Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 28

Ragnar Edvardsson, Sophia Perdikaris, Thomas H. McGovern, Noah Zagor & Matthew Waxman
Domestic Mammal Butchery
The pattem of element distribution of
both cattle and caprines includes all parts
of the skeleton, cranial fragments, long
bones, and toes (see data archive). This
mixture of meat-rich and meat-poor ele-
ments suggests the usual Icelandic pat-
tem of home butchery of stock and the
deposition of both primary butchery
waste and the remains of meal consump-
tion into the same midden deposit. The
collection shows many examples of the
characteristic bi-perforation of caprine
metapodials for marrow extraction,
which involves circular holes in the prox-
imal articular facet, and the plantar sur-
face of the distal shaft. This method of
marrow extraction allows preservation of
the usefully shaped metapodials for craft-
work and keeps bone splinters out of the
rich metapodial marrow. The technique
was widespread in the Shetlands, Faroe
Islands, and Iceland after ca AD 1100 but
has not been reported from Norse archae-
ofauna from Greenland or Norway, and
appears to be a later medieval foodway
developed in the N Atlantic islands
(Bigelow 1985). The Finnbogastaðir col-
lection also contains several examples of
the ancient Scandinavian dish svið (a
singed half sheep cranium split along the
midline), still enjoyed in Iceland today.
Such split crania of sheep and goats have
been recovered from 9th century
Icelandic collections, and Greenlandic
collections indicate not only that the
preparation method spread with the lOth
century settlers but also that it was
applied to caribou heads as well as
caprines.
Wild Mammals
The wild mammals from Finnbogastaðir
are all marine species, whale and seal.
The whalebone fragments (none identifi-
able to species) are probably mainly from
broken artifacts or from the debris of arti-
fact fabrication, as nearly all show multi-
ple tool marks. This pattem is familiar
from other Icelandic collections, and as
usual leaves the issue of whale meat con-
tribution to the diet open (it is equally
possible to bring home hundreds of kilos
of boneless whale meat or to collect
meatless bones for tool manufacture).
The seal bones may be more informative.
All seal bones that can be identified to
species level (using the criteria of Mohl
nd with minor additions) are harbor or
common seals (Phoca vitulina L.) and
63% of the seal bones are from newbom
pups less than two months old. This sug-
gests a pattem of predation upon harbor
seal pupping beaches similar to that doc-
umented extensively in Kristjánsson
(1980) for the NW. Pattems of cut marks
are consistent with the butchery methods
illustrated in Kristjánsson (1980) and
probably reflect use of both skins and
meat.
Birds
As Table 1 indicates, birds make up a
small portion of the Finnbogastaðir
archaeofauna, and appear to be mainly
Guillemot/Murre (Uria sp.) with trace
elements of other species. The presence
of the now - common fulmar is an addi-
tional temporal indicator, as this species
appears to have immigrated to Iceland in
the early modern period, probably
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