Wild fowl egg consumption in postmedieval Iceland. SEM analysis of archaeological eggshells from the Bishop’s seat at Skálholt, southwest Iceland

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.103060Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Iceland.

  • Eggshells.

  • Wildfowl.

  • SEM.

Abstract

An analysis of 20 samples of eggshells using SEM imaging successfully identified the samples to species level. The samples came from an archaeological site in Iceland dating to the 17th and 18th century, an elite ecclesiastical centre and Bishop’s household. The eggs are all from wildfowl, specifically mallards, Arctic skua, common guillemot and razorbill, and we know from historical sources that the harvesting of wild bird eggs for consumption was a common practice. The present study contributes to a better understanding of everyday life at the bishopric of Skálholt during the Early Modern period in Iceland.

Introduction

Eggshells from archaeological sites have traditionally presented a challenge for identification; aside from sampling and recovery issues, species or even genera identification has so far proved impossible on macroscopic examination and the most common technique remains the use of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to analyse the internal surface morphology of the shell (Sidell, 1993). The method generally is time consuming and tempered by various problems around preservation, which is why other methods such as mass spectrometry and peptide mass fingerprinting (PMS) have recently been developed as alternatives (Stewart et al., 2013). More recently, the method of so-called DNA barcoding, which is straight-forward and fast, has also become a popular approach for studying bird taxonomy and evolution (e.g. Hebert et al., 2004, Mitchell et al., 2014, Utge et al., 2020). This paper will not adjudicate between these methods, but rather present the results of a recent analysis using SEM analysis on a sample of material from a single site in Iceland. A pilot study on three samples from the same site was conducted in 2007 by Jane Sidell with promising results, but identification was in part hampered by lack of a comparative atlas (Sidell and Lucas, 2007). Since then, improvements in SEM technology and the establishment of an Icelandic reference collection has greatly enhanced the process (Hicks et al., manuscript in prep.). This SEM reference manual was initiated within a project aiming to analyse the sustainable utilization of waterbird populations during the Viking period in Northern Iceland (Brewington et al., 2015, Isendahl et al., 2019).

Founded in the mid-11th century CE, Skálholt was one of two episcopal seats in Iceland and is sited in the southwest of the country. It remained the residence of the southern Bishop until the end of the 18th century (Grímsdóttir, 2006). The bishopric was a major seat of power and cultural influence, with properties all over the country and leading the Lutheran Reformation in Iceland in the mid-16th century against the resistant, Catholic bishopric in the North. It was also home to a Latin seminary for sons of the elite who were educated to become priests or government officials. Between 2002 and 2007, large scale archaeological investigations were conducted at Skálholt focusing on the Bishops manor and school with associated service buildings, all dating to the 17th and 18th centuries (see Lucas 2010 for a general overview of the excavation). The areas that remained unexcavated included various agricultural buildings, store-rooms and male and female estate laborers quarters as well as earlier phases of activity in the core settlement.

The excavations uncovered three centuries of occupation, from c. 1650–1950, although the material reported in this paper all dates to with the period 1670–1720. The site generally exhibited very good preservation, including both textiles and leather and the recovery of finds was extremely high. The range of material culture was diverse but dominated by items associated with food and drink (e.g. ceramics, glassware, treen and stave vessels), dress (textiles, leather, metal fittings and accessories) and building material (e.g. nails, hinges, wood, brick, tiles) as well as much else. Much of the material displays important indications of the good connections that the Icelandic elite had with mainland Europe in terms of access to the rise in consumer goods and luxuries as well as its control of domestic resources.

Although a portion of this rich material came from excavated middens associated with the settlement, the greater part by far was recovered from floor layers and associated features inside buildings. All the eggshells discussed in this paper came from two buildings and one in particular, produced near-complete eggs in almost perfect preservation at the time of excavation although sadly today, the eggs have lost all colouration (Fig. 1). Fragments from two of these well-preserved eggs were sampled for SEM identification in the earlier study from 2007 and initially identified as skua (Stercorarius), but re-analysis of the images now confirms that one of these two is Arctic skua (S. parasiticus).

Section snippets

Sampling protocols and depositional Context of the eggshells

A total of 21 samples from nine different depositional contexts were selected for analysis though one proved too fragile mount so only 20 were analysed in the end. In total, just more than half of the samples (12) came from one deposit with two samples from another and single samples from the remaining units (see Table 1). All the samples however came from just two buildings: the Bishop’s Living Quarters and the Male Servants Quarters which are adjacent to each other and date from a narrow

Results and discussion

The results show that archaeological samples from Skálholt in the present study comprise wild eggs from four species: mallard (Anas platyrhynchos L.), Arctic skua (Stercorarius parasiticus), razorbill (Alca torda L.) and common guillemot (Uria aalge Pont.) (Table 2, Fig. 3).

Two samples (out of 20), both from the floor layers of the Bishops Living Quarters, are from mallard (Anas platyrhynchos). The shell is relatively thin (0.3–0.4 mm) compared with eggshell of seabirds in the present study.

Funding sources

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. However, the authors would like to thank their respective institutes for their general support and use of the SEM facilities.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Hólmfríður Sveinsdóttir who performed the initial sorting of the eggshells into size groups and to Megan Hicks for her advice on the protocols of this process.

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