The Archaeology of Capitalism in Iceland: The View from Viðey

This paper examines the particular nature of Icelandic capitalism as it emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on a recent project investigating the material processes surrounding the rise and fall of an early capitalist venture in the fishing industry, the role of commodities and their intersection with issues of colonialism and nationalism is explored. The study centers on a village community established in 1907 on an island in the bay of Reykjavík, which saw two periods of boom and bust in its short life before the village was abandoned in 1943.