Preliminary Report of the Archaeofauna at Skálholt, Iceland

This report presents results of a preliminary analysis of the archaeofauna at the Episcopal farm of Skálholt, Arnessyslá, south Iceland. To date this archaeofauna is dominated by one context, unit 454. This report will present the preliminary analysis of this context as well as others analyzed in the past year. Unit 454 was part of Midden Test D (Group 383), and was excavated by Dr. Jim Woollett, Matthew Brown, and Kate Krivogorskaya during June and July of 2003. Further excavation of this context was conducted by George Hambrecht during June of 2004. Details of excavation and recovery methodologies employed, as well as descriptions and discussions regarding the complete stratigraphy of Midden Test D and other midden test pits undertaken at Skálholt in 2003 can be found in reports of field work by Woollett (2003) and Lucas (2004). This work was conducted as a midden sampling program, in conjunction with the FSI excavations of the 18th century phase of Skálholt. A total of 19,519 bone fragments were recovered from Context 454, representing roughly one third of the total number of bone fragments recovered from the entire site from 2003 to 2005. The remaining two thirds of the 2003 - 2005 assemblages are derived from a great number of contexts in the house and various midden tests, many of which contributed single bag bone samples. An analysis of faunal remains from these other contexts is on-going and the results for some of the completed contexts are presented in this report. Other completed contexts will be reported when their phasing is resolved, though they have been included in the overview of species present table (table 1). Total number of bone fragments analyzed from the Skálholt archaeofauna to date, presented in this report, is 34,623. All sediments were dry sieved through 4mm mesh to standardize recovery of bones following usual NABO recommendations.

Archaeofauna church farm Iceland Skálholt zooarchaeology

Alternative formats:

If you require this document in an alternative format, such as large print or a coloured background, please contact the author(s) or publisher. If it is a document authored by NABO, please contact us, either via our contact form or by emailing anthony.newton@ed.ac.uk.