coping with hard times in nw iceland: zooarchaeology ... · matology, zooarchaeology,...

ARCHAEOLOGIA ISLANDICA 3 (2004) 20-46

During a cooperative archaeological project in NW Iceland (Strandasýsla) involv-ing the Icelandic National Museum and Hunter College of the City University ofNew York.1990 season, a small rescue excavation at the site of Finnbogastaðirgenerated a quantifiable collection of animal bones dating to the early modernperiod, mainly to the 18th century. The 18th c was a period of hardship in muchof Iceland, with widespread tenantry, adverse climate, and degradation of manyterrestrial landscapes posing severe challenges to poor farmers- perhaps mostintensely in the Vestfirðir. The animal bone collection from Finnbogastaðirreflects a multi-stranded subsistence economy involving seals, birds, and fish aswell as domestic stock. Reconstruction of the fishing pattern indicates a mixedstrategy that probably produced some stockfish for local exchange or for exportbut was mainly aimed at household provisioning. The nearly contemporaryJarðabók land register provides a direct comparison to the documentary record,and ongoing site survey and excavation in the NW provides a broader land-scape/seascape perspective on the archaeofauna and documents. This small rescueinvestigation thus serves to illustrate the potential for an integrated, interdiscipli-nary approach to Iceland's past, including periods with extensive documentaryresources.

Ragnar Edvarsson, CUNY Doctoral Program in Anthropology,[email protected]

Sophia Perdikaris, Brooklyn College Zooarchaeology Laborator.Thomas H. McGovern, Hunter College Bioarchaeology Laboratory.

Noah Zagor and Matthew Waxman, NSF Arctic Social Sciences Research Experience for Undergraduates Program 2003.

Keywords: North Atlantic, Iceland, Early Modern, Zooarchaeology, Jarðabók,Landscape Archaeology

RAGNAR EDVARDSSON, SOPHIA PERDIKARIS, THOMAS H.MCGOVERN, NOAH ZAGOR & MATTHEW WAXMAN

COPING WITH HARD TIMES IN NW ICELAND:ZOOARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, AND LANDSCAPE

ARCHAEOLOGY AT FINNBOGASTAÐIR IN THE18TH CENTURY

Introduction: The RegionThis paper provides a report of the analy-sis of an animal bone collection excavat-ed in 1990 from 18th-early 19th cdeposits at the site of Finnbogastaðir,Árneshreppur, Strandasýsla, NW Iceland(Vestfirðir) and seeks to place the resultsin the larger context of early modern

economy in the region through the inte-gration of historical documentary sourcesand an ongoing program of landscapearchaeology in the region. The district(hreppur, plural hreppar) of Árneshrep-pur covers a larger area than most hrep-par in the south and south west ofIceland, and takes in a landscape of deep

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ZOOARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, AND LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY AT FINNBOGASTAÐIR IN THE 18TH CENTURY

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narrow fjords, narrow glacial valleys,and high mountains (Figure 1).

There is little area that can be culti-vated between the mountains and the seaand by the later 19th c the farmers in thearea were known for a wide ranging sub-sistence strategy. The major resources ofthe NW in the 19th c included fishing,sealing, egg collection, bird hunting,driftwood, and the windfalls provided bythe stranding of both whales and ships(Kristjánsson 1980). In the mid 19th cen-tury there were 27 farms in the Árnes dis-trict and in the beginning of the 20th cen-tury this number had increased to 50farms. This expansion was a result ofincreased fishing which affected thewhole of Iceland at the time. However,

decline in fishing from the mid 20th cen-tury onwards has caused farms to beabandoned, especially in the NW. In2000 there were only 8 farms still occu-pied in the area, and there is now a realconcern for the long term viability of thecommunity as a whole. The changingdemography of this now marginalizedregion cannot be fully understood with-out reference to a properly historicalecology which can both document priorshifts in population and identify copingstrategies employed by prior generationsin this area. The NW has long sufferedhard times as well as periods of prosper-ity, and a better understanding of pastconjunctions of market and subsistenceeconomy, rapid social change, and cli-

Finnbogastaðir

Árneshreppur

Figure 1: Location of Finnbogastaðir and Árneshreppur. (Ragnar Edvardsson)

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mate fluctuation is required if effectivestrategies for a genuinely sustainablepresent and future are to be devised andimplemented.

The image scholars have traditionallyhad of Árneshreppur, and indeed of thewhole of the Northwest, is of a poorregion where residents had to strugglejust to stay alive as marginalized sheep -raising subsistence farmers. This imagederives mainly from 19th century writtensources describing the NW of Iceland ata time when political decisions, climaticcooling, and both local and regional eco-nomic changes had caused a generaldecline in the area. In fact, little is knownabout the economic organization in earli-er periods, though there is some docu-mentary evidence that suggests that dur-ing the medieval period the Vestfirðirpeninsula was an important resource cen-ter for rich farmers both within the dis-trict and outside it. Archaeological inves-tigations since the 1990 cooperativeIcelandic Paleoeconomy Project that arecombining survey, excavation and inter-disciplinary analysis integrating paleocli-matology, zooarchaeology, archaeob-otany, and geoarchaeology are steadilyimproving our understanding of thispoorly known region. Radiocarbon dateson layers from both fishing booth sitesand farm middens in Árneshreppurdemonstrate an active use of marineresources and probable participation incommercial-scale fisheries in the 13th-15th centuries (Perdikaris et al 2003).The possibility for connecting high-reso-lution paleoclimatology with archaeolo-gy and history in the NW is generatingwidespread interest in the area both in

Iceland and abroad and a fresh programof coordinated interdisciplinary investi-gation is now underway (see Edvardsson2002). This paper seeks to contribute tothis new program of research by combin-ing archaeological and documentary evi-dence for 18th c economic response ofsmall farmers in Árneshreppur to harshsocial and environmental conditions.

