Sheep grazing on the abundant summer pastures in Orkney.

The North Ronaldsay sheep: this breed native to Orkney, almost exculsively subsists on seaweed.

Dr Ingrid Mainland and Dr Philippa Ascough, Lecturer & Head NERC Radiocarbon Facility (East Kilbride) talk about their research into foddering strategies in island environments: pig, sheep, goat and cattle diet in Late Iron Age to Viking/Late Norse Orkney.

Within the archaeological literature, the Northern Isles of Scotland are typically seen as being at the limits of arable and pastoral farming.In these islands, the use of foreshore grazing and of seaweed as fodder from the Neolithic period onwards is often equated with marginality, a farming system under pressure, with animals reduced to foraging on the shore to obtain an adequate diet. Yet, today and in the recent past, livestock farming has been one of the mainstays of the economy of the islands, with the fertile coastal soils of Orkney in particular providing ideal grazing for cattle and sheep. Using Late Iron Age (LIA) to Viking (V) and Late Norse (LN) Orkney as a case study, and integrating zooarchaeological approaches with bone stable isotope analysis (carbon, δ13C, & nitrogen,δ15N) we explored the idea of pastoral farming at the margins through an analysis of the differing herding, foddering and grazing strategies employed for domestic livestock at Norse farmsteads of different size and status across the islands.  This forms part of a larger study into the resilience of LIA to Norse herding strategies in Orkney.

The method employed  a synthesis of zooarchaeological data (species representation, mortality profiles, palaepathological and metrical data)  from 16 sites spanning the Late Iron Age to Late Norse period in Orkney & Shetland3. Bone stable isotope analysis sampled collagen from sheep/goat (n=62), cattle (n=59) and pig (n=41) mandibles from selected sites (in bold Fig 2.1) using standard analytical approaches.

Zooarchaeological Results

• Sheep and cattle dominated economy in LIA and Viking
• Increasing evidence of specialisation in Late Norse (eg sheep at Snusgar, pig at Earls’ Bu and Brough of Birsay, cattle at Quoygrew)
• Sheep: mixed meat, wool and milk in LIA; specialised strategies in Late Norse – meat at Earl’s Bu and Brough of Birsay; wool at Snusgar
• Cattle: milk important throughout, but increased emphasis on dairying in Late Norse

Change in Foddering Strategies

Grazing/foddering was more opportunistic in earlier periods, including seaweed grazing by ovicaprines. In the Late Norse period,  there is greater consistency between sites, with terrestrial grazing emphasized and the feeding of some pigs on marine waste.

Conclusion

A shift in strategy is identified from LIA to Late Norse in both husbandry and diet which is interpreted as a move from subsistence farming to a system geared towards the production of specific products.  Coastal grazing and/or seaweed consumption is identified but in relatively few individuals, and does not suggest an acute level of resource scarcity for livestock as described, eg, in historical accounts for the Northern Isles.  Moreover, there is evidence from the stable isotope results both in this study and others. 3,5 of the use of supplementary fodders, such as hay or oats, which suggests well husbanded flocks and may reflect the fattening-up of livestock for consumption.   Likewise preliminary analysis of dental microwear in some of the sites examined here shows little evidence for overgrazing in either summer or winter culled animals.3  Overall, the impression is of a productive and well managed farming system during the Viking/Late Norse period. Although sample sizes are small, there is some suggestion that utilisation of marine resources for sheep may have been greater in the LIA.  Jones  et al. (2012)5 also report enriched δ13C in bone collagen in a wider range of Iron Age sites from Orkney, suggesting a more widespread use of seaweed and foreshore grazing by sheep herds at this time though again some variability is evident in the extent to which this resource was utilised.

Poster presented at the UHI Conference & the AEA conference in Orkney in April 2016. The poster also details the stable isotope results:

References.

• Amorosi et al. 1996. Env Arch 1, 41-54;
• Balasse et al. 2009. Env Arch 14.1, 1-14;
• Mainland et al. 2016. JAS Reports 6, 837-855;
• Ascough et al., 2012, J. Arch. Sci. 39, 2261-2271;
• Jones et al. 2012. Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom. 26, 2399–2406.
• aUHI Archaeology Institute, University of the Highlands and Islands (Ingrid.mainland@uhi.ac.uk)
• Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (Philippa.Ascough@glasgow.ac.uk)

This research was supported by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship to Ingrid Mainland (2014-5). 

Dr Scott Timpany from the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute and Dr Tim Mighall from Aberdeen University are to present a research paper at the UHI Staff and Student Research Conference on the 7th -9th November 2016.

Entitled, Investigating the evidence for woodland management from a multi-period Burnt Mound Complex, Ballygawley, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, the research paper explores the possibility of the local population managing the woodland for fuel.

Burnt mounds or ‘fulacht fiadh’ are a common feature in the Irish and British archaeological record, dating from the Neolithic to the medieval period (Ó Néill, 2009) and were widely used during the second millennium BC. They occur in various shapes and sizes. Crescent- or horseshoe-shaped burnt mounds are typical in Ireland but they can also be circular, oval and d-shaped varying in height and diameter (O’Sullivan and Downey, 2004).  Despite being ubiquitous, we know little about their function, with hypotheses varying from cooking, brewing, bathing, dyeing and textile processing together with butchery, sweat lodges and funerary and ritual practices.

This paper provides a summary of the palaeoenvironmental evidence from a complex of 23 burnt mounds excavated by Headland Archaeology Ltd, that have a chronology of activity ranging from the Neolithic to the medieval period at Ballygawley, Co. Tyrone. A range of different wooden trough styles and construction methods were found in association with the burnt mounds, which were located adjacent to a system of streams.

A range of palaeoenvironmental methods were employed to accompany the archaeological investigations including pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, micro- and macroscopic charcoal, waterlogged worked wood analysis, insects and waterlogged and charred plant remains analysis. The focus of this paper will be on those methods directed at investigating possible woodland management to provide fuel for the burnt mound activity and wood for trough construction.

Pollen analysis provided both regional and local evidence for landscape change and including a ‘seesaw’ pattern of tree and shrub pollen immediately after and preceding a period of burnt mound use. This together with the macroscopic charcoal data and worked wood analysis, indicate possible species selection and management of the local woodland resource for fuelwood. Archaeological finds discovered including bone pins, an arrowhead and scrapers provided potential evidence for butchery and hide preparation practices associated with the burnt mound activity.

An integrated dental analysis of sheep and cattle in Iron Age and Viking -Late Norse Orkney. First author: Dr. Ingrid Mainland

Highlights

