Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2006, Page 94

George Hambrecht
Revolution he does suggest that these
findings might show that improving ani-
mal husbandry can be traced back earlier
than previously thought. Denmark experi-
enced the expansion of agricultural lands
and new agricultural techniques in the
17th century, though it is argued that this
expansion led to a grave ecological crisis
in the 18th century (Kjærgaard, 1994).
Behind the Agricultural Revolu-
tion there was an overall concentration on
the harnessing and controlling of nature.
This went well beyond the biblical prec-
edent of the creation story in Genesis
by emphasizing the ability to engineer
nature and cull the unproductive ele-
ments from it (Worster, 1994, chp 2). In
the context of agriculture this engineering
was most often termed “improvement”
(Dalglish, 2003, chp 5). Though the
nature of improvement changed accord-
ing to the point of view of the agents
involved, generally speaking land, crops
and animals were manipulated in order
to increase their value and productivity
through an application of literate, orderly
“enlightenment” principles of formal-
ized planning, systematic record keeping,
and the application of simple numerical
statistics. Early Modem Icelanders were
not strangers to this improving impulse.
Alongside the 1780 Icelandic manual of
agricultural improvement, Atli, by Bjorn
Halldorsson, there are eighteenth-century
private “improving” journals of farm-
ers from throughout Iceland (Ogilvie,
McGovern, personal communication).
There is also a significant spike in barley
pollen seen in soil samples dated to the
17th century taken from Skálholt (Einars-
son, 1962). These data might indicate an
attempt at growing barley in the Skálholt
area, another potential indication of an
improving impulse, in this case from the
same community that raised and slaugh-
tered these exceptional cattle.
The idea of improvement is often
associated with the rise of capitalism and
the profit motive, but the Bishop’s beef
cattle are a difficult fit for this model. It
would be hard to understand the introduc-
tion of these polled beef cattle and the arti-
ficial polling of native cattle as motivated
by profit and the accumulation of capital.
It is possible that the Bishops intended to
stimulate a market for beef in Iceland, but
this is very unlikely. It is more likely that
these cattle management decisions were
inspired the desire to reinforce the high
status of Skálholt through conspicuous
beef consumption and to signal partici-
pation in the new set of European stand-
ards for appropriate behaviors of landed
elite farm managers, re-emphasizing elite
intellectual and social connections with
the outside world. The bishop’s cattle thus
appear to have been intended to enhance
social rather than financial capital. Their
presence at Skalholt looks backwards to
longstanding patterns of chiefly display
and consumption as much as ahead to the
oncoming world of commerce and moder-
nity. The bishop’s cattle, like early mod-
ern manor and school of Skalholt itself
thus stand between two worlds, and their
bones tell a story more rooted in social
change and changing world-view than in
biology or subsistence economy.
References
Amorosi, T. and McGovern, T. 1993 The
1987-88 Archaeofauna from Viðey,
Iceland. Arbaersafn Museum of the
City of Reykjavik, Reykjavik, Ice-
land.
Corsi, Pietro 1988 The Age of Lamarck.
University of California Press, Ber-
keley.
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