The Excavation at FinnbogastaðirThe Finnbogastaðir archaeofauna(archaeological animal bone collection,for terminology see Reitz & Wing 1999)was collected in the summer of 1990 aspart of a larger cooperative IcelandicPaleoeconomy Project involving theNational Museum of Iceland and the CityUniversity of New York. The work atFinnbogastaðir represented a small-scalerescue project following the accidentaldiscovery of a bone-rich midden depositdirectly outside the modern farmhouse inthe course of driveway extension workby the farmer. With the kind cooperationand warm hospitality of the modern fam-ily, our team was not only able to recov-er bones from the spoil displaced by thedriveway work but also to cut back theworking face and collect more materialfrom in situ contexts and to draw pro-files. The total area excavated was 1.1 mx 3.0m in area, and extended 80 cmbelow modern ground surface. The workin 1990 completed only the rescue exca-vation necessary for the driveway exten-sion but did not reach the base of thearchaeological deposit in any area. Allexcavated material was sieved through 4mm mesh dry mesh, including the spoil

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heap created by the initial non-archaeo-logical excavation. Artifacts recovered(ceramics and a single kaolin pipe stem)indicate that the deposits sampled extendfrom the early 18th to early 19th cen-turies, with the most productive context(context 6) probably dating to the firstquarter of the 18th c (Amorosi 1996).Finnbogastaðir is a substantial archaeo-logical site, with much more extensivedeposits directly around the modern farmbuilding. This small rescue excavationprovides only a very partial sample of thelater phases of the farm midden deposits,and has all the limitations of a small-scale trench excavation. However, therich midden layers did produce a quan-tifiable archaeofauna with an identifiedbone count (NISP) of 6,410 fragmentsout of a total collection (TNF) of 7,379bone fragments, providing the basis foran initial discussion of economic strate-gies in the early modern period at thisfarm and material for comparison to 18thc documentary records and landscapearchaeology (see Perdikaris et al 2003 forthe full zooarchaeological report).

Taphonomic EvidenceThe taphonomic indicators (degree offragmentation, carnivore and rodentgnawing, burning) of the 18th c archaeo-fauna showed strong similarities to con-temporary collections from Iceland (dis-cussion in Perdikaris et al 2003). Thedeposits seem to have the same generalcharacter (accretional deposition ofdomestic refuse, hearth cleaning, andcraft debris) as other Icelandic middensand are thus probably generally compara-ble to other collections of similar size.

Overview of Species PresentTable 1 presents the fragment count forall bone-bearing contexts atFinnbogastaðir, including the unstratified(00) sieved spoil of the initial machineexcavation. As table 4 indicates, the greatmajority of the in situ bone collectedcame from the densely packed context(layer) 11 and from the unstratified spoilalready disturbed by the machine excava-tion, which almost certainly also largelyderived from context 11. As it was clearin the field that the bone from the spoilcame entirely from this unit and the timerange (18th c) suggested by the artifactcollection is fairly restricted, it seemsreasonable to treat the archaeofauna as aunit (with the understanding that thegreat majority of the bone derives fromthe earlier half of the century). Figure 2presents the overall distribution of identi-fied bone fragments (% NISP), which aremade up mainly of fish bone but with sig-nificant numbers of domestic and wildmammals, birds and mollusca.

Domestic MammalsThe identified domestic mammals arecattle (9.13 %) and sheep or caprine(90.87%). As is common in late medievaland early modern contexts in Iceland, pigand goat bones are entirely absent and itis likely that the entire "caprine" catego-ry (fragments that could belong to eithersheep or goat) is in fact composed ofsheep. The approximate ratio cattle boneto caprine bone is approximately one toten. Dog, cat, or rodent bones are notpresent in the archaeofauna, but (as notedabove) tooth marks of both dog and

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Fragments IdentifiedTaxon 00 spoil 1 8 9 10 11 13 14 15 Total

DomesticatesCattle (Bos taurus dom . L.) 1 16 23Sheep (Ovis aries dom. L.) 51 1 5 40 1 1 3 102

Caprine 83 11 1 1 27 1 3 127

CetaceaLarge whale species indet. 26 4 1 1 1 33

Seals 0Harbor seal (Phoca vitulina L.) 20 4 1 16 41

Seal species indet. 16 1 17 34

Birds 0Guillemot/Murre (Uria sp.) 7 1 1 1 10Eider (Somateria mollis . L) 1 1Fulmar ( Fulmaris gla c. Erch.) 1 1Red throated diver (Gavia stellata L.) 1 1Gull species (Laridae ) 2 2

Bird species indet. 24 2 1 27

Fish 0Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua L.) 984 33 1 49 39 697 2 5 3 1813Haddock (Melanogrammus aelgf . L.) 28 5 1 7 17 2 60Ling (Molva molva L.) 19 2 18 3 42Saithe (Pollachius virens L,) 7 6 17 50 80Torsk (Brosme brosme L.) 8 8Cod family (Gadidae ) 423 25 1 14 11 330 2 2 808Wolf fish (Anarch. lupus L.) 18 1 19Halibut (Hippogl sp) 4 5 9Greenland shark (Somin. microceph .L) 1 1 2Ray species (Rajidae ) 1 1 2

Flat fish species 5 2 7

Fish species indet. 1181 78 3 152 52 944 7 1 2418

Mollusca 0Mussel (Mytilus ed . L) 231 18 4 6 40 66 365Common whelk (Bucc . sp.) 1 2 3Clam sp. ( Mya sp.) 12 1 13Periwinkle (Littorina nest. L .) 1 1Mollusca species indet. 356 2 358Total NISP 3,508 186 10 232 139 2,232 84 12 7 6,41

Large Terrestrial Mammal 17 1 10 1 29Medium Terrestrial Mammal 299 24 4 5 1 107 4 1 2 447Unidentified mammal fragments 273 45 23 15 113 3 15 6 493Total TNF 4,097 256 14 260 155 2,462 91 28 16 7,379

Stratigraphic unit

Table 1. NISP by context.

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Farms 18 61 35Milking Cows 66 199 50Milk ewes 962 2323 322wether/old wether 680 1532 132total 1708 4054 504Major stock per farm 95 66 14

Mývatn. 1712 Reykjahlíðar.1712 Árnes. 1706

Table 2

Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate18 0,514 0,264 0,238 6,522

Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

18 Regression 427,615 1 427,615 10,053 0,004Residual 1191,051 28 42,538

Total 1618,667 29

Unstandardized Coefficients

Standardized Coefficients t Sig.

Model B Std. Error Beta18 (Constant) 7,427 1,714 4,334 0,000

COWS 2,131 0,672 0,514 3,171 0,004

Model Summary

ANOVA

Coefficients

Table 3. Multivariate regression for the Árneshreppur.

HouseholdSheep fleeces needed for household consumption wethers ewes total adult sheep

Sr. Bjarni 48 21 24 45Brandur 38.4 5 5

Table 4. Jarðabók Finnbogastaðir

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rodent (probably mouse) chewing arepresent on several bones.

