Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Page 33

EXPLOITATION OF WILD BIRDS IN ICELAND FROM THE SETTLEMENT
PERIOD TO THE 19TH CENTURY AND ITS REFLECTION IN ARCHAEOLOGY
when slipping the snares around the birds
necks (Jónasson 1945, 194;
Guðmundsson ed. 1949, 46-47; see also
e.g. ÞÞ 362; ÞÞ 363; ÞÞ 523; ÞÞ 742; ÞÞ
6243; ÞÞ 6291; ÞÞ 6296; ÞÞ 6388; ÞÞ
7203), although records also mentioned
snares made of willow reed and baleen
bristles (Norðmann 1946,27; Kristjánsson
1986,182-183; ÞÞ 6330). Only two vague
descriptions were found of bird nets. They
were said to have had fine mesh size and
been around 5x2 m in size but what they
were made of is unclear (ÞÞ 742; ÞÞ
6296). Most likely they were made of
similar materials as the rope or perhaps
fine leather. The bird archaeofauna
uncovered by McGovem et al. (2006, 193
and 2007,43) in the inland Mývatn district
at Hofstaðir, Selhagi, Hrísheimar and
Sveigakot (9th-13th century contexts) was
largely dominated by ptarmigan bones as
well as in Skriðuklaustur monastery (late
15th to middle 16th century) in Fljótsdalur
(Hamilton-Dyer 2010, 4), but such bones
have also been found at the coastal site of
Bessastaðir (time period unclear) in
Álftanes and in Aðalstræti 10 (late
17th-early 18th century) in Reykjavík
(Hambrecht 2009, 11-13, 20-22; table 2)
but in much smaller numbers.
In most descriptions found of early
bird hunting, snares seem to have been
made of horsehair but with different
arrangements of controlling devices.
When hunting sea birds nesting on cliffs,
the snare was usually at the end of a long
staff, which also had a metal hook on the
other end. Special snare rafts were used
e.g. in Dyrhólaey and in the Westman
Islands. Anything caught on private land
belonged to the landowner, but birds
hunted on the ocean around it were
anyone’s game. To take advantage of this,
thin wooden boards were roped together.
Many small holes were bored into the
planks and the snares were threaded
through. The rafts would float just under
the surface and a live-feathered captive
lured the birds to stand on them. The only
sea bird that was not snared was the Puffin
(Fratercula arctica), as it nests in holes
rather than on rocky ledges. Puffins (and
sometimes Tystie chicks (Cepphus
grylléj) were either hooked in their holes
with an iron hook on the end of a wooden
staff or netted when they tried to leave
their nest. Netting the Puffin is only
known in Drangey in the early 18th
century but by the middle 19th century it
had spread to many Puffin colonies all
over Iceland. This lead to overhunting and
in 1869 netting Puffins was banned. Dogs
were also sometimes used to dig into
Puffin holes to catch the chicks (Jónasson
1945, 198-199; Ólafsson and Pálsson
1981, 326-329; Kristjánsson 1986,
182-186 and 200-205; Pálsson 1999,6; ÞÞ
6307). In 1875 a pole-net was brought to
the Westman Islands from the Faroes and
it is still used today (Kristjánsson 1986,
205). In the 18th and 19th centuries the
chicks of Fulmars, Northem gannets, gulls
and cormorants were simply clubbed to
death during the nesting season with a
wooden club about 50 cm long, often with
an iron or copper cylinder to protect the
broad end of the stick from wear or a short
and thin iron shaft sticking out at 90°
angle. On the other end there was a thin
rope or leather strap through a hole that
was fastened to the wrist. Adult gannets
were also clubbed on spring nights while
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