Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (2004) 1675e1684
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jas
Dipterous remains and archaeological interpretation
Eva Panagiotakopulu)
Department of Archaeology, School of Arts, Culture and Environment, Infirmary Street, Edinburgh EH1 1LT, UK
Received 8 September 2003
Abstract
Fossil flies from archaeological settlements can give information on details of everyday life, hygiene, disease and death. Previous
work is reviewed and recent research on material from a Greenlandic farm shows the range of the technique and highlights its
potential to reconstruct important aspects of human activities that otherwise go unnoticed.
Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Flies; Ectoparasites; Disease; Hygiene; Greenland; GUS
1. Introduction
Although beetles (Coleoptera) have been widely used
in palaeoenvironmental reconstructions (cf. [4]), true
flies (Diptera), with the exception of chironomids from
lake sediments (e.g. [10]), are rarely included in palaeoenvironmental research. In part this reflects limited
expertise in identification, particularly of their pupal
stages, but also their significance in site interpretation is
perhaps less generally appreciated. This paper reviews
previous work, bringing together some widely scattered
sources, and provides new data on research in Greenland, which highlights the utility of larval Diptera in
archaeological interpretation.
The study of flies is better known for its use in
forensics. By examining the insect faunas found on and
around a body, one can obtain an informed opinion
about the time, the place and sometimes the way, or the
reasons behind death. Diptera and on some occasions
Coleoptera and ectoparasites from the death scene are
part of the forensic evidence [64], and Dipterous larvae
in particular are very useful, because they breed in
specific places, and more importantly stay there [34].
Their surrounding environment determines their development, and their study provides extremely detailed
information about location, time, and way of death. In
) Fax: C44-114-2722-563.
E-mail address: eva@sheffield.ac.uk.
0305-4403/$ - see front matter Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jas.2004.04.008
the archaeological context, this methodology has been
applied to the bodies from Lindow Moss in Cheshire
[17,31,61].
A long list of flies are pests on a variety of crops and
stored commodities, others live on faecal material or
fungi, or are predatory. Some are linked to serious
diseases, such as malaria, recently recorded by its DNA
from a Roman burial [1]. Although the name of the
disease comes from the Italian for bad air, a reflection of
the prevalence of the disease in marshy areas, it is
transmitted by the bite of mosquitoes, which breed in
profusion in wetlands. Flies are also responsible for the
spread of trachoma, an infection often causing blindness, which is still widespread in Africa, and, judging by
the prevalence of recipes for eye salves in contemporary
sources, was a serious problem throughout the Roman
Empire [9]. Maggot infestation of living tissue, termed
myiasis, can also occur, but on a more positive note,
before the advancements of modern medicine, some
calliphorid maggots have been used for cleaning wounds
[20,39]. The study of Diptera is of particular importance
because it tackles issues of economic, medical, environmental health and veterinary importance [64]; such
issues can also be examined in the past. Abundance or
absence of fly remains may signify changes in the environment or the ways of living on an occupation site,
and the species which are vectors in the spread of
diseases would have had significant impact on ancient
societies. The examples of malaria and trypanosomiases
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E. Panagiotakopulu / Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (2004) 1675e1684
(sleeping sickness) in Africa are particularly well known,
and the accidental spread of flies and associated diseases
around the world has had significant impact upon settlement patterns and populations [26,27].
2. The taxonomy of flies
Aristotle was the first natural historian to write down
observations on true flies. He christened them Diptera,
the ones that possess two wings. Although, some of
Aristotle’s notions are wrong [6], he was quite accurate
in this occasion; a single pair of wings is the main
characteristic of true flies, the hind wings being modified
to two balancing organs, term halteres [49]. Flies show
complete metamorphosis from a larval stage, often
referred to as a maggot, to the adult fly, through the
intermediate stage of the pupa, and the latter may retain
sufficient characters in the fossil state to enable
identification.
Until recently, there have been several reasons for
research on Diptera from archaeological contexts to have
been neglected. The Diptera are a larger group than the
Coleoptera, with up to O6200 species, as opposed to
!4000 species of Coleoptera, in the UK alone, and
a significant number have yet to be described in the larval
and pupal stages. They also often have higher dispersal
capabilities, and the adults are less sclerotised and
therefore do not preserve as well as the beetles. With the
exception of species of medical importance, their taxonomy, biology and ecology are less well known. However in
his seminal study, Skidmore [62] pointed out that in
archaeoentomological research, the dipterous synanthropic faunas tend to belong to a restricted range of
species, as a result of a combination of different parameters, such as geographical location, specialised habits
and competition between species. The research on most
fossil Diptera is based on the study of puparia, the heavily
sclerotised final larval stage inside which the pupa is
formed before metamorphosis, and these tend to occur
close to, or within the habitat in which the maggot fed.