Domesticates age at deathNot enough intact tooth rows were avail-able for effective reconstruction of age ofdeath of the major domesticates (seePerdikaris et al 2003 for data). The pres-ence of neonatal (less than 3 month old)cattle bone suggests the usual Icelandicdairying strategy, and contrasts with alow frequency of newborn lamb bones.

Domestic Mammal ButcheryThe pattern of element distribution ofboth cattle and caprines includes all partsof the skeleton, cranial fragments, longbones, and toes (see data archive). Thismixture of meat-rich and meat-poor ele-ments suggests the usual Icelandic pat-

tern of home butchery of stock and thedeposition of both primary butcherywaste and the remains of meal consump-tion into the same midden deposit. Thecollection shows many examples of thecharacteristic bi-perforation of caprinemetapodials for marrow extraction,which involves circular holes in the prox-imal articular facet, and the plantar sur-face of the distal shaft. This method ofmarrow extraction allows preservation ofthe usefully shaped metapodials for craft-work and keeps bone splinters out of therich metapodial marrow. The techniquewas widespread in the Shetlands, FaroeIslands, and Iceland after ca AD 1100 buthas not been reported from Norse archae-ofauna from Greenland or Norway, andappears to be a later medieval foodwaydeveloped in the N Atlantic islands

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Figure 2.

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(Bigelow 1985). The Finnbogastaðir col-lection also contains several examples ofthe ancient Scandinavian dish svið (asinged half sheep cranium split along themidline), still enjoyed in Iceland today.Such split crania of sheep and goats havebeen recovered from 9th c Icelandic col-lections, and Greenlandic collectionsindicate not only that the preparationmethod spread with the 10th c settlers butalso that it was applied to caribou headsas well as caprines.

Wild MammalsThe wild mammals from Finnbogastaðirare all marine species, whale and seal.The whalebone fragments (none identifi-able to species) are probably mainly frombroken artifacts or from the debris of arti-fact fabrication, as nearly all show multi-ple tool marks. This pattern is familiarfrom other Icelandic collections, and asusual leaves the issue of whale meat con-tribution to the diet open (it is equallypossible to bring home hundreds of kilosof boneless whale meat or to collectmeatless bones for tool manufacture).The seal bones may be more informative.All seal bones that can be identified tospecies level (using the criteria of Møhlnd with minor additions) are harbor orcommon seals (Phoca vitulina L.) and63% of the seal bones are from newbornpups less than two months old. This sug-gests a pattern of predation upon harborseal pupping beaches similar to that doc-umented extensively in Kristjánsson(1980) for the NW. Patterns of cut marksare consistent with the butchery methodsillustrated in Kristjánsson (1980) andprobably reflect use of both skins and

meat.

BirdsAs Table 1 indicates, birds make up asmall portion of the Finnbogastaðirarchaeofauna, and appear to be mainlyGuillemot/Murre (Uria sp.) with traceelements of other species. The presenceof the now-common fulmar is an addi-tional temporal indicator, as this speciesappears to have immigrated to Iceland inthe early modern period, probablyspreading widely through the N Atlanticalong with intensified offshore fishing inlate medieval to early modern times(Petersen 1998)

FishFish bones are the most common elementof the Finnbogastaðir archaeofauna, andthe great majority of these are from thecod (gadid) family. Figure 3 presents therelative abundance of gadid fish identi-fied to species level, indicating the over-whelming dominance of cod (Gadusmorhua L.) within this group. The rela-tively few non-gadid fish remains belongto five taxa, including wolf fish, shark,flatfish, and rays. The most commonnon-gadid is Anarchus lupus, wolf fish(represented primarily through dense cra-nial bones and teeth). Wolf fish is a com-mon by-catch with gadids, and long beenexploited in Iceland for its meat and(recently) for its leathery skin. Also rep-resented by the presence of teeth is theGreenland shark, Somniosus micro-cephalus. The Greenland shark is a large,sluggish, deep-water shark, with pointedupper teeth, and relatively flat lowerteeth, feeding primarily on seals, crabs,

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and fish (Migdalski, 1976). The pres-ences of these shark teeth are the onlyevidence for the historically documentedshark fisheries carried out in this districtdown to recent times (centered on boththe Greenland shark and the largerBasking shark). Shark bone is soft andcartilaginous and is not preserved in mostdepositional contexts, so the low fre-quency of identifiable shark remains inthis archaeofauna need not reflect theactual economic importance of sharkfishing. In addition to Greenland sharkand wolfish, at least two species of flat-fish are present. Most identifiable ofthese is the Atlantic halibut, one of thelargest of the flatfishes. Thornback raysare represented by teeth only.

Fish skeletal element frequencyThe distribution of the different portionsof the fish skeleton recovered fromarchaeological sites has been used totrace inter-regional trade in preservedfish and to aid the recognition of special-ized sites producing preserved fish for anexternal market (Perdikaris 1999). Largecod-family (gadid) fish are usuallyprocessed by gutting and beheading, andthe stripping out of a variable number ofthe upper (thoracic) vertebrae (dependingon the preservation method used).Specialist production sites near the land-ing point thus should have many cranialand upper vertebral bones, while con-sumption sites far from the coast shouldlack most of these same bones.Subsistence fishers eating their own

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Atlantic cod Haddock Ling Saithe Torsk

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Figure 4.

catch as fresh fish should generate mid-dens with a balance of skeletal elementsmore similar to that found in live fish.Zooarchaeologists often use the MAUmeasure (minimum animal unit, seeReitz & Wing 1999), which divides thebones found per skeletal element by thenumber of times it appears in the live fishto allow for a direct comparison of dif-ferent parts of the skeleton, as a tool forinvestigating patterns of differential dep-osition and survival. An MAU score con-verted to percentages should show equalnumbers for each element in the unlikelyevent that all survive to reach the ana-lyst's laboratory in actual anatomical pro-

portion. In practice, different densitiesand fragmentation patterns of differentelements of fish skeletons heavily affectthe survival and recovery of many indi-vidual elements, so most workers tend touse the MAU % of groups of elementsfor comparisons (upper, middle, lowervertebrae, larger skull parts) rather thanindividual bones (Enghoff 2003).

