Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Page 112

Orri Vésteinsson, Thomas H. McGovern, Christian Keller
studied, its ca. 1-20 ratio of cattle bones
to caprine bones mirrors some recorded
ratios of actual livestock kept on many
farms by the early 18th century. Most of
the other later medieval Icelandic animal
bone collections show cattle to caprine
ratios in the 1 to 4 range demonstrated for
instance by the lower layers at the
Svalbarð midden. The upper layers of the
same deposit extend to the mid-19th cen-
tury, and illustrate both a continued
decline of cattle relative to caprines and a
near total abscence of pig bones. The
same general trends have been observed
in other later medieval and early modern
bone collections from other parts of
Iceland (Amorosi 1992, 1996).
The domestic mammal bone propor-
tions in llth - 12th century Greenland
show more similarity to the northern
Icelandic collections of the lOth century
than to the caprine-dominated collections
of contemporary 11 th-12th c. and later
Icelandic sites. Pigs are a substantial
presence in Greenland as in Iceland dur-
ing the initial settlement period, and as in
Iceland their bones become extremely
rare finds thereafter. Despite the later
time period of the Greenlandic landnám,
it would appear that the model of early
farming strategies in Iceland and perhaps
in Scandinavia still exerted a major influ-
ence on the Greenlandic fírst settlers. As
in Iceland, some sites did not continue
the cattle-heavy strategy: the basal llth
c. deposits at the midden of the small
W48 farm have an approximate cattle to
caprine ratio of about 1 cattle bone to 2.3
caprine, while the fínal 14th century
deposits have a ratio of about 1 cattle
bone to 8 caprine. Other sites were more
able to preserve the settlement period
farming strategy. The midden deposits
from the large manor at W51 Sandnes
produced basal 1 lth-12th c. cattle to
caprine bone ratios of almost exactly 1 to
1, and the terminal 14th c. deposits pro-
duced ratios of 1 to 1.15. As has been
argued elsewhere (McGovern 1992a),
status and sustained committment to cat-
tle keeping appear to be very closely
related in the Greenlandic archaeological
record.
Overall, there seems to be a clear cul-
tural bias towards cattle keeping reflect-
ed in the early bone collections from both
Iceland and Greenland. While local ecol-
ogy appears to affect cattle to caprine
ratios, social status and economic expec-
tation appear to play at least as great a
role in determining actual farming prac-
tice. We may also be seeing a reflection
of the different environmental conditions
at landnám in the bone collections. Pigs
are particularly well suited to feeding on
the root systems of arctic birch and wil-
low, and in combination with grazing and
browsing by cattle, sheep, goats, and
horses they may have acted as major
agents of environmental change - eventu-
ally producing a deforested landscape
hostile to their own continued survival as
major elements in the Icelandic and
Greenlandic farming strategy.
Figure 5 illustrates the wild species
taken to complete the provisioning needs
of the early sites. This view of the bone
collections underlines the diversity and
flexibility of the Viking Age economy.
While the imported herding economy
shows a certain uniformity, the use of
wild species was far more diverse, partic-
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