Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 33

ZOOARCHAEOLOGY, HlSTORY AND LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY AT FlNNBOGASTAÐIR IN THE 18TH CENTURY
Cod Length Reconstruction
(Dentary, 10 cm interval)
300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400
Reconstructed Live Length (mm)
■.♦..Finnbogastadir TJR3C — — Midbaer
Fig. 7. Comparison of size reconstructions at the three sites.
of more upper body vertebrae as well as
many head bones. All sites were fully
sieved to the same standard, so the pat-
teming is not likely to reflect archaeolog-
ical recovery.
Cod Length Reconstruction
Making use of regression formulae of
Wheeler & Jones (1989) it is possible to
reconstruct live length of many gadids
from the measurement of preserved
mouth parts (premaxillae and dentaries).
Figure 6 presents the size reconstruction
data for the cod at Finnbogastaðir. Both
elements produce broadly similar pat-
tems of distribution of reconstructed
length, with the majority of specimens
falling between 400 mm and 800 mm.
While a range of sizes of cod tend to be
taken from the same waters with the
same gear, only some size ranges cure
well as stockfísh. Figure 7 compares the
length reconstmctions based on cod den-
taries for Finnbogastaðir, Tjamargata 3c,
and the early modem layers of a small
farm site Miðbaer on Flatey in
Breiðafjörður (Amundsen 2004), with
the limits of the "stockfísh window" indi-
cated by vertical lines (x axis is rescaled
with broader intervals to more realistical-
ly reflect the inherent limits of the recon-
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