Figure 4 uses MAU % to compare thedistribution of cod (Gadus morhua)grouped skeletal elements recoveredfrom Finnbogastaðir (FBS) and from18th-19th c deposits from Tjarnargata 3cin downtown Reykjavík (TJR) and from10th-11th c deposits from the rural farm

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site Sveigakot (SVK). The Tjarnargata 3c deposits are definitely the refuse of afully commercial fishery in large-scaleproduction of cod for export (mainly asstockfish) and show a full range of skele-tal elements with a predominance ofbones from the head and jaws (Perdikariset al 2002). The Sveigakot (SVK) codbone collection comes from an inlandsite nearly 60 km from the shore, andlacks any jaw or upper head bones. TheSveigakot collection is made up entirelyof vertebrae and the bones around the gillslit (mainly cleithrum) which are usuallyleft in preserved fish to hold the bodytogether (Barrett et al. 2001, Perdikaris etal 2003, Nicholson 1998). The deposi-tional pattern of cod bones atFinnbogastaðir (FBS) appears far closerto the 18th-19th century Tjarnargata pat-tern, with a full range of cranial bonespresent, as might be expected in a site

close to the shore.The distribution of vertebrae recov-

ered can also shed light on the disposi-tion of fish bodies once separated fromtheir heads (a complete skeleton wouldshow equal height bars for all vertebrae).Figure 5 again compares the same threesites. The consumer's site at inlandSveigakot clearly shows a surplus oflower tail (caudal) vertebrae relative toupper vertebrae (pre-caudal and tho-racic). The two early modern coastal sitesshow the reverse pattern of an apparentsurplus of upper vertebrae and shortageof lower tail vertebrae normally exportedin a preserved fish (either as dried stock-fish or split salt fish). If the inlandSveigakot archaeofauna shows a "con-sumer's profile" (more lower body verte-brae, no head bones), both theFinnbogastaðir and Tjarnargata 3carchaeofauna show a "producer's profile"

ThoracicPrecaudal

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Cod Premaxillae & Dentaries

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of more upper body vertebrae as well asmany head bones. All sites were fullysieved to the same standard, so the pat-terning is not likely to reflect archaeolog-ical recovery.

Cod Length ReconstructionMaking use of regression formulae ofWheeler & Jones (1989) it is possible toreconstruct live length of many gadidsfrom the measurement of preservedmouth parts (premaxillae and dentaries).Figure 6 presents the size reconstructiondata for the cod at Finnbogastaðir. Bothelements produce broadly similar pat-terns of distribution of reconstructedlength, with the majority of specimensfalling between 400 mm and 800 mm.While a range of sizes of cod tend to betaken from the same waters with thesame gear, only some size ranges curewell as stockfish. Figure 7 compares thelength reconstructions based on cod den-taries for Finnbogastaðir, Tjarnargata 3 c,

and the early modern layers of a smallfarm site Miðbaer on Flatey inBreiðafjord (Amundsen 2004), with thelimits of the "stockfish window" indicat-ed by vertical lines (x axis is rescaledwith broader intervals to more realistical-ly reflect the inherent limits of the recon-struction method). Fish much smallerthan approximately 600 mm dry too hard,while fish much larger than 1100 mmtend to rot rather than cure. The fullycommercial Tjarnargata 3 c cod recon-struction distribution peaks squarely inthe middle of the stockfish window, theMiðbaer collection peaks clearly belowthe window, while the Finnbogastaðirreconstructions straddle the lower edgeas well as including a few very largespecimens above the stockfish windowlimits. If the Tjarnargata 3 c distributiontypifies the zooarchaeological signatureof selection for optimum stock fish pro-duction (with a by -catch of smaller indi-viduals probably consumed locally) and

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the Miðbaer collection typifies a fishingstrategy aimed almost entirely at localconsumption, then the Finnbogastaðirdistribution appears to fall between thesepoles. While the skeletal element fre-quencies from the Finnbogastaðir cod dosuggest concentration of heads and dis-persal of tail bones, the cod length recon-structions suggest that stockfish produc-tion for export can have been only one ofmany uses of this fish by the 18th c resi-dents. Probably the best interpretation ofthese data would be as evidence of amixed fishing economy aimed at bothlocal subsistence provisioning and atsmall-scale stockfish production forexport and local exchange.

The Historical evidenceThe written sources from the period ofthe deposition of the Finnbogastaðirarchaeofauna are abundant and in somecases very detailed, giving actual num-bers of domestic animals on farms andother relevant information about agricul-ture. Some records relate directly to thesite of Finnbogastaðir during the periodof deposition of the 18th c archaeofauna.The earliest documentary records extendto the early Middle Ages. The farmFinnbogastaðir is named after the firstsettler Finnbogi rammi who settled in thearea in the 10th century. (Ísl.sög. IX, ed.Guðni Jónsson, 1953). In the early 18thcentury the Danish king ordered a censusto be taken and the collection of farm

Cod Length Reconstruction (Dentary, 10 cm interval)

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data for a land registry for all farms inIceland. The main aim of the land reg-istry was to better administer taxationupon Icelandic farms and to gain a gener-al overview of the resources of the coun-try. In the period between 1702 and 1712two Icelanders Árni Magnússon and PállVídalín collected material from all partsof Iceland. The data for the land registryfor the district of Árnes was collected inSeptember 1706. The registry recorded29 farms in the area, 5 farms were notoccupied at the time. The church owned7 farms, king 13 and 9 farms are private-ly owned (Magnússon, Árni, 1940 edi-tion). Prior the 15th century the king didnot own any farms in the district andmost farms were privately owned exceptfor few farms belonging to the church.By the reformation in the mid 16th cen-tury the king had acquired farms in thearea as elsewhere in Iceland.

The Jarðabók register allows somebroad inter-regional comparisons of pre-vailing stock raising practices. Table 2compares the records for the maindomestic animals (milk cows, milkingewes, weathers) and the number of theseper farm from three districts Árneshrep-pur (NW), Reykjahlíðar (NE- valley nearsea level), and Mývatn (NE- inland high-er altitude). It seems clear that while allthree districts kept the same mix of stock,both absolute numbers of animals perfarm and the proportion of stock main-tained differ across 18th c northernIceland.

Not only do the farms in the NW keepfar fewer domestic animals, but their mixis tilted much more heavily towards foodproduction rather than wool production,

with a proportionally higher percentageof milk cows and milking ewes relativeto wethers. Sturla Friðriksson (1972)estimated that under conditions of tradi-tional Icelandic agriculture (before themid-19th c) it took the product of 9 ewesto sustain one adult, with 6 ewes equalingone cow. If we use these figures as arough guide, it is possible to show that inthe Árnes district the total number of ani-mals could not possibly sustain the num-ber of people actually living on the farmsin 1706, but the number of domestic ani-mals in the Mývatn and Reykjahlíðar dis-tricts should have been able to sustain thenumber of people that were living in thearea in 1712.

