Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2006, Page 86

George Hambrecht
the Galloway were not developed until
the seventeenth century and if the cattle
represented by this midden were imports
this might suggest a date within this
period (Van Bath, 1963; Trow-Smith,
1954; Overton, 1996). The artifactual and
stratigraphic evidence strongly point to a
17th century date for this midden depos-
it though the early to mid 18th century
should not be completely ruled out.
Throughout the North Atlantic
Scandinavian cultural sphere, the usual
domestic-mammal zooarchaeological as-
semblage reflects economies that concent-
rated on dairy production. Three elements
make Skálholt’s unit 454 unique within
this North Atlantic context. The first is
the overwhelming presence of cattle in
the assemblage. No other known archaeo-
faunal context from Iceland or the North
Atlantic region is so dominated by cattle.
Not only is unit 454 clearly dominated by
cattle but the total percentage of cattle in
the archaeofauna so far analysed from
Skálholt is high, 57%. This percentage
should increase as the finds from the
2006 season are also dominated by cattle
bones. The second is a zooarchaeological
profile indicating dedicated beef produc-
tion, relative to Iceland, the first among
non-modern archaeofauna from Iceland.
Finally, the cattle represented by this as-
semblage were a new breed either brought
in from Europe or bred from Icelandic
cattle. Any of these conditions alone in an
Icelandic context in any period would be
exceptional (McGovern, et al 2001). To
find all three is remarkable and merits
further consideration.
The midden containing con-
text 454 was, judging from contempo-
rary maps, close to and possibly associ-
ated with a meat store room. Among the
butchery-related artifacts were a piece of
whale bone butcher’s block and a possible
small cetacea (porpoise or dolphin) bone
knife handle. The midden is located along
the edge of a road that ran through a com-
plex of outbuildings south of the Bishop’s
residence. It was formed via a series of
dumps of refuse, ash and fill over the
edge of the road. Context 454 was the
only stratum in group 383 associated with
large quantities of well-preserved, whole
animal bones. It is an extremely dense
deposit, with very little sediment present
among the closely packed and entangled
bone fragments. Because the adjacent
thin peat ash deposits interdigitate with it,
context 454 seems to represent an accre-
tion of multiple dumps occurring over a
fairly short time period.
Table 1 presents a count of
the identified specimens (NISP 4,227)
and the less well identified categories
of “Large Terrestrial Mammal” (LTM),
“Medium Terrestrial Mammal” (MTM),
and “Small Terrestrial Mammal” (STM)
as well as unidentified mammal bone
fragments contributing to the overall bone
count (TNF) of 19,519. Table 2 presents
the count of fragments (NISP) and relative
percentage of domestic mammals. Cattle
dominate the domestic mammal assem-
blage; caprines (sheep and goat) together
make up less than 15% of the deposit. Of
the unidentifiable mammal bones, LTM
make up a similar majority in proportion
to MTM as cattle to caprines in the NISP.
Considering that equids are represented
by only three elements, and that the pro-
portions between bos versus other mam-
mals and LTM versus MTM are similar,
it is not too risky to associate LTM with
cattle.
Finding cattle at a high-status
site such as Skálholt is not out of the
ordinary, but to find an assemblage so
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