The real problem encountered during archaeoentomological research is a lack of background research on the
larval environments of certain dipterous families, and the
availability of suitable expertise; some of the habitats,
which are prolific in fly remains, such as cess pits, are not
popular in experimental archaeology (but see [50]).
The order Diptera can be roughly separated into
two groups: Nematocera and Brachycera form the first
one, and Cyclorrapha the second [41]. The pupae of
Nematocera/Brachycera are generally obtec, that is
their appendages, head, wings, legs, lie in small sacs
attached to the surface of the body and these often
carry characteristic impressions of wing venation on
their surface (Fig. 1). Aquatic groups, such as Chironomidae, Culicidae, Chaobidae and Simulidae, as well as
Fig. 1. Pupa of a typical Nematoceran fly (Culicidae) (from [62]).
Bibionidae, Cecidomyiidae, and Tipulidae, are part of
Nematocera. The Cyclorrapha pupae are exarate, their
appendages are free, but the pupa is not very visible
because it is covered by the puparium (Fig. 2), the last
larval skin ([65], p. 29), which preserves characters that
enable identification. From the archaeological viewpoint
Cyclorraphous puparia have the advantage that they are
very heavily sclerotised and are often found as subfossils
in both anaerobic and desiccated archaeological deposits, where they may constitute the majority of the insect
material. However in natural sites they are less
numerous, compared with Nematocera and Brachycera.
Chironomids for example are found in large numbers
in aquatic environments and have been widely used
in reconstructing changes in the environment, both in
terms of trophic status (e.g. [67]) and climate [10]. The
abundance of Cyclorrapha from archaeological assemblages and the type of information they provide, makes
them a vital source in archaeological interpretation, and
they may be preserved in a wide range of conditions,
from wholly desiccated to waterlogged, as well as by
mineral replacement (e.g. [35b]).
3. Flies and the literary record
Upon death, the decomposition of the body begins and
a succession of flies, a process spotted by the experts on
preserving the dead for eternity, the Egyptians. They were
aware of different ‘varieties’ of flies ([42], p. 194; Rameside
papyrus), and used spells to prevent maggots processing
mummies (Gizeh papyrus No 18906:4:14). There are also
Fig. 2. Puparium of a typical Cyclorrhapous fly (Muscidae) in dorsal
(upper) and ventral (lower) view (from [60]).
E. Panagiotakopulu / Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (2004) 1675e1684
spells and recipes to prevent flies from biting and infesting
houses (Ebers 97). Among the Egyptian hieroglyphs,
there is one for the fly, and a depiction of what looks
vaguely like a house fly, Musca domestica, was a very
frequent amulet in Egypt during the pharaonic period.
The same depiction of a house fly was also used for
pendants for military decoration of high ranking soldiers,
for their bravery in battle. It is thought that the persistence of the flies was compared with the morale of the
good soldier in battle [22]. Fly whisks were a common
accessory in pharaonic Egypt, and Tutankhamun had
two for his after death journey. Anyone who has travelled
extensively in Egypt will be aware of this utility, and
Skidmore has suggested that the house fly probably
originated in Egypt (Skidmore pers. comm.); their
puparia are common fossils in Egypt.
What seems to be one of the first mentions of myiasis
in the literary record is reported in Ebers papyrus (78,
8), a collection of medical recipes dated to 1500 BC, but
probably going back to 3000 BC. In the text there is
a description of a finger/toe that was infected, swollen,
and smelled badly, and eventually produced small
worms, presumably maggots. There are several other
mentions of flies, fly dirt and fly blood in the same
papyrus. These were used as ingredients for treatments
mainly against swellings and in one occasion against
trichiasis, a condition related to trachoma. It is apparent
that pharaonic Egyptians knew the connection between
flies and infection, and the frequency of recipes for eye
infections in later papyri indicates the widespread nature
of problems probably borne largely by flies. There are,
however, earlier references to flies in Mesopotamia from
ca. 3000 BC, and together with the first urban centres
developed the first synanthropic association with flies.