Further analysis (Table 3) indicatesthat only about 26 - 30 % of income forfarms in Árnes in 1706 were based onagriculture while the ratio is much higherfor Mývatn- and Reykjahlíðar districts,about 60% in 1712 (Edvardsson 2003).These analyses indicate that the people ofÁrnes district in the early 18th centurycould not live on agriculture alone andmust have based their income onresources not fully quantified in the landregistry or any other historical source.

Finnbogastaðir in the Jarðabók LandRegisterIn the 1706 land registry theFinnbogastaðir farm appeared as a fairlytypical farm in its district, valued at 16hundreds, which was a mid-range farmfor the NW area. Compared to the rest ofIceland the farm would be classifiedamong the poorer farms (Appendix 1).

The farm values are somewhat prob-lematic as they were probably calculated

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at an earlier period, sometime aroundAD1100. From the period 1100 to 1706 anumber of things have changed and somefarms may have lost parts of their values.However, the sources indicate that thefarm values for most farms haveremained the same from their originalcalculation (D.I.I-IX). Cow value was thenumber of cows that ideally belonged tothe farm. Statistical analysis of the farmvalues have shown that they were calcu-lated from the number of domestic ani-mals and all benefits that the farm had,driftwood, stranding, etc. (Edvardsson,Ragnar, 2003).

The Jarðabók entry reveals some pat-terns common to much of 18th c Iceland.A complex pattern of absentee land own-ership was not unusual, in this case a fourtiered structure extending from the actualoccupants up to the King of Denmark,with a local farmer (Jón Magnússonfrom Reykjanes), providing oversightwithin the hreppur. Multiple tenanthouseholds within the same farm werealso common in this period, with up tofour sharing the same holding (not neces-sarily all occupying the same structure).The two tenant households occupying thefarm at Finnbogastaðir in the late fall of1706 were clearly of different economic(and probably social) status. The largerhousehold was of Sr. BjarniGuðmundsson, the local Lutheran priest.Sr. Bjarni maintained four servants (bothmale and female) as well as his wife andfour children (it was not uncommon forpoor tenants to have still more impover-ished landless servants living in theirhouseholds). Sr. Bjarni has a mix of milkcows, wethers, milk ewes, and two hors-

es as well as younger cattle and sheepapparently being maintained over thewinter with an eye to stock renewal. Healso owned some additional stock main-tained at the nearby church farm Árnes.The smaller household was that ofBrandur Björnsson, who had only hiswife and six children to support, but whoalso only had a single cow and five milkewes. If we apply the Friðriksson provi-sioning formulae, both householdsappear to have had a provisioning short-fall: Sr. Bjarni had approximately 5.3human rations to maintain his ten house-hold members while Brandur had only1.1 human rations to feed his family ofeight. The households of early 18th cFinnbogastaðir, like the great majority oftheir contemporaries in Vestfirðir, musthave relied on other resources to main-tain bare subsistence. We are informedthat seal hunting is sometimes successfuland that both households have access toboats for fishing, but the register typical-ly makes no attempt to quantify non-agri-cultural production.

Jarðabók and ZooarchaeologyThe bone assemblage recovered fromFinnbogastaðir corresponds in mostrespects with the information on stockkeeping provided in the land registry. Allanimals mentioned in the registry arepresent in the assemblage and the ratio ofcattle to caprine bones (1:9.96) in thearchaeofauna matches the overall ratio ofcattle to sheep in the registry (1:9.43).The seals mentioned in the entry appearas bones in the midden, and whalebonescorrelate with recorded (disputed)strandage rights. However the fish so

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dominant in the excavated archaeofaunaare only indirectly mentioned in theJarðabók account, and the documentaryaccount provides no means to furtherinvestigate the marine resources thatmust have sustained the households of Sr.Bjarni and Brandur. The two types of evi-dence are complementary, and it may bemore productive to synthesize their verydifferent perspectives on the same eco-nomic strategies rather than to seek toprivilege history over archaeology or thereverse. It will require a much largerbone sample than we now have to effec-tively reconstruct the sheep herding pat-terns so economically laid out in the landregister, but even a relatively smallarchaeofauna such as the 1990 samplecan quickly and effectively answer thequestion of the likely source of the miss-ing resources that provisioned the earlymodern farmers of Árneshreppur- thesea. Our zooarchaeological evidence canalso help fill in some of the missingpieces of the puzzle of how poor tenantfarmers like Sr. Bjarni and Brandur man-aged to survive, especially if we addarchaeological survey and landscapeanalysis evidence. Explaining the criticalrole of marine resources at this 18th ctenant farm requires a broader, multi-dis-ciplinary view of the contemporarysocial and environmental context.

Rural Poverty, Environmental Changeand Strategies for SurvivalBy the 18th century most Icelanders weretenant farmers, and many were extreme-ly poor by any measure. The householdsof Sr. Bjarni and Brandur at

Finnbogastaðir in 1706 may have repre-sented two ends of a spectrum of relativewealth, education, and access to thewider world of enlightenment Europe,but both were certainly poor and strug-gling tenants. However, the two house-holds on the Finnbogastaðir farm in thefall of 1706 (18 people in all sharing thesame small site) were by no means thepoorest of the poor. These were the land-less paupers and sporadically employedmigrant farmhands who caused such offi-cial concern and inspired often draconianlegislation aimed at controlling thepotentially dangerous wandering poor(who tended to have the highest mortali-ty during times of famine, Vasey 2000).Most tenant farmers had single year leas-es, and would frequently move betweenfarms (either voluntarily or driven byeviction). When a farmer moved a speci-fied number of cows and sheep stayed atthe farm for the next tenant, along withany improvements to farm buildings,pastures, or other immovable property.Tenants were formally required to main-tain houses, fences, and farm buildings attheir own expense. However, mainte-nance of structures on farms became aproblem after 1700 because tenantsmoved so frequently that they consideredit a waste of time and energy to rebuildfarm buildings they could never own andwould only briefly inhabit. Only mini-mum repairs were made to turf structures(which require annual maintenance andlarge scale rebuilding every 25-30 years),which caused many farms to becomeincreasingly neglected and fall into ruin,prompting negative comments fromDanish officials and improving great

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farmers (see Hastrup 1997 andDurrenberger & Pálsson 1989). Manytenant farmers in Iceland had to fulfillcertain duties in addition to rent pay-ments (usually in made in money and inkind, as at Finnbogastaðir) including dif-ferent forms of labor service (Sr. Bjarniand Brandur were fortunate to escapethese requirements at Finnbogastaðir). Inthe NW, tenants often had to man boatsthat belonged to the owner of the farm. Inother places there were ferry duties, orother required services. Failure to meetall obligations of rent and service led toeviction, which usually resulted in thebreakup of the household if not starva-tion.

