Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2005, Page 37

Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2005, Page 37
Fish Bones and Fishermen: The Potential of Zooarchaeolooy in the Westfjords Gjögur E. Medieval Akurvík E. Medieval Gjögur L. Medieval Akurvík L. Medieval NISP NISP NISP NISP Domestic Mammals 77 2 96 15 Seals 21 26 51 8 Whale 18 67 30 1,528 Birds 7 82 24 124 Fish 8,611 8,200 7,685 93,349 Shellfish 889 545 1366 4,834 total NISP 9,623 8,922 9,252 99,858 Medium terrestrial mammal 207 4 142 23 Small terrestrial mammal 1 1 4 Large terrestrial mammal 16 17 Unidentifiable mammal fragment 117 44 206 119 Unidentifiable bone fragment 308 859 43 1,085 Total TNF 10,272 9,829 9,661 101,089 Table 2. Summary of bones from upper and lower contexts of Akurvík and Gjögur. "Small ter- restrial mammal" includes bones of small dog or small caprines. "Medium terrestrial mammal" includes bones of large dog, caprines, or pigs. Both categories at Akurvík are probably, in fact, sheep or goat. "Large terrestrial mammal” includes bones of cow-horse-sized animals. NISP = fragments identifiable to a useful taxonomic level, TNF = all fragments. Presence and Abundance of Species Even though domestic mammals, sea mammals, some birds and molluscs are present, both site contexts in all phases are dominated by fish. This paper will focus on the fish remains from the Gjögur farm mound and the Akurvík sea- sonal fishing station, making use of both long established and new approaches to reconstructing the nature of this early fishery. For discussion of the other taxa present in the Akurvík and Gjögur collec- tions see Amundsen, et al. (in press) and Krivogorskaya, et al. (in press). Quantity of Fish Bone The quantity of fish bones recovered at Gjögur and Akurvík (over 80% of the archaeofauna in all phases of both sites) place both sites in the informal category of’fish middens" now known from many parts of the North Atlantic (Barrett 2004; Bigelow 1984). Such massive concentra- tions of fish bones in archaeological deposits are certainly one indicator of sustained fishing efforts by ancient peo- ples and may be one indicator of produc- tion for export (Amorosi, et al. 1996), but some Mesolithic coastal sites are equally rich in fish bone, so sheer numbers of fish bone fragments in a deposit cannot demonstrate a commercial or commer- cializing fishery. Fish Species Diversity Table 3 demonstrates the relative abun- dance of the identified fish taxa in the Gjögur and Akurvík collections. A limit- ed number of flatfish species, salmonids, skates and a Greenlandic shark (tooth) were identified in the recovered archaeo- fauna, but gadid (cod family) fish domi- nate the collection and definitely make up most of the fish bones not assignable securely to family. The majority of the gadid fish are Atlantic cod, distantly fol- 35
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