Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 24

Ragnar Edvardsson, Sophia Perdikaris, Thomas H. McGovern, Noah Zagor & Matthew Waxman
ecology which can both document prior
shifts in population and identify coping
strategies employed by prior generations
in this area. The NW has long suffered
hard times as well as periods of prosper-
ity, and a better understanding of past
conjunctions of market and subsistence
economy, rapid social change, and cli-
mate fluctuation is required if effective
strategies for a genuinely sustainable
present and future are to be devised and
implemented.
The image scholars have traditionally
had of Ámeshreppur, and indeed of the
whole of the Northwest, is of a poor
region where residents had to stmggle
just to stay alive as marginalized sheep
raising subsistence farmers. This image
derives mainly from 19th century written
sources describing the NW of Iceland at
a time when political decisions, climatic
cooling, and both local and regional eco-
nomic changes had caused a general
decline in the area. In fact, little is known
about the economic organization in earli-
er periods, though there is some docu-
mentary evidence that suggests that dur-
ing the medieval period the Vestfirðir
peninsula was an important resource cen-
tre for rich farmers both within the dis-
trict and outside it. Archaeological inves-
tigations since the 1990 cooperative
Icelandic Paleoeconomy Project that are
combining survey, excavation and inter-
disciplinary analysis integrating paleocli-
matology, zooarchaeology, archaeo-
botany, and geoarchaeology are steadily
improving our understanding of this
poorly known region. Radiocarbon dates
on layers from both fishing booth sites
and farm middens in Árneshreppur
demonstrate an active use of marine
resources and probable participation in
commercial scale fisheries in the 13th-
15th centuries (Perdikaris et al 2003).
The possibility for connecting high-reso-
lution paleoclimatology with archaeolo-
gy and history in the NW is generating
widespread interest in the area both in
Iceland and abroad and a fresh program
of coordinated interdisciplinary investi-
gation is now underway (see Edvardsson
2002). This paper seeks to contribute to
this new program of research by combin-
ing archaeological and documentary evi-
dence for 18th century economic
response of small farmers in Ámeshrep-
pur to harsh social and environmental
conditions.
The Excavation at Finnbogastaðir
The Finnbogastaðir archaeofauna
(archaeological animal bone collection,
for terminology see Reitz & Wing 1999)
was collected in the surnmer of 1990 as
part of a larger cooperative Icelandic
Paleoeconomy Project involving the
National Museum of Iceland and the City
University of New York. The work at
Finnbogastaðir represented a small-scale
rescue project following the accidental
discovery of a bone-rich midden deposit
directly outside the modem farmhouse in
the course of driveway extension work
by the farmer. With the kind cooperation
and warm hospitality of the modem fam-
ily, our team was not only able to recov-
er bones from the spoil displaced by the
driveway work but also to cut back the
working face and collect more material
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