By the 18th c, tenant householdsneeded to produce cash (or its equivalentin store credit) as well as food in order tosurvive. Rent payments often requiredmoney as well as butter (as atFinnbogastaðir), and the small collectionof imported ceramics and single kaolinpipe fragment recovered in 1990 suggestthe occasional purchase of the importedluxuries so regularly denounced (asunsuitable for the poor) in contemporarysermons. Woolen clothing and beddingwere also household requirements thatmay not have been met by local produc-tion. Several 18th c sources ( esp. SkúliMagnússon (1784) ) allow a rough calcu-lation of the amount of wool needed toprovide for the needs of an individual andmany sources provide closely compara-ble estimates of the washed clip ofIcelandic sheep (Orri Vésteinsson perscomm 2003). While such calculationscannot be precise, a comparison of theestimated household woolen require-

ments vrs probable production providessome grounds for assessing the situationof the 18th c households atFinnbogastaðir (Table 4).

While Sr.Bjarni may have been ableto clothe his household from his ownflocks (or come close most years),Brandur faced an insoluble shortfall.Neither tenant could have relied uponsurplus wool production to generate sig-nificant cash income. Note thatBrandur's household kept no wethers atall, and thus seems to have forgone spe-cialized wool production entirely. Thussmall tenant farmers needed to generatesome surplus above the bare nutritionalneeds of the household to purchase goodsthey did not produce themselves and ful-fill their many social obligations. Likemany members of small-scale societiesin the modern circumpolar north, these18th c farmers needed a multi-strandedstrategy for household survival thatincluded elements of both a cash andsubsistence economy.

In addition to harsh social conditions,Icelandic small farmers like the tenantfamilies at Finnbogastaðir also were con-fronted by changing climate and geomor-phologic challenges to agriculture(Ogilvie 1984 et seq). Three well datedrecent sea cores taken just off shore fromcentral Árneshreppur (off the farmGjögur mentioned in the Jarðabókaccount above) by teams led by JohnAndrews and Anne Jennings (INSTAAR,U Colorado) support other paleoclimateevidence in indicating a prolonged coldinterval in this district from 1650-1920AD, based on carbonate accumulationand stable isotopic variations from benth-


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ic foraminifera (Andrews pers com2003, Jennings et al 2001). By the 18thcentury erosion had also seriously begunto affect farmland all over the country. Asboth the brief Jarðabók notices and thelonger accounts in the annual sheriff'sletters of the 17th-18th c indicate, pas-tures and sometimes entire farmsteadswere being lost to rapid wind erosion,destabilization of slopes, and suddenhydrological changes in river and streamregimes: landslides, floods, and denudedpastures are common complaints in mostof the quarters of Iceland (Ogilvie 1984a,2001). Many scholars somewhat devaluethe accounts of property damage in theland registry as they suspect that thefarmers were complaining and not givingan accurate description of their farmlandbecause the registry was to be used fortax purposes. While farmers and tenantscertainly had an incentive to stress anyfactors likely to reduce taxes, a range ofpaleoenvironmental studies indicate thatadverse landscape changes were indeedwidespread and that cooling climate didreduce pasture productivity and theamount of winter fodder that could besecured. The NW was also affected bysea ice in both winter and (in many yearsof the 18th c) in summer as well (Ogilvieand Jónsdottir 2000). Both the documen-tary and paleoenvironmental recordstarkly reveal the host of challenges fac-ing small farmers in 18th c NW Iceland;the coping strategies they employed tosurvive are less well understood.

From the standpoint of a tenantfarmer in 18th c NW Iceland, many agri-cultural practices advocated by enlight-enment improvers (drainage ditching,

field flattening, intensive manuring,more elaborate hay storage facilities)were complete wastes of scarce time andenergy. Not only would most of theimprovements serve to enrich the land-lord (and probably generate a rentincrease for the tenant) but their benefitswould almost certainly be lost to theimproving tenant due to eviction within ayear or two. In addition, steadily worsen-ing environmental conditions in the NWand widespread loss of pasture area andreduction of pasture productivity wasincreasingly making agricultural intensi-fication a losing proposition for all butthe richest farmsteads in the most pro-tected locations. Instead of putting moreeffort into agriculture, NW tenant house-holds would have been better served byan intensification of exploitation of wildresources. In the Árnes area most farmshad access to abundant driftwood andstranding and some had access to salmonand trout rivers. However, as theFinnbogastaðir Jarðabók entry aboveindicates, by the 18th c most of theseaccess rights had been acquired by avariety of distant secular and ecclesiasti-cal land owners (note that strandagerights were mentioned as a point of con-flict in the Jarðabók account). Sealing(from the zooarchaeological evidencedirected at harbor seal pupping beaches)could provide small farmers with bothrich meat and salable pelts, but a majorintensification of sealing effort would belikely to simply drive the local harborseal colonies to extinction or cause themto relocate in less accessible areas. Thesame problem limited the potential forexpansion of sea bird exploitation.


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Gathering of mollusks (especially mus-sels) was a low risk, low investmentstrategy which could be pursued by chil-dren and the elderly, but which producedonly a small volume of low value meat(shellfish were traditionally regarded asfamine food in many areas of Iceland).While a range of wild food certainly sup-plemented the demonstrably inadequatehousehold provisioning provided by agri-culture, the only area which would belikely to repay intensification of effort byboth producing more food for the tenanthousehold and potentially providing asalable product would be fishing forgadids or sharks.

Marine Landscape Archaeology,Environmental Archaeology, andEconomic HistoryThe statistical analysis of the land reg-istry data and the analysis of the bonedata when placed in the context of copingstrategies of a severely stressed localpopulation may explain why fish, espe-cially the Atlantic cod, was the main ele-ment in the economy of the farm asreconstructed by zooarchaeology. Assuggested by the element distributionpatterns and size reconstructions,Atlantic cod probably played a "dual"role for the farmers at Finnbogastaðir.The larger portion of the catch would befor domestic use and a small portionwould be sold at markets to generate thecash income needed by these fisher-farm-ers. The nature of the shark fisheries isless clear from the zooarchaeology due toproblems of preservation and attrition,and a single archaeofauna (from what is

essentially a limited test trench) cannotshed much light on the cultural landscapeand the spatial organization of resourceuse. Additional excavations aimed atbetter understanding the nature and lay-out of fishing stations combined withregional landscape survey may allow abetter understanding of the processesbehind the formation of the archaeofaunasampled at Finnbogastaðir in 1990.

