Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2006, Page 88

George Hambrecht
Skalholt SU 454 Bos taurus Bone Density and MGUI Ranking
Compared
MGUI
density
^ 4th
d 3rd
□ 2nd
Ðlst
% MAU by Rank
Figure 1. Bos Taurus bone density and MGUI ranking
MGUI scores are not precise indicators
of amount of associated meat and mar-
row, they can highlight major differences
in the content of bone assemblages. Bone
density can indicate the survivability of
an assemblage through time. It can give
an indication as to its representative util-
ity, whether the bones being examined
have survived well since burial or have
been ravaged and are not a good represen-
tation of the original dump. Note that the
lst quartile is almost always going to be
disproportionately larger due to the fact
that cranial elements (which are within
the lst quartile) have a tendency to frac-
ture and boost their proportion within the
total assemblage.
The cattle bones of Unit 454
show good representation across density
and MGUI quartiles (Fig. 1). This implies
that these bones have survived well from
deposition to excavation. The element dis-
tribution for these cattle (Fig. 2) strongly
suggests that they were slaughtered
onsite. Elements from across the whole
animal are present. If the beef represented
by this archaeofauna was being imported
from surrounding farms or regions, the
element distribution would most likely
contain a majority of heavy-meat bearing
bones, such as the femur and humerus.
The cattle in the context 454
collection are almost all adults or older
juveniles (table 3). This, too, is atypical.
Neonatal bones, barely represented in this
assemblage, normally make up 20M0%
of most Icelandic farm collections from
all periods. The total percentage of cat-
tle neonatal bones from the archaeofauna
of all analyzed contexts at Skálholt so far
is only 7%, and within context 454 only
0.34%. Tooth eruption patterns observed
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