Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1998, Page 234

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LANDSCAPES AT LANDNÁM: PALYNOLOGICAL AND
PALAEOENTOMOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FROM TOFTANES; FAROEISLANDS
(L.) (grp.), and their associated staphylinid
predators (Buckland et al., 1998), which
appear at the base of the succession and
continue until the Greenland sites are aban-
doned in the fourteenth century (Buckland
etal., 1996). In southem Iceland, at Holt in
Eyjafjallasveit, the tephra stratigraphy con-
strains the date of settlement, and a similar
more extensive hay fauna is present shortly
after landnám (Buckland et al., 1991). Tof-
tanes is similarly a landnám period farm,
yet only part of the fauna is evident in the
assemblages examined, which include
samples from floors and immediately out-
side the building, associated with construc-
tion debris. The predatory anthropochorous
synanthropic staphylinids, Omaliurn rivu-
lare, Xylodromus concinnus, Philonthus
cephalotes, P. fimentarius and Quedius me-
somelinus, are present, but only Cryptoph-
agus cf. dentatus hints at a fungal feeding
component.
Taxa associated with the continuum from
foul, wet plant residues to herbivore dung
are well represented in the faunas, and in-
clude two species not currently recorded in
the Faroes. The small ptiliid Ptenidium
punctatum may have been overlooked, par-
ticularly in view of the limited amount of
research which has been carried out on
synanthropic faunas in the islands. It is
recorded from deep wrack beds, as well as
wet stable manure of horse and cattle
(Koch, 1989). The hydrophilid Cercyon
analis is recorded from a wide range of de-
caying organic matter, and is widespread in
northern Europe (Hansen 1987), being also
recorded from westem Iceland (Larsson
and Gígja, 1958), where it has been present
since at least the early medieval period
(Amorosi et al, 1992); it has also been in-
troduced to North America (Smith, 1994).
Despite extensive pitfall trapping of infield
and outfield localities in Faroe (Bengtson,
1981; Dinnin et al., unpubl.), it does not
seem to be part of the modern Faroese fau-
na. Kenward (1997) has recently applied is-
land biogeographic theory to the establish-
ment and demise of synanthropic insect
faunas in the archaeological record, and
some extinctions might be expected on
purely stochastic grounds, yet the loss of an
essentially eurytopic, eurythermal fully
winged species may hint at a break in habi-
tat continuity. This might reinforce the sug-
gestion that the landnám farm at Toftanes,
despite its wealth of archaeological finds
(cf. Stummann Hansen, 1989, 1991), may
not have been occupied for very long. In
this context, the paucity of synanthropic el-
ements in the two samples from within the
building (S1621 and S1622) may be signif-
icant
However, despite the careful sampling
during the excavation, and notwithstanding
the small number of samples analysed thus
far, it remains possible that sample selec-
tion has been accidentally biased towards
units which were sufficiently thick to pro-
vide a reasonable sample, or that sample
resolution may be insufficient to resolve a
short period of occupation. At Engihlíð in
Berufjorður, eastern Iceland, Buckland and
Sadler (1991) have argued that the absence
of a hay fauna and the presence of signifi-
cant numbers of the dung beetle, Aphodius
lapponum, could be used to indicate a shiel-
ing rather than a farm, although the com-