Archaeological surveys and excava-tion on farms and fishing sites in theÁrnes and neighboring Kaldrananes dis-tricts have shown that there is a regulari-ty in the location of fishing sites in thelandscape. All farms in both areas, exceptfor those located inland have a heimræði(home base, i.e. fishing directly fromtheir farms). Both districts have verstöð-var (fishing station) located somewherewithin the boundaries of their districts. Inthe 18th century the Árnes district had afishing station at Gjögur but prior to the18th century two other verstöðvar,Akurvík and Ávík, were located in thearea. It is interesting to note that all sta-tions in the Árnes district are in a closeproximity, in a radius of 6 km from eachother. In the Kaldrananes district themain verstöð in the 18th century was atSkreflur but earlier another had been atSauratún about 1 km south of Skreflur.

Farmers fishing from their heimræðiwould mainly catch smaller cod andother species which were not suitable forstockfish production but were for goodfor domestic use. The location of theheimræði was not that important for thefishing economy of the district but for thethe farmers on the poorer farms the heim-ræði and the ready access to inshore fish-


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ing provided were often the determiningfactors between life and death. Heimræðiwere usually located anywhere along theshoreline were topography provided asafe landing and minimal shelter.

The location of a verstöð was moreimportant as they were probably morespecialized sites aiming more at optimiz-ing access to target species and to deepwater fishing in general. These verstöð-var were thus key elements in any strate-gy of large scale intensification of marineresource use, and especially for reliablyproducing the fish products that weremore suitable for commercial purposes.Deep water fishing was focused oncatching the larger sized cod which couldbe used for stockfish production and atshark fishing which was caught mainlyfor shark liver. Stockfish and shark liveroil were probably both the most impor-tant exchange items within the Árnes dis-trict and generators of cash income asboth could either be sold at a market orstored at a farm for later use. Long termstorability of stockfish and shark liver oil(up to several years) also provided a bitof flexibility to the domestic economiesof NW farmers, allowing them to "bank"particularly successful catches againsthard times.

Cultural Seascapes and MarineCatchmentsThe sea provides as many constraints tofree movement as the land, and is notwell understood as a wet version of thelocational geographer's theoretical uni-form featureless plain. Added to the usualissues of geodesic and pheric distance,

least effort constraints, and movementcosts is the overwhelming role of hazardreduction in any marine sea-use strategy.Most fishermen died young in the 18th-19th c and the trade is still one of theworld's most dangerous occupations.Wind and weather effects are highly vari-able in NW Iceland, but some recurringpatterns will tend to condition access tothe deep sea from different potential ter-restrial landing points. Any verstöð hadto be located as close to the deep waterfishing grounds as possible so boatscould reach the fishing grounds andreturn in the shortest time as possible. Inthe 18th c most fishing was carried out bysmall crews rowing 4 or 6 oared openboats. Exposure and fatigue (especiallyin winter fisheries) would take a steadytoll on the crews, who were regularlydescribed by 18th-19th c foreign visitorsas exceptionally hardy but generallypoorly clothed and equipped by contem-porary British or Continental standards.Transit time to deep water fishing wasimportant not only for least effort consid-erations but also for hazard reduction-prolonged survivability of these smallopen boats (on return voyage usuallyheavily overloaded and in winter subjectto icing) attempting to ride out a gale onthe open sea would be minimal and theonly viable option open to a crew caughtoffshore by bad weather would be to runfor a verstöð landing. Heavy surf anddirectly onshore wind would make anylanding a dangerous "one chance" affair,and would greatly limit the ability ofusers of the verstöð to launch boats at all.Peninsula locations often provide moreoptions for landing and recovery under


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different weather conditions than spotsdeep in a bay or fjord (like the heimræðiof Finnbogastaðir). The ideal locationfor a verstöð thus would involve proxim-ity to deep water, and an ability to suc-cessfully launch and recover boats from avariety of bearings in a variety of windand surf conditions. These marine loca-tional factors may regularly outweigh the

considerations of terrestrial cultural land-scape, and a good verstöð location neednot be at a good farming location. Theverstöðvar (pl.) in the Árnes district infact all clustered in a relatively small areaat the end of the Reykjanes peninsula(Figure 8). The area west of theReykjanes peninsula was probably therichest area for both shark and large cod

$Z$Z

$Z

N

0 30 60 Kilometers

Figure 8.

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fishing in the early 18th century. Marinecatchment circles around these fishingstations, with 20 km as the average dis-tance for a boat with six oars on a singlefishing trip, provide some scale. Sizes ofboats in the Northwest varied from smallboats with two oars to large boats witheight oars. The most common boat in theNorthwest was the boat with six oars(Kristjánsson, 1980). The determiningfactor in locating a verstöð in Arnes dis-trict thus does appear to follow the broad-er model. About 80% of the farms in theÁrnes district, including theFinnbogastaðir farm, would therefore betoo far away from the best deep waterfishing grounds, and their local farm fish-ing stations would have been hazardousbases for extensive off short fishing.During the fishing seasons manyaccounts describe farmers and farmhandsmoving to the verstöð to get access to thedeep water fishing.

In the 18th century the poorer farmerBrandur at Finnbogastaðir had a smallboat which he used for inshore fishing"when he could". The richer occupant ofthe farm Sr. Bjarni owned several boats.One boat was used for fishing from thefarm itself for domestic use, another spe-cialized in shark fishing at the Gjögurverstöð and Sr. Bjarni also owned part ina third boat which was also used forshark fishing. This suggests that one ofthe Finnbogastaðir farmers was mainlysubsistence fishing while the other wasfishing on a larger scale, both for com-mercial and domestic consumption. Thefarmer at Reykjanes and primary tenantof Finnbogastaðir and other local farms,Jón Magnússon, owned three boats and

part in other boats on different farms. Intotal he owned 7 boats. Two of his boatswere used for shark fishing and one forgeneral fishing, he also received a por-tion of the catch from the boats that heowned with other farmers. Most farmersin the Árnes district were fishing for sub-sistence but the three richest were alsofishing for commercial purposes, andaccess to boats and verstöð stations(along with rent income and labor serv-ice) were clearly key elements in thestrategies of these (still rather poor) localmagnates.

