Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 31

ZOOARCHAEOLOGY, HlSTORY AND LANDSCAPE ArCHAEOLOGY AT FlNNBOGASTAÐIR IN THE 18TH CENTURY
the stripping out of a variable number of
the upper (thoracic) vertebrae (depending
on the preservation method used).
Specialist production sites near the land-
ing point thus should have many cranial
and upper vertebral bones, while con-
sumption sites far from the coast should
lack most of these same bones.
Subsistence fishers eating their own
catch as fresh fish should generate mid-
dens with a balance of skeletal elements
more similar to that found in live fish.
Zooarchaeologists often use the MAU
measure (minimum animal unit, see
Reitz & Wing 1999), which divides the
bones found per skeletal element by the
number of times it appears in the live fish
to allow for a direct comparison of dif-
ferent parts of the skeleton, as a tool for
investigating pattems of differential dep-
osition and survival. A MAU score con-
verted to percentages should show equal
numbers for each element in the unlikely
event that all survive to reach the ana-
lyst's laboratory in actual anatomical pro-
portion. In practice, different densities
and fragmentation pattems of different
elements of fish skeletons heavily affect
the survival and recovery of many indi-
vidual elements, so most workers tend to
use the MAU % of groups of elements
for comparisons (upper, middle, lower
vertebrae, larger skull parts) rather than
individual bones (Enghoff 2003).
Figure 4 uses MAU % to compare the
distribution of cod (Gadus morhuá)
grouped skeletal elements recovered
from Finnbogastaðir (FBS) and from
18th-19th century deposits from
Tjamargata 3c in downtown Reykjavík
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