SIT Graduate Institute/SIT Study Abroad SIT Digital Collections Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection SIT Study Abroad Fall 2016 Independent Study Project: Investigation into the implications of zooarchaeological studies for climate reconstruction in the North Atlantic; zooarchaeological research at the Agricultural University of Iceland, Reykjavík Hazel Cashman SIT Study Abroad Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection Part of the Animal Studies Commons, Eastern European Studies Commons, Human Geography Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, Place and Environment Commons, and the Scandinavian Studies Commons Recommended Citation Cashman, Hazel, "Independent Study Project: Investigation into the implications of zooarchaeological studies for climate reconstruction in the North Atlantic; zooarchaeological research at the Agricultural University of Iceland, Reykjavík" (2016). Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. 2451. https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/2451 This Unpublished Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the SIT Study Abroad at SIT Digital Collections. It has been accepted for inclusion in Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection by an authorized administrator of SIT Digital Collections. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Independent Study Project: Investigation into the implications of zooarchaeological studies for climate reconstruction in the North Atlantic; zooarchaeological research at the Agricultural University of Iceland, Reykjavík Hazel M. Cashman, Bates College School for International Training, Iceland and Greenland Climate Change and the Arctic Fall 2016 Academic Director: Ragnar Honeth Project Advisor: Albína Hulda Pálsdóttir Table of Contents Section Page Abstract……………………………………………………………………… 1 Research Question……………...…………………………………………… 1 Acknowledgements…………...…………………………………………….. 1 1.0 – Introduction…...………………………………………………………. 2 1.1 – Objectives……………………………………………………... 4 1.2 – Justification…………………………………………………… 4 2.0 – Methods…...…………………………………………………………... 5 2.1 – Ethics………………………………………………………….. 6 2.2 – Defleshing…………………………………………………….. 6 2.3 – Water Maceration……………………………………………... 7 2.4 – Cleaning………………………………………………………. 9 2.5 – Storage………………………………………………………... 11 2.6 – Cataloging…………………………………………………….. 14 3.0 – The Importance of Comparative Osteological Collections………….. 15 3.1 – Proper Care and Maintenance of Reference Collections…….. 16 3.2 – Reference Collection at the Agricultural University of Iceland 17 4.0 – Background on Archaeological Practices and Concepts……………… 18 4.1 – Sampling and Recording Data from an Excavation………….. 19 4.2 – Understanding Taphonomy…………………………………… 20 4.3 – Identifying Specimens………………………………………… 23 4.4 – Sources of Bias……………………………………………….. 24 4.5 – Frequently Used Quantification Methods…………………….. 25 5.0 – Reconstruction of Past Climates: Evidence of Past Environmental Conditions ……………………………………………………………………… 25 5.1 – Using Faunal Data in the Study of Past Climates……………. 26 5.2 – Examples: Using Faunal Data to Reconstruct Past Climates… 28 6.0 – Archaeology and Zooarchaeology in the North Atlantic…………….. 28 6.1 – Case Study: Norse Greenland………………………………… 29 6.2 – Climatic Reconstruction in Iceland: Archaeology and Zooarchaeology ……………………………………………………………………… 32 6.3 – Case Study: Hofstaðir………………………………………… 33 7.0 – Conclusions…………………………………………………………… 35 References………………………………………………………………….. 36 1 Abstract Zooarchaeology, the study of animal remains from archaeological sites, is crucial to the understanding of human interaction with the environment in the North Atlantic region and in Iceland, where the archaeological record is quite rich (Dugmore et al., 2005). Since its inception, zooarchaeology has drawn methods and concepts from both the natural and social sciences, as well as from history and the humanities, to inform an interdisciplinary understanding of the interactions between humans and their environments and the consequences of these interactions for humans and animals (Reitz and Wing, 2008). In this way, zooarchaeology can inform discussions about historical anthropogenic relationships to animals and the environment, and these relationships can be used to develop adaptation and mitigation strategies in this time of rapid environmental change (McGovern et al., 2007). An integrated adaptation approach requires knowledge of contextual history and cultural environmental landscape that only archaeology, and particularly zooarchaeology, can provide (McGovern et al., 2007). This study investigated the relationship between zooarchaeology and climate science through a literature review and work on the osteological reference collection at the Agricultural