The 18th century land registry alsosuggests that some form of specializationwas taking place in the fishing industryin the area. Many farmers in the Árnesdistrict owned boats that were speciallyoutfitted for sharkfishing. At the Gjögurfishing station 9 boats were stationedthere in 1706, six of them were outfittedfor shark fishing and 3 for general fishing(Árni Magnússon, VII.). Three of thefarmers fishing from Gjögur are not localfarmers. Two of them come from theKaldrananes district and one is fromanother district further away. These farm-ers were at Gjögur for sharkfishing ordeep water fishing as their farms wereprobably located too far from deep waterfishing grounds.This indicates that thefishing industry in the area was moreaimed at shark fishing and that the ver-stöð at Gjögur was specialized in sharkfishing with cod fishing playing a lesserrole. Unfortunately shark bone is not wellpreserved and therefore it is impossibleto make full use of zooarchaeology toassess its importance for the local econo-my. The specialization of verstöðvar (pl)

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is an important question. There is astrong possibility that the location of averstöð in the landscape was the result ofwhat species fishermen intended to catchfrom that particular site, a question thatrequires further collaborative investiga-tion.

From the archaeological and histori-cal data we can draw some conclusionsabout the early 18th century economy ofthe area. While the traditional domesticstock still played a role in subsistenceand rents were still partly paid in butter,it is clear from both the zooarchaeologyand a close reading of the available doc-uments that the most important speciesfor most of the people of the Árnes dis-trict were cod and shark with agricultureplaying a lesser role. As the statisticalanalyses of the Jarðabók register demon-strate, poor tenants (like Brandur and hisfamily) were very dependent uponmarine resources to support their familiesand to buy necessities they could not pro-duce themselves while at the same timethey were largely restricted to fishingfrom scattered heimræði or as crewmenin boats owned by others. Middling ten-ants like Sr. Bjarni had more optionsopen, both in terms of stock raising andin the ability to access larger boats oper-ating from better fishing locations. Thethree richest farmers (like Jón) were insome ways mini-entrepreneurs, owningmany boats and shares in others. Thesegreater farmers thus had a wider socialniche breadth and were paricipating inboth inshore fishing, taking smaller sizedcod species and offshore fishing, takinglarger sized cod and shark. They wouldhave had enough surplus products to

trade with other farmers or to sell at mar-kets, acquiring the imported tablewear,tobacco, and other minor luxuries docu-mented by the artifactual record.Strategies for survival and for copingwith the environmental, economic, andsocial stresses of the 18th century thusvaried among the different levels of soci-ety in Árnes, but all involved intensifica-tion of fishing and a notable flexibility incombining terrestrial and marineresources and negotiating the differentoptions and constraints of both the cash-based and subsistence based portions oflocal and regional economy. A combina-tion of documents, artifacts, animalbones, and locational archaeologyapplied to landscape and seascape allowsus a glimpse of the complexities of thecoping strategies of the farmer-fishers ofearly modern Vestfirðir, and may indicatethe potential productivity of such inter-disciplinary research in Iceland.

AppendixFinnbogastaðirFarm value xviKings farm, one of the farms inStrandasýsla, which the lawman LauridtzChristiansson Gottrup holds for the king.Jón Magnússon from Reykjanes rentsthis farm.

Occupants are Sr. BjarniGuðmundsson one half, BrandurBjörnsson the other half.

Rent of land is (hundred) according toproportion. Is paid in money to JónMagnússon at Reykjanes.

Cow values are iiii, ii with each occu-pant. Rents are paid usually in butter,


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sometimes with something else.No duties.

Timber for house building comes fromdriftwood, such as hrökkur (Type ofdriftwood that easily crumbles).Occupants have recently renewed thecow values without getting any compen-sation for it.

Domestic animals are, with Sr. Bjarniiiii cows, i young cow, xxiiii milk ewes,xii castrated weathers, vii winter old, iilambs, ii horses. With Brandur are i cow,v milk ewes. Of the priest's domestic ani-mals there are i young cow and ix weath-ers at Árnes.

The priests household consists of thecouple, their children iiii and iiii workers(male and female). The household ofBrandur are the couple and their vi chil-dren.

Peat is not enough for fuel. Seal hunt-ing is sometimes successful. Driftwoodand stranding is quite good. The churchat Helgafell has rights to the driftwoodand stranding according to the churchdeed The rights are between Skarð andthe river estuary, half of a whale strand-ing and also one third of a half. Men donot think that the church has everreceived this, and people speak against it.Little beach-pasture for sheep, sometimeduring winter. A home base is there.

Sand damages the homefield.Outfields are damaged by water, andmudslides have destroyed parts of them.The meadow-road is difficult to travel.Winter is very hard. Domestic animalsare in danger from mudslides, creeks andbogs. In some places there is flood dan-ger. Storms are frequent and houses andfodder are in danger from them. Wells are

bad and often dry out.The occupant Brandur owns a boat,

which he uses for fishing during summerwhen he can. Sr. Bjarni owns a ship atÁrnes which he uses in spring for sharkfishing at the fishing station at Gjögur.He owns another boat which he uses forfishing when he can. He owns a part ofanother boat with Sr. Guðmundur and itis used for shark fishing ut supra.

Within the farmland there are ruinsand a field boundary, where a farm seemsto have been at some time, but no oneknows about it. This farm can't be rebuilt.In another place there are ruins calledLitlanes. These ruins used to be a farmaccording to people in the area. The riverÁrnes has now destroyed most of them.This farm can´t be rebuilt.

(Magnússon, Árni and Vídalín, Páll,(1940). Transl. Edvardsson, Ragnar).

AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to gratefullyacknowledge the generous support pro-vided by the US National ScienceFoundation for both the original excava-tions (Archaeology program) and lateranalysis as part of the Office of PolarPrograms Arctic Social SciencesResearch Experience for Undergraduatesprogram. The innovative OPP ArcticSocial Sciences REU allowed for activeparticipation of the undergraduate co-authors (Zagor & Waxman) in the labora-tory research and field program in 2003.We would also like to gratefullyacknowledge the support of the NationalGeographic Society, PSC-CUNY grants


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program, CUNY Northern Science &Education Center, & Icelandic ScienceCouncil. We would also like to expressour thanks for the kind hospitality of thepeople of Strandasýsla and to the hardworking 1990 crew and to Colin

Amundsen for his work with the REUstudents in the lab. This paper is a prod-uct of the North Atlantic BioculturalOrganization (NABO) research coopera-tive and of the Leverhulme Trust project"Landscapes Circum Landnám".

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