Smoke, Sniff, Chew. Tobacco Consumption in Iceland During the Seventeenth-Nineteenth Centuries

The earliest documented use of tobacco in Iceland dates to the early seventeenth century and as with most European countries and colonies, its presence is attested archaeologically by clay pipes. Iceland was part of the Danish-Norwegian kingdom but also as an island in the mid Atlantic, along the route of Dutch and English fishers and whalers and between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, was subject to various cultural influences. In this paper, we explore how a tobacco culture emerged and subsequently developed in Iceland over these three centuries, connecting written sources and the archaeology. We will explore not just smoking but also other uses of tobacco, specifically chewing and snuff and the material culture associated with tobacco consumption; who was using it, how and in what contexts—and how did this change between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. For all European societies, tobacco was a new commodity, yet one that must have subtly been altered by—and affected in turn—its local context. Ultimately, our paper seeks to understand this process in the case of Iceland.