Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 44

Ragnar Edvardsson, Sophia Perdikaris, Thomas H. McGovern, Noah Zagor & Matthew Waxman
of Finnbogastaðir and other local farms,
Jón Magnússon, owned three boats and
parts in other boats on different farms. In
total he owned 7 boats. Two of his boats
were used for shark fishing and one for
general fishing. He also received a por-
tion of the catch from the boats that he
owned with other farmers. Most farmers
in the Ámes district were fishing for sub-
sistence but the three richest were also
fishing for commercial purposes, and
access to boats and verstöð stations
(along with rent income and labor serv-
ice) were clearly key elements in the
strategies of these (still rather poor) local
magnates.
The 18th century land registry also
suggests that some form of specialization
was taking place in the fishing industry
in the area. Many farmers in the Ámes
district owned boats that were specially
outfitted for sharkfishing. At the Gjögur
fishing station 9 boats were stationed in
1706, six of them were outfitted for shark
fishing and 3 for general fishing (Ámi
Magnússon, VII.). Three of the farmers
fishing from Gjögur are not local farm-
ers. Two of them come from the
Kaldrananes district and one is from
another district further away. These farm-
ers were at Gjögur for sharkfishing or
deep water fishing as their farms were
probably located too far from deep water
fishing grounds.This indicates that the
fishing industry in the area was more
aimed at shark fishing and that the ver-
stöð at Gjögur was specialized in shark
fishing with cod fishing playing a lesser
role. Unfortunately shark bone is not well
preserved and therefore it is impossible
to make full use of zooarchaeology to
assess its importance for the local econo-
my. The specialization of verstöðvar (pl)
is an important question. There is a
strong possibility that the location of a
verstöð in the landscape was the result of
what species fishermen intended to catch
from that particular site, a question that
requires further collaborative investiga-
tion.
From the archaeological and histori-
cal data we can draw some conclusions
about the early 18th century economy of
the area. While the traditional domestic
stock still played a role in subsistence
and rents were still partly paid in butter,
it is clear from both the zooarchaeology
and a close reading of the available doc-
uments that the most important species
for most of the people of the Ámes dis-
trict were cod and shark with agriculture
playing a lesser role. As the statistical
analyses of the Jarðabók register demon-
strate, poor tenants (like Brandur and his
family) were very dependent upon
marine resources to support their families
and to buy necessities they could not pro-
duce themselves while at the same time
they were largely restricted to fishing
from scattered heimrœði or as crewmen
in boats owned by others. Middling ten-
ants like Sr. Bjami had more options
open, both in terms of stock raising and
in the ability to access larger boats oper-
ating from better fishing locations. The
three richest farmers (like Jón) were in
some ways mini-entrepreneurs, owning
many boats and shares in others. These
greater farmers thus had a wider social
niche breadth and were paricipating in
both inshore fishing, taking smaller sized
cod species and offshore fishing, taking
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