Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2015, Page 62

Scott Riddell
the late 20th century, the extent of the West
Ice became considerably reduced and harp
seal whelping in the Greenland Sea region
is now restricted to ice surrounding Jan
Mayen (Wilkinson & Wadhams 2005).
Harp seals in the Icelandic
archaeological record (1200-1900)
There are approximately thirty two Icelandic
archaeofaunas that contain seal bone. Elev-
en of these assemblages include the bone of
harp seals (approximately one third), seven
of which are coastal and four are located in-
land (Fig. 1). Between them the total Num-
ber of Identified Specimens (NISP) of harp
seal bone is 75 (Amorosi 1992; Amorosi
1996; Amundsen et al. 2005; Pálsdóttir,
2006; Harrison et al. 2008a; Harrison et al.
2008b; McGovern 2009; Hicks & Harrison
2009; Hamilton-Dyer 2010; McGovern
et al. 2013; Harrison 2014). The material
comes from a range of contexts, including
erosional surfaces, test pits, full-scale exca-
vations, middens, farm mounds and struc-
tures. Chronologically the material derives
from the period 1200-1900 (Fig. 2). Given
the onset of the LIA in Iceland from c. 1275
(Miller et al. 2012) and its persistence un-
til 1900 (Massé et al. 2008), the presence
of harp seal bone in Icelandic archaeofau-
nas has usually been linked by zooarchae-
ologists to sea ice inundations; generally
following Amorosi (1992). Only a single re-
port from Eyri (Isafjörður) explicitly states
that the presence of harp seal bone in the
archaeofauna could simply be derived from
a vagrant animal (Harrison et al. 2008b).
Neonatal harp seals were identified in
the assemblages of Akurvík and Svalbarð,
deemed to be less than a month old in the
latter instance and prompting suggestions
that there may have been harp seal whelp-
ing areas in Icelandic waters in the past
(Amorosi 1992 & 1996, 303). With regard
to Akurvík, the manner in which the ma-
terial is discussed suggests that there were
at least two harp seal pups present within
the assemblage (Fig. 2, NISP 2). Unfortu-
nately, the bones were derived from a col-
lapsed erosion face and could not be tied
to a fixed stratigraphic point although they
have been allocated to the Late Medieval
period (Amorosi 1996, 303; Amundsen et
al. 2005).
The assemblage of harp seal bone (NISP
33) from the Svalbarð midden was origi-
nally attributed to the 17th century but a
recent revision now places the collection
somewhere within a 500 year span (1300-
1800) (Woollett 2008). Unfortunately, the
bone values for the two stratigraphic units
at Svalbarð that represent this period have
been collated into a single value which pre-
cludes any attempt to discern whether or
not they belong predominantly to the ear-
lier or later unit (Amorosi 1992; Woollett
2008). A further surface collection of harp
seal bone (NISP 12) was gathered from an
eroded face of the midden at Svalbarð but
it was unstratified due to fluvio-turbation
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