MacLean, É. Ledger, P.M., Britton, K., Hillerdal, C. & Knecht, R. (2019) Activity Areas or Conflict Episode? Interpreting the Spatial Patterning of Lice and Fleas at the Precontact Yup’ik Site of Nunalleq (16-17th Centuries AD, Alaska). Études Inuit Studies 43 (1-2): 197-221.}
• _{Ledger, P.M. & Forbes, V. (2019) Palaeoenvironmental Analyses from Nunalleq Illustrate a Novel Means to Date pre-Inuit and Inuit Archaeology. Arctic Anthropology 56 (2): 39-51.}
• _{Ledger, P.M., Girdland-Flink, L. & Forbes, V. (2019) New Horizons at L'Anse aux Meadows. PNAS 116 (31): 15341-15343.}
• _{Forbes, V., Ledger, P.M., Cretu, D. & Elias, S. (in press) A Sub-centennial, Little Ice Age Climate Reconstruction Using Beetle Subfossil Data from Nunalleq, Southwestern Alaska. Quaternary International.}
• _{Ledger, P.M., Forbes, V., Masson-Maclean, E., Hillerdal, C., Hamilton, W.D., McManus-Fry, E., Jorge, A., Britton, K., Knecht, R. (2018). Three Generations under One Roof? Bayesian Modelling of Radiocarbon Data from Nunalleq, Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska. American Antiquity 83 (3): 505-524.}
• _{Forbes, V. & Sikes, D. (2018) A survey of beetles (Coleoptera) from the tundra surrounding the Nunalleq archaeological site, Quinhagak, southwestern Alaska. Biodiversity Data Journal 6: e22788.}
• _{Forbes, V., Dussault, F., Lalonde, O. & Bain, A. (2017) Coléoptères, poux et puces subfossiles provenant d’habitats de chasseurs-cueilleurs: l’apport des recherches archéoentomologiques dans le nord circumpolaire. Recherches Amérindiennes au Québec XLVII (2-3): 11-21.}
• _{Roy, N., Woollett, J., Bhiry, N., Haemmerli, G., Forbes, V. & Pienitz, R. (2017) Perspective of Landscape Change Following Early Settlement (Landnám) in Svalbarðstunga, Northeastern Iceland. Boreas 47 (2): 671-686.}
• _{Ledger, P.M., Forbes, V., Masson-Maclean, E. & Knecht, R.A. (2016) Dating and Digging Stratified Archaeology in Circumpolar North America: A View from Nunalleq, Southwestern Alaska. Arctic 69 (4): 378-390.}
• _{Forbes, V., Dugmore, A.J & Ólafsson, E. (2016) The Life and Death of Barn Beetles: Faunas from Manure and Stored Hay inside Farm Buildings in Northern Iceland. Ecological Entomology 41: 480-499.}
• _{Forbes, V. (2015) Duck Fleas as Evidence for Eiderdown Production on Archaeological Sites. Journal of Archaeological Science 61: 105-111.}
• _{Forbes, V., Britton, K. & Knecht, R. (2015) Preliminary Archaeoentomological Analyses of Permafrost-preserved Cultural Layers from the Pre-contact Yup’ik Eskimo Site of Nunalleq, Alaska: Implications, Potential and Methodological Considerations. Environmental Archaeology 20 (2): 158-167.}
• _{Forbes, V., Dussault, F. & Bain, A. (2014) Archaeoentomological Research in the North Atlantic: Past, Present and Future. Journal of the North Atlantic 26: 1-24.}
• _{Forbes, V. & Milek, K.B. (2014) Insects, Activity Areas and Turf Buildings’ Interiors: An Ethno-archaeoentomological Case Study from 19th to Early 20th-century Þverá, Northeast-Iceland. Quaternary International. 341: 195-215.}
• _{Dussault, F., Forbes, V. & Bain, A. (2014) Archaeoentomology at Tatsip Ataa: Evidence for the Use of Local Resources and Daily Life in the Norse Eastern Settlement, Greenland. Journal of the North Atlantic 6, Special Volume, In the footsteps of Vebæk, Vatnahverfi Studies 2005-2011: 14-28.}
• _{Forbes, V., Dussault, F. & Bain, A. (2013) Contributions of Ectoparasite Studies in Archaeology with Two Examples from the North Atlantic Region. International Journal of Paleopathology 3: 158-164.}
• _{Forbes, V., Bain, A., Gísladóttir, G.A. & Milek, K.B. (2010) Reconstructing Aspects of the Daily Life in Late 19th and Early 20th-Century Iceland: Archaeoentomological Analysis of the Vatnsfjörður Farm, NW Iceland. Archaeologia Islandica 8: 77-110.}