Lost History of the Sheep Islands

Sheep graze in the Faroe Islands, an archipelago in the North Atlantic. New research shows that both sheep and people were living on the islands sometime in the fifth century A.D., hundreds of years before Vikings were thought to have arrived in the Faroes.(Polhansen/Adobe Stock)

(Ken Feisel)

For more than 1,000 years, the jutting volcanic cliffs that dominate the coastlines of the 18 Faroe Islands have complicated life for seafarers seeking to make landfall on the archipelago. Rising from

Eric A. Powell is deputy editor at ARCHAEOLOGY.