On cylinder seals from the Uruk period, there is a quite
accurate representation of a fly [37], and the same
author notes that 11 different ‘‘species’’ of fly can be
recognised in an Akkadian text of ca. 1600 BC. There
are frequent mentions of flies in the Greek literature
[6,30], and they had also distinguished different species
of fly. They made observations about their morphology
and life cycles, not always correctly. In Classical texts
there is mention of fly whisks used by the Persians
(Menander fr 437) and the Indians (Aelian NA 5.17),
and there are even deities that drive them off (Zeus the
averter of flies Zey2 Apómyio2, and Apollo, a god
connected with flies and disease), or catch them
(Myı́agro2) [30]. Apart from the various terms used
for different species of flies, there are different names for
maggots, skúlhx/vermis, and especially for the flesh
eating ones, eylh́ (e.g. Iliad XIX.25-6,31). One of the
most fearsome deaths described by the Classical writers
is being eaten alive by the vermin (Herodotus IV.209,
[6], 223) There are also lots of recipes on how to avoid
fly infestation in a house, on stored meat, on an injured
animal or even one’s self (Pliny XX.184, XXIV.53,
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XXV.61, Geoponica XIII.12, Cato DeAg 162.3 in [6]).
Classical writers also had knowledge about flies infecting wounds and about fly borne infections. In many
cases, trachoma is treated with concoctions that include
flies or fly blood or fly ashes, probably as homeopathic
medicine (Pliny XXVIII29, XXIX.115, XXX134 in [6]).
An early connection of outbreak of disease and flies was
made by Strabo who mentions that the reason for the
disease amongst the Romans was often the flies, and
they were paying men to them! [37].
Medieval naturalists such as the Goodman of Paris in
the 14th century and John Gerard in the 16th, largely
copied the Classical writers, especially Pliny and Palladius
often mediated through Arab sources, and they recycled
their recipes against mosquitoes, gnat and flies [35,56].
As the reviews of later literature on insects and disease
show [21,23], the extensive range of literature on flies
reminds us that the fly-free contemporary house has
nothing to do with life in the past, a point well indicated by
the archaeological record of Diptera.
4. The use of flies in archaeology
The first scientific observations on archaeological flies
were made by people unwrapping mummies. During the
unwrapping of the Leeds mummy, the entomologist
F. W. Hope observed at least two different species of
numerous fly puparia, and remarked that mummification must have been a lengthy task ([53], p. 54). The
Egyptologist Pasalacqua was under the false impression
that the Diptera he found in a box from Thebes had
been embalmed ([53], p. 182). More recent research in
Egypt has revealed the first records of M. domestica L.,
Chrysomyia albiceps (Weide.) and Piophila casei (L.)
[28,29,52a]. Until recently, there was only a limited
amount of work on flies, and this has been reviewed by
Buckland and Coope [13] and by Elias [32] in connection
with other Quaternary insect research. Despite his
propensity for describing extinct species from Pleistocene fossil material [47a], Pierce [55a] had noted a case
of myiasis in animal bones from the Rancho La Brea tar
pits in downtown Los Angeles, California, and Gautier
[34a,34b] has recorded the blowfly Protoformia terraenovae (Rob.) in both bison and woolly rhinoceros
remains from Late Pleistocene sediments in Belgium.
Grunin [37a] recorded one of the few cases of extinction
in the Quaternary insect record, describing the now
extinct mammoth botfly, Cobboldia rusanovi from a frozen Siberian mammoth. In the archaeological context,
some work has been done with material from burials,
including material from a Viking burial on the Isle of Man
[41a] and an Anglo-Saxon burial at Sewerby in East
Yorkshire [35b]. Fly remains from Canadian prehistoric
burials at Augustin in New Brunswick, enabled the
excavators to reconstruct the burial practice [65a]. The
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presence of the heliophilous phorids Phormia regina and
Protophormia allowed them to argue that the bodies had
been exposed for a considerable time before burial, whilst
Muscina assimilis and the Heleomyzinae had processed
the bodies after the burial. Gilbert and Bass [35a]
discussed the possibility of defining the season of burial
based on fly faunas in the context of aboriginal graves in
North America.
Other studies have examined more directly the living
conditions based on fly faunas from sites. Belshaw [8]
and Skidmore [62] both noted the presence of the now
coastal seaweed fly Thoracochaeta zosterae in inland
medieval deposits apparently associated with cess. It
seemed unlikely that seaweed was being shipped inland
in very large quantities, and the problem was only
solved when Webb et al. [68] showed that inland specimens of T. zosterae had an entirely terrestrial carbon
and nitrogen isotope signal; their disappearance from
modern cess situations reflects increased levels of
hygiene. In the Neolithic, of Switzerland, at ThayngenWeier [38,47b,65b], and at Alvastra in Sweden (Skidmore in [36]), it has been possible to use the fly faunas to
support the hypothesis of leaf and hay fodder storage
for domestic animals. Both sites have produced large
numbers of the house fly, M. domestica, and samples
from the former site also include the biting stable fly,
Stomoxys calcitrans [38]; both species had previously
been recorded by Skidmore from Anglo-Scandinavian
York [11]. In contrast, the absence of a fly fauna associated with fodder could be used to argue that the
medieval site at Langenes in northern Norway was a
dedicated fishing station, rather than a farm from which
fishing took place [15a]. Recently, work on faunas from
Norse farms in the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland has
provided more detailed spatial and temporal evidence
based upon fossil fly faunas.
Whilst Belshaw [7,8] and Phipps [54,55] also recognised the value of the study of fly puparia from
archaeological contexts, the research was effectively
developed by Peter Skidmore (cf. in [12,61a,66a]).
Interpretation relies upon the fact that whilst the
imagines are vagile and liable to turn up far from their
primary breeding context, the maggots are attached to
quite specific contexts and give immediate information
about living conditions, although they may move short
distances, often vertically, to pupate. The larvae can be
extremely sensitive to humidity, light and temperature
changes, to the extent that under adverse conditions
they may enter diapause and regeneration may be
delayed. In optimal environments, however, their
breeding cycles tend to be shorter, their sizes larger,
and they reproduce in great numbers sometimes reaching plague proportions (Fig. 3).
For purposes of interpretation, Diptera can be
roughly grouped into six different categories, according
to their feeding habits: stercoricoles (dung feeders),
endophilous necrophages (in corpses), exophilic necrophages (on corpses), phytophages (plant feeders), algaecoles (feeding on algae), fucicoles (seaweed feeders),
hydrophiles (living in water), humicoles/muscicoles
(feeding on fungi and slime moulds) [62], and all of
these may occur in either autochthonous or allochthonous situations in archaeology.
5. Processing and identification
The method used for retrieving the dipterous material
from waterlogged remains, paraffin (kerosene) flotation
is the same as that for the Coleoptera described originally by Coope and Osborne [25] (see also [13,32,44]).
For desiccated material, the appropriate method is
gentle dry sieving over a 300 mm sieve [52b]; from
experience, wetting and drying of the material by
flotation, as used for plant macrofossils, tends to be
destructive of insect remains. A range of characters is
used in the identification of fly puparial remains: prospiracular processes, the posterior spiracles, the arrangement of perispiracular papillae on end-segments, the
anal plate and the adjoining papillae, cuticular features,
larval mouthparts, and pupal respiratory horns. Size
and shape of the puparia are also important. Some
families, such as the Fanniidae and Phoridae, are very
distinct and therefore easier to identify. The impressions
of wing venation on the pupa of Nematocera can also
allow identification to the species level. Whilst keys are
available for some groups (e.g. [33,65]), comparison with
securely identified reference material is often essential
[62], and availability of this further restricts work on the
group.
6. Flies and archaeological sampling
In an effort to reconstruct human activities from
archaeological sites, the flies from the context under
study are treated in the same way as in forensics. The
questions posed in archaeological research are similar to
those at a crime scene, and it is not surprising that they
Fig. 3. A complete puparium of Heleomyza borealis (Diptera,
Heleomyzidae) with the unemerged adult fly inside, from the Norse
farm at GUS in the Western Settlement, Greenland.
E. Panagiotakopulu / Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (2004) 1675e1684
are better answered on sites with a short period of
occupation, or where, because of catastrophe events, for
example, volcanic eruptions or sudden site abandonment, a certain moment of the life of the settlement is
captured archaeologically. As forensic entomologists try
to fill the gaps in the story by retrieving the faunas from
over, inside and around dead bodies, archaeoentomologists should get the chance to do the same work in
human settlements. Different species of flies in different
parts of the settlement, the house or the room itself,
indicate diverse media available for the flies to breed in,
temperature and humidity variation, light or shade.
However in archaeological research, there are a number
of taphonomic biases that need to be addressed.
A good way of obtaining intimate information on
people’s lives is by looking in their garbage, and this also
applies to archaeological research. Middens show details
about everyday life, eating habits, domestic animals,
hygiene levels, food pests, etc. Several species of fly
deposit their eggs on garbage, and the maggots feed on
the various materials in the midden, different species on
different material; their puparia are therefore excellent
in reconstructing the nature of decayed matter, even
where the latter has rotted away completely. A midden
however may be an accumulation of debris from different parts and different phases of a house or a complex of
houses, and not everything is likely to have been thrown
onto the midden. The midden itself may be turned over
by animals, invertebrate as well as vertebrate, utilised by
people as a rich seedbed for garden agriculture, or
removed for other purposes such as fertilising fields or
to provide turves for building. So, although the garbage
heaps are excellent indicators of what happened in the
past, the record is often heterogenous, and only a part of
the story may be found in them; only general information about past times is obtained, and the advantages of relating the fly faunas to different parts
and phases of the occupation, particularly of individual
rooms of house, barn and byre are largely lost.
In order to use fully the dipterous material and the
ectoparasites, and even context specific beetles like the
pests of stored products, sampling inside the houses of
floors, collapsed walls and roofs, etc., which follows the
matrix of the excavation, is absolutely necessary. This
usually requires the specialist to be on site for much of
the excavation, a situation rarely met. Even then, there
is the problem of cross-contamination while taking the
samples. Penecontemporaneous bioturbation can often
be indexed by cross-comparison with the artifactual and
stratigraphic record, but it is frequently impossible to
sample exclusively fine contexts and some time averaging of materials is usually inevitable, a problem when the
objective may be to look at factors leading up to
the desertion of a site or a change of use of a structure.
In addition, the maggots of certain families, such as
Sarcophagidae for example, move slightly while pu-
1679
pating, sometimes into a vertical position in the underlying deposits, contaminating the immediately preceding
phase. Some of the problems, and advantages of study
of Diptera from archaeological contexts are well illustrated by recent work in the Norse Western Settlement
in South-West Greenland, where occupation of farms
appears to come to an abrupt end ca. AD 1360 after
about 350 years of settlement [5,12].
7. Greenland
Like farms elsewhere in the North Atlantic region,
the medieval farms of Greenland were squalid, dark
places. Windowless, they were built from turves, often
on a stone foundation, and roofed with driftwood,
overlain by turves. Twigs, moss, hay and other materials
covered the floors, providing an insulation layer over the
permafrost [14,15,18], and an agreeable environment in
the house during the long, cold, dark winters. Domestic
stock was stalled overwinter in the farm complex,
providing additional warmth for the people, and food
for both was also brought in and stored in the farms. As
time passed by, foul material accumulated on the floors
and when it was too much of an obstacle for everyday
life, some of it was disposed outside onto the midden.
Whilst in Iceland occupation on many farms has been
continuous to the present day, often resulting in the
build up of a considerable farm mound [14], the story
from Greenland is completely different. The settlers
arrived at the Eastern Settlement at the end of the 10th
century, and expanded rapidly to the Western Settlement, in the fjords, east of the modern capital at Nuuk
[43]. The settlements prospered for several hundred
years. However, first the Western Settlement during the
14th century and then, one hundred years later, the
Eastern Settlement were abandoned. There is no information to explain what triggered farm abandonment
in Greenland, and alternative theories are legion (most
recently, see [5,59]). Similarly nothing is known about
how the abandonment took place; was it an evacuation,
or a gradual process, and what happened to the people
involved? The limitations of radiocarbon dates from the
farms fail to clarify whether the process was one of
gradual attrition (cf. [46]) or precipitate departure from
all the farms. The extinction of the Greenlanders is
a classic forensic mystery and calls for forensic
archaeological techniques.
The farmhouses and their middens were ideal places
for the flies to live and breed in. In the harsh Greenlandic environment, the native fly fauna is restricted
[63]. However both flies and beetles were introduced
accidentally with the Viking settlers in the dunnage of
their ships [57], and they managed to get established in
the artificially warmed environment of the farmhouses,
rapidly spreading, perhaps in the transport of fodder on
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E. Panagiotakopulu / Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (2004) 1675e1684
the backs of ponies, to the most remote of inland farms.
In Greenland, these new species disappeared together
with their Norse hosts. Fly diversity is a mirror of the
activities related to a farm, and therefore comparison of
the fly faunas from different farms provides information
about site status and activities. A drop in synanthropic
flies and an increase in species that reflect the natural
environment signify abandonment and lower internal
temperatures in the buildings. The same applies to
animal and human ectoparasites. In terms of behaviour,
ectoparasites are very similar to maggots as opposed to
the flies themselves. They are attached to their hosts in
the same way that the fly larvae are attached to their
contexts. Both are extremely sensitive and therefore
restricted by temperature and humidity changes, even
more so in the Viking farmhouses, which provide islands
of warmth in a cold landscape. Like many of the flies,
not only are they confined inside the houses or on their
hosts, but also they are restricted in their specific niches.
Complete absence of ectoparasites in living quarters
or byres, when not connected to a preservation bias,
usually means no people or animals in the farms. On the
other hand, large concentrations of ectoparasites, and
particularly the ked, Melophagus ovinus L., a wingless
fly ectoparasitic on sheep, could be an indication of
activities such as delousing (cf. [18]) or wool processing
[16]. Presence or absence of synanthropic flies and ectoparasites reflects presence or absence of humans.
8. Unanswered questions
Vebæk [66] interpreted the human bones in the
passage of farm :167, in the Eastern Settlement, as
those of the last inhabitant of the area. He thought that
the man died in the passage, and as there was no one to
bury him, the body had been left there. As Lynnerup
et al. [45] point out, the radiocarbon date of the skeletal
material is very early, centering on AD 1275, and even
allowing for a significant marine component in the diet
[3], this seems unlikely to reflect the last Norseman,
tempting though the story is. It is not unusual to find
scattered fragments of earlier burials on archaeological
sites, and the bones probably represent secondary deposition, as opposed to an actual death in situ. Væbek’s
excavation took place too early for a forensic approach,
but an easy way to gain a secure verdict on the matter
would have been to have studied the dipterous remains
in the soil around the human bones. A dead person in
the house is quite a discovery for the archaeologist, but
more importantly it was a great meal ticket for the
contemporary necrophagous flies of the house. A buried
body will have a different fly fauna from an exposed one
(cf. [34,64]), and disarticulated, redeposited bones as
opposed to a corpse will have no fauna, unless there was
meat or sinew attached. However no soil samples for
analysis are available, and therefore no answer can be
given concerning the taphonomy of the human remains.
We await the next last Norse farmer.
9. Living on the edge
The fly faunas studied from Greenland have mostly
been from middens. Skidmore [62]; in Barlow et al. [5])
noted no marrow eating species in the middens at the
small farm at Niaqussat (V48) or in the large church
farm at Kilærsavik (Sandnes V51). In contrast, there
were large numbers of meat and marrow eating species,
Calliphorids and Piophilids, from a palaeoeskimo midden site at Qeqertasussuk [62]. McGovern, utilising
Skidmore’s comments [5] after looking at the fragmented bones from the Greenlandic middens, came to
the conclusion that all the marrow had been removed
from the bones, and argued for an economy that was
living on the edge, exploiting all the farm resources
available, and Outram [51,52] has developed the model
further. In contrast, the semisedentary Palaeoeskimo
pursued a boom and bust economy, and would kill and
eat as many animals as possible on the spot. Constant
movement was definitive of their way of living, leaving
surplus carcase and food debris for vertebrate and
invertebrate scavengers and processors. Their mobility
in the face of changing often equally mobile resources is
perhaps also a major part of the reason why their Thule
Inuit successors outlived the Norse Greenlanders. The
farmers, on the other hand, were relying on a restricted
territory, the land around their farms, in part supplemented by marine and caribou resources. They did not
have the flexibility to move around in order to exploit
seasonal resources, but were able to use more effectively
all their venues of food, marrow being one of them. In
classic biological terms, the contrast could be seen as
between cultural r and k selectors (cf. [24], p. 484). In
both cases, their subsistence strategies are more a reflection of extreme specialisation, as opposed to
impoverishment, and the characteristic fly faunas of
the Norse farms, poor in calliphorids and piophilids,
occur from the bottom to the top of the middens, and do
not merely reflect adaptation to extreme stress close to
abandonment. Fly faunas from the middens of sedentary and nomadic groups are likely to be dissimilar,
even if the range of introduced species with the former
in Greenland is set aside, but more comparative material
from late Thule sites, where European influence leads to
a progressively more sedentary lifestyle is essential.
10. The evidence from GUS
Gården under Sandet (GUS) is the site of a Norse farm
situated in the Western Settlement, Greenland. Like the
other farms in the regions, including Kilaersavik
E. Panagiotakopulu / Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (2004) 1675e1684
(Sandnes V51), Niaqussat (V48) and Nipiatsoq (V54)
across the river, it was occupied from the end of the 10th
or early 11th century and abandoned ca. 1360. Initially
the farm consisted of a simple longhouse, which was
destroyed by fire, and was replaced by a farm of the
typical centralised plan during the later occupation
phases [2]. GUS had eight different phases of occupation
[48a], and all were sampled carefully under the direction
of Jette Arneborg [2] for insect remains. For most other
Greenlandic farms, the samples available have come
from middens, often from a single vertical column. In the
case of GUS, for the first time, there is a relatively good
matrix of samples from each room of the farm and from
different occupation phases, within the limits of the
archaeological work. Although the time taken to process
and identify the faunas imposes further limitations, over
70 samples have been examined. As a result, the
palaeoecological interpretation based on dipterous remains can be precise and detailed. The hypothesis set,
initially proposed at the nearby site of Nipiatsoq (V54) on
very few samples [19], is that the changes in the life of the
farm, particularly towards the end, should be clearly
shown by the fly faunas and the ectoparasites present.
The most important element of the fly faunas of
Norse Greenlandic farms is Heleomyza borealis, a member of the Heleomyzidae, a primarily necrophagous
family. Most members of the family have a marked preference for dark and/or shaded environments, and some
species will breed only in caves or mammal burrows
[52c]. H. borealis feeds on proteins, found either in faecal
material or rotten meat. Sometimes it will breed in sunlit
places, such as guano heaps or chicken manure, but the
maggots often inhabit shaded cess pits, cave entrances
and rotting material in old buildings. It is very tolerant
of low temperatures and breeds commonly in the Arctic.
When its puparia are found in large numbers inside
the farms, they clearly indicate human activities, particularly the disposal of waste, perhaps largely faecal matter, and warm temperatures. Another fly, Telomerina
flavipes, is both thermophilous and synanthropic,
a member of the family Sphaeroceridae, and was
introduced to Greenland with the Landnámsmen.
Sphaerocerids are small flies that live in a variety of
media, such as dung, decaying plant debris, carrion,
seaweed, fungi and debris in caves. They appear on
human corpses during what is known as caseic
fermentation, the fourth period of decomposition of
the body, about 3e6 months after death [64]. Erzincxlioglu [34], however, noted them on corpses in the first days
after death in the north of England. In summary, T.
flavipes is strongly troglodytic, necrophagous and lives
on foul rotting material. In Greenland, it went extinct
together with the Norse inhabitants. In all contexts at
GUS, H. borealis dominates over T. flavipes.
A component of the dipterous faunas from GUS is
strongly related to the surrounding environment. For
1681
example Delia fabricii, an anthemyid, is phytophagous
and is often found as a pest on the meadow grass, Poa
pratensis. It occurs widely from the coniferous forest
belts into the lower tundra regions throughout the
Northern hemisphere [58], and high frequencies at GUS
are clearly associated with stored hay or phases of
abandonment. Scatella stagnalis and Scatophila cribrata
belong to the family Ephydridae, and are algaecoles,
feeding on green and blue algae in shallow water.
Scatophaga furcata lives in foul rotting material, such as
dung of herbivores and rotting vegetable material. The
general picture from GUS, in terms of fly puparia, is
high numbers of H. borealis, and occasional presence of
T. flavipes. Animal and human ectoparasites from the
majority of the samples verify lots of human and animal
activity in the various rooms of the farm, and the
presence of sheep and human parasites in the same
samples in rooms which the archaeology suggests are
byres implies that herdsmen may have lived with their
stalled charges through the winter to feed them.
However in some samples the results are completely
different. From the 70 samples studied from GUS, four
samples only were characterised by predominance of the
two ephydrid taxa, Scatella and Scatophila spp. This
association is thought to be significant, and the
archaeology verifies the difference. Three of the above
samples were from abandonment phases of the house.
The only ectoparasite present was one human flea, Pulex
irritans L. This could reflect the problems of obtaining
pure single context samples, but it could also be related
to the biology of the flea. The flea is likely to disperse
randomly and accidentally from its host, and is also the
only ectoparasite that will remain on the body after
death, when its temperature has dropped. It is the most
tolerant of the ectoparasites in this respect. So, the single
specimen can be explained in various ways. The fourth
sample is from the collapsed roof of the building, so the
difference in the fly fauna is not surprising. However, in
this particular sample there is an added species, Limnelia
sp., an algaecole with a preference for edges of pools,
and also surprisingly a high incidence of animal ectoparasites. Seventy-three specimens of Damalinia ovis, the
sheep louse, are enough to make one wonder whether
sheep were living on the roof of the farm. The presence
of large numbers of caddis flies, Trichoptera, present
a more reliable story; implying abandonment and a
collapsed roof with temporary accumulations of water.
The sheep ectoparasites could mean either contamination between archaeological layers, or more likely the
presence of stray sheep that found shelter in the ruins
long after their human occupants had left. Sheep
introduced to the region in the 1950s are still present,
despite intensive hunting pressure (Andreasen, pers.
com.).
A find that demonstrates the unique preservation on
site is a dead goat found inside the farm, buried under
1682
E. Panagiotakopulu / Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (2004) 1675e1684
the collapsed roof of Room 22. The goat was found
intact, even to its stomach contents. It was recovered
from the fourth phase of the farm, and belongs to
a phase quite some time before the final abandonment.
Mummified animals, that keep their shape even after the
flesh is gone, are frequently found in the Arctic [47,64],
but the case of this naturally mummified animal is
particularly interesting from the fly’s point of view. The
fly fauna recovered from on top of the goat comprised
14 D. fabricii, 12 Scatophila stagnalis, and one member
of the family Heleomyzinae. The fly fauna which
processes dead bodies in the subarctic parts of the
world is not as diverse as in the temperate regions [63],
and the fact that the goat died inside a dark room made
it impossible for the exophilic fauna that processes
corpses to reach it. However no endophilic necrophagous species, apart from the single specimen of Heleomyzinae, managed to feed on it either. The collapsed
roof, that perhaps trapped the goat sealed it and
preserved it for the archaeologists, but would not be
a substantial obstacle for the flies that feed on dead
bodies. These flies smell their meal and find it even when
it is buried. The fauna expected to have processed the
goat in the dark room, would be the troglodytic
heleomyzids, especially H. borealis, and the thermophilous T. flavipes, already existing in the floors of GUS in
large numbers. Apparently, during the different decay
stages including caseic fermentation, it was too cold
even for the cold resistant H. borealis to process the
body. When the temperatures went up again the body of
the goat had completely dried out and was no longer
attractive for the flies. As a result, the animal, even its
stomach with the full contents, was preserved. The high
numbers of phytophages and algaecoles in the goat
sample could be connected to the roof turves. Perhaps
some of the liquids from the dead body were incorporated in the surface over it, providing fertiliser, and
vegetation grew lush when the weather changed. Rich
vegetation around and over dead bodies is very frequent
in Arctic and subarctic conditions [40,48]. The room was
later rebuilt over the goat and continued to be in use
until the final abandonment of the farm. The end of the
farm shows little difference in the fly faunas and an
orderly desertion seems probable; we are no closer to
knowing where the last farmers went, but at least at
GUS they did not die in situ.
11. Conclusions
As the Greenland case study shows, fly remains
from archaeological environments present a unique
opportunity to reconstruct the past in close detail. Fly
puparia are strongly attached to their contexts and are
highly sensitive to changes. They can be used to reveal
details of everyday life, or give clues about death. Occupation and abandonment phases, parameters of death
and ways of subsistence can be recognised and interpreted based on the fly puparia. Compilation of data on
fly remains and ectoparasites provide extremely refined
information about life, death and abandonment, as
these two groups when in synanthropic environments
provide us with strong signatures for human activities.
There is still much to be learnt from the dipterous
remains from archaeological sites. Application of the
technique widely will provide valuable information on
the biogeography of Diptera, trade, palaeoeconomy, the
history of disease, and perhaps forensic answers to
unsolved mysteries.
Acknowledgements
This paper is based upon research carried out during
tenure of a Leverhulme post-doctoral fellowship at
the University of Sheffield. The author is particularly
grateful for the training and continued advice provided
by Pete Skidmore as well as discussions and comments
by Paul Buckland. Work on the Greenland material was
facilitated by Jette Arneborg of the National Museum of
Denmark and GuCmundur Ólafsson of the National
Museum of Iceland.
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