Preliminary Report of an Analysis of Faunal Remains from an 18th century midden at Skálholt, Iceland

This report presents results of a preliminary analysis of the mammal bones from one context in an 18th c midden at the Episcopal farm of Skálholt, Arnessyslá, south Iceland. This context (454) was part of Midden Test D (Group 383), and was excavated by Dr. Jim Woollett, Matthew Brown, and Kate Krivogorskaya during June and July of 2003. Further excavation of this context was conducted by George Hambrecht during June of 2004. Details of excavation and recovery methodologies employed, as well as descriptions and discussions regarding the complete stratigraphy of Midden Test D and other midden test pits undertaken at Skálholt in 2003 can be found in reports of field work by Woollett (2003) and Lucas (2004). This work was conducted as a midden sampling program, in conjunction with the FSI excavations of the 18th century phase of Skálholt. A total of 20,554 bone fragments were recovered from Context 454, representing roughly one half of the total number of bone fragments recovered from the entire site in 2003 and 2004. The remaining half of the 2003 and 2004 assemblages are derived from a great number of contexts in the house and various midden tests, many of which contributed single bag bone samples. An analysis of faunal remains from these other contexts is on-going and is not discussed in this report. All sediments were dry sieved through 4mm mesh to standardize recovery of bones following usual NABO recommendations. This assemblage does not fit the typical dairy survivorship profiles associated with North Atlantic farm economies. The majority of these cattle were slaughtered at their peak age for meat return, sometime before the second half of their third year of life. This assemblage seems to represent a high cost, and high value beef-cattle strategy rather than the more usual dairy pattern of peaks in mortality in very young and very old animals. This assemblage could also be the product of the culling of unproductive milk cows for meat. Yet the almost total absence of neonatal cow bones, as well as the few indicators of the presence of very old cows suggests that the meat strategy is a more likely explanation. A meat based strategy calls for large amounts of pasture land and winter fodder. It is a strategy that invests these assets towards a one-time meat return, as opposed to long-term dairy production. In the Icelandic context in any period such a strategy would be exceptional (McGovern, et al 2001). Archaeofauna from the 9th-11th c contexts from Sveigakot and Hofstaðir in Mývatnssveit, and the 18th century from Finnbogastaðir in NW Iceland will be used for the purposes of comparison.

The cattle represented in this context seem to have been of a breed foreign to Iceland that must have been introduced from continental Europe. All the crania recovered from this context are polled. In all but two of these cases the cattle were naturally polled. In the other two cases the cattle were artificially polled. Cattle in Iceland from the Settlement Period through the Early Modern Period were of horned varieties. Naturally polled cattle were a rare genetic mutation that appear very infrequently in the archaeological record. The appearance of this different breed suggests that these cattle might have been part of an effort towards agricultural improvement on the part of the Bishops of Skalholt. The appearance of the artificially polled cattle suggest how the urge towards improvement went beyond pure economics and entered the realm of fashion and identity.

18th century Arnessyslá Iceland Skálholt zooarchaeology

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