Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2005, Page 46

Yekaterina Krivogorskaya, Sophia Perdikaris &Thomas H. McGovern
Figure 8. Reconstructed age distribution for landed cod based on atlas vertebrae ring counts.
archaeological records of the two settle-
ments of Akurvík and Gjögur are very
distinct, yet both produce archaeofauna
dominated by cod fish. How different
were the products of the specialized sea-
sonal físhing site of Akurvík and the
"fishing farm" at Gjögur? Was Gjögur
involved in preparation of físh for export
or exchange, or was its intense físhing
effort entirely directed towards provi-
sioning its own household? Based on the
combination of size reconstruction and
element distribution, we can answer
some of these questions with a fair
degree of confidence. Akurvík seems to
have always been strongly focused upon
production for export, despite some on-
site consumption of by-catch (note the
cleithrum-premaxilla proportions and the
disproportionate representation of head
and jaws generally). Akurvík seems to
have always produced both stockfish and
klipfísk (or products very similar) but
seems to have shifted emphasis from pre-
dominately klipfísk production in its
early phases to a greater emphasis on
stockfish production in the later medieval
period (evident in changes in both ele-
ment distribution and size profíle).
Gjögur also seems to have been consis-
tently producing more físh than it was
consuming, with a strong signal coming
through its cod físh element distribution
pattems. However, Gjögur seems to have
been focused upon klipfisk production
and would not have generated large
amounts of stockfish in either period. If
Gjögur and Akurvík can be seen as parts
of an economic system (perhaps man-
aged by the householders at Gjögur),
then it seems that Gjögur's stockfish pro-
duction was carried out at the separate
físhing station and not near home, per-
haps supplying a different type of export
product. In the Middle Ages, Gjögur was
clearly not carrying on simply a subsis-
tence fishery (as at 18th century
Finnbogastaðir) but was deeply involved
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