University of Iceland. The information provided here serves as an introduction to basic zooarchaeological methods, as well as to the importance of comparative osteological reference collections and to the significant role zooarchaeology plays in environmental reconstruction across the North Atlantic. Research Question How can zooarchaeology inform our understanding of both past and present human relationships to the North Atlantic environment in the context of global climate change, and what role do reference collections play in the zooarchaeological understanding of historical human relationships to animals in this region? Acknowledgements I would first and foremost like to thank Albína Hulda Pálsdóttir at the Agricultural University of Iceland for her incredible help and support throughout this project. Albína opened up her work and research facilities to me and lent invaluable guidance in the process of my literature review, and her work helped introduce me to the field of zooarchaeology and has provided me with a fantastic opportunity to gain experience in a zooarchaeological research setting. I would additionally like to thank Professor Gerry Bigelow of Bates College for first introducing me to archaeology and fostering my interest in the archaeology of the North Atlantic; I would not have been lead to this amazing project if it were not for his enthusiastic teaching back at Bates. Many thanks also to the National Museum of Iceland for their incredible exhibit on Iceland’s archaeological history; the collection housed there allowed me to see the artifacts I had read about in previous classes. Thank you to my roommates Sophie Leiter, Bertie Miller, Michaela Stith, Molly Peek, and Maddie Grant for listening to me constantly talk about bones, and finally, thank you to the incredibly kind Strætó bus driver who helped me navigate to the Agricultural University on the first day of my project; I would’ve been lost without you. 1 1.0 – Introduction “The argument that human beings can exist and act independently of their environments is a fallacy deeply rooted in Western culture.” -Dena F. Dincauze Archaeological research in the North Atlantic region is characterized by an intersection of archaeology and paleoclimatology around the historical ecology movement (McGovern, Vesteinsson, Fridriksson, Church, Lawson, Simpson, Einarsson, Dugmore, Cook, Perdikaris, Edwards, Thomson, Adderley, Newton, Lucas, Edvardsson, Aldred, and Dunbar, 2007). The theories of this movement are being used to connect the long-term record of human-environment interaction with present issues of rapid climate change and human responses, with the aim of integrating archaeology and environmental history in to global climate research and combining interdisciplinary environmental archaeology with concern for contextual history and cultural landscape (McGovern et al., 2007). Organisms and their environments are inextricably interrelated, which means that past conditions will continue to shape the present and the future of these relationships (Dincauze, 2000). Emerging from these studies is the holistic view that the relationship between cultural systems, human populations, and their environments is complex and interactive (Reitz and Wing, 2008). As a part of the historical ecology movement and as a result of this interrelationship, zooarchaeology is becoming increasingly important. It is becoming increasingly apparent that humans are the dominant forcers of change in environments that they occupy. Consequently, their environments reflect, amplify, and/or dampen change, and this causes the need for adaptation in human populations and in animal populations (Dincauze, 2000). Ecology has repeatedly shown that static assumptions about the nature of environments are maladaptive, due to this constant change (Dincauze, 2000). In Quaternary time, the dominant mode of successful adaptation among many species has been range adjustment (Dincauze, 2000). The Human Mode of Adaption (HMA, a term used by Dincauze in her book titled Environmental Archaeology: principles and practice to describe how humans respond to and simultaneously enact environmental change) has become a major source of environmental perturbation in this century, yet archaeology shows that the effects of HMA are as old as the genus Homo (Dincauze, 2000). The false dichotomization of nature and culture exemplified in the quote at the beginning of this paper is embraced and perpetuated by modern development economics, and supported by religion and technological ideologies (Dincauze, 2000). Considering the modern context of rapid environmental change, it is far more productive to shift the research orientation of archaeology towards a focus on human impacts on environments at the local scale rather than