Heads or Tails: The analysis of fish bone remains from NW Iceland
By: Yekaterina Krivogorskaya
This paper and accompanying slides are licensed with a Creative Commons: Attribution license.
Attribution: Yekaterina Krivogorskaya
Heads or Tails: The analysis of fish bone
remains from NW Iceland
The image copyrighted by Stefansson Arctic Institute and Gísli Pálsson ©2000
Yekaterina Krivogorskaya
Graduate School and University Center, CUNY
New York, NY
NORSEC
NABO Collaborative Product
• Comparable excavation
and recovery methods on
sites spanning the N
Atlantic.
• Large, stratigraphically
excavated, well dated
archaeofauna.
• Common recording
systems, software and
analytic methods
(NABONE 8).
• Tools to aid researchers &
train students (FISHBONE
2.5)
Premaxilla
Cleithrum
Approach
Compare the early inland Mývatn sites with other
NABO data sets from coastal sites in Iceland.
Compare early Viking Age archaeofauna with
archaeofauna from later known-commercial
sites.
Apply a multiple-indicator approach to interregional and temporal comparisons.
Marine Fish and Mammal Bone Finds
Eyri
Kuvikur
Finnbogastađir
Gjõgur
Akurvík
Vatnsfjõrđur
Marine Fish Bones in Iceland
Mainly gadid (especially on coastal sites): cod, haddock,
saithe, ling
Found on all inland sites, even in small scale test units.
Found in earliest layers directly upon the “Landnám”
tephra (AD 871+/- 2) down to 13th c.
Range from 12 to 60 % (mean= 25%) of identified fish
bones in the five major collections (others are local
freshwater trout and charr).
Inland sites: No gadid mouthparts or cranial frags. Lots
of cleithra and caudal vertebrae.
Akurvík
• 18 meter long profile.
• Small turf structures – resembling “fishing booths” in size and shape
(Edvardsson et al 2004).
• Excellent bone preservation due to shell-sand matrix
• Location at the tip of a long peninsula
– limited pasturage
– immediate access to deep water fishing,
• Short term specialized (fishing) medieval seasonal occupation
• Abandoned in the later Middle Ages (well before 1600)
Gjögur
• Permanent farm
• Deeply stratified midden (Perdikaris, 1998) associated with the farm mound.
• Late 15th or early 16th century terminus date
• Gjögur - wide range of activities carried out year round to provision a
household and generate potential surplus product
•The ephemeral Akurvík booths probably existed for a few weeks a year to
shelter boats crews involved exclusively in fishing and marine hunting whose
profits were consumed elsewhere.
Carbon Dates
Gjogur
gu9742 525±55BP
gu9743 750±55BP
Akurvik
Beta 116969 460±70BP
Beta 116971 750±40BP
Beta 116970 850±70BP
250CalAD
500CalAD
750CalAD
1000CalAD 1250CalAD 1500CalAD 1750CalAD
Calibrated date
Atmospheric data from Stuvier et al. (1998); OxCal v 3.9 Bronk Ramsey (2003); cubr: 4sd:12prob us[chron]
How to distinguish subsistence vs. export fishing ?
• Total number of fish bones per site
• Diversity of species present
• Selected element distribution (heads vs. tails)
• Element group distribution (vertebral series etc.)
• Size reconstruction
• Age & Seasonality reconstruction
• NO one approach is enough- multiple indicators needed.
Inland sites vs. Coastal sites
Marine Fish Bones
Head and upper spine
bones are somewhere
else!
Fish Body Parts
100%
80%
% MAU
60%
Thoracic vert.
Tjarnarg. 18th19th
Gjögur 15th
Akurvík 15th
cod
Akurvík 13th
cod
Tjarnarg. 18th19th
Contrasting body part
distribution on inland and
all gadid
gadid all gadid all gadid
cod
coastal
sitesall gadid
flagallconsumers
vs.Head
producers.
& Jaws Pectoral Girdle
Gjögur 15th
Gásir 14th
Steinbogi 13th
Hrísheimar 10th
Granastaðir 10th
Sveigakot 11th
Sveigakot 10th
0%
Akurvík 15th
20%
Akurvík 13th
Earliest coastal
fishing station
seems to be
producing more
flat dried “klipfisk”
40%
Different processing of cod
and haddock in L Med. –E.
Mod.
Producer
cod
cod
haddock haddock sites.
haddock haddock
Precaudal vert.
Caudal vert.
Reconstructing Live Fish
Length from Bones
45
Akurvik (SU 22) Dentary n = 134
Akurvik (SU 22) Pmax n = 231
Gjogur (AU 1) Dentary n = 99
Gjogur (AU 1) Pmax n = 89
40
35
Different size
classes of cod
are used to
produce
different
products at
different
periods- flat
dried “klipfisk”
seem to be
early
% of total elements
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
90
100
200
300
400
SU 22 Dentary
500
600
700
SU 22 Premaxilla
800
900
1000
AU1 Dentary
1100
1200
1300
AU1 Premaxilla
1400
Cod Age/Size Reconstruction
Age comparison (%) of Icelandic Cod in the NW, N, and E areas
from 1982-1984
Icelandic Fisheries data
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
12
13.5
Age (ye ars)
10.5
9
7.5
6
4.5
3
1.5
0
C o u n t
Range of Cod Age based on Atlas Readings
14
12
10
8
6
4
C o u n t
2
0
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Age Class (years)
Archaeological Data from Akurvík, NW Iceland
Medieval Cod were older than modern Cod of the same length.
New Directions in Analysis
• Expanding age-size data based on bone elements
regularly recovered (not otoliths alone).
• Recovering ancient DNA from dated deposits to trace
distribution and development of fish stocks through
time.
• Isotopic and heavy metals assay of dated fish bone
collections.
New Methods for Reconstructing
Past Fishing Activity
•
•
•
•
•
Clear distinction between consumer and producer sites (based on fish skeletal
element frequency measures).
These new techniques help us conclude that the later medieval trading center at
Gásir in Eyjafjord was being provisioned with prepared fish rather than acting as a
major fishing center (Harrison et al. 2005), and may help clarify role of other sites
with direct access to the sea but which may or may not have produced their own
fish.
A substantial trade in preserved fish took place in Iceland as far back as the first
settlement. The Mývatn and upper Eyjafjord archaeofauna are currently the best
documented, but finds of marine fish cleithra and vertebrae have also been made in
early medieval contexts in Hrafenkelsdalur in the east, and at Háls and Reykholt in
the south west (Amundsen et al. 2005). The zooarchaeological record thus supports
Edvardsson’s hypothesis of substantial internal Viking Age fish trading within Iceland
prior to the expansion of the international fish trade of the later Middle Ages.
Different types of fish preparation and curing seem to have taken place at the same
time in different sites. Stockfish production seems to have increased in importance in
the late medieval contexts at the Akurvík fishing station, but not at the nearby fishing
farm of Gjögur. There seem to be differences between these patterns and those
documented in early modern times, again underlining the danger of an uncritical use
of the ethnographic record.
There are indications of a still earlier fish processing pattern in the basal layers at
Akurvík, one which may be complementary to the patterns seen on the Viking Age
consumer sites. More early (10th-11th c) fish producing sites may help resolve this
issue.
Sources Cited:
Amorosi T., Woollett J.W, Perdikaris S., & McGovern T.H. (1996) Regional
Zooarchaeology & Global Change Research: Problems and Potentials, World
Archaeology, 28(1):126-157.
Edvardsson, Ragnar, Perdikaris, Sophia, McGovern, T.H., Zagor, N and M.
Waxman. (2004). Coping with hard times in North-West Iceland: Zooarchaeology,
History, and Landscape Archaeology at Finnbogastaðir in the 18th century,
Archaeologica Islandica 3: 20-48.
Perdikaris, S and T.H. McGovern. Walrus, cod fish and chieftains: patterns of
intensification in the Western North Atlantic. In Tina Thurston (ed) New
Perspectives on Intensification, Plenum Press. In Press
Thank you
Graduate Research Fellowship Program Northern Science and
National Science Foundation
Education Center
North Atlantic
Biocultural Organization
Natural ratio in a
whole cod is 1:1
Cleithrum and Prem axilla Relative Proportions
Relative Proportion (50% in whole skeleton)
100%
Selected elements:
Cleithra tend to move
FROM producer sites
TO consumer sites.
Premaxillae remain at
producer sites
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
SVK 2
gadid
SVK 3
gadid
GST
gadid
HRH
gadid
AKV 24
cod
Cleithrum %
AKV 22 GJO AU 2 GJO AU 1 FBS cod
cod
cod
cod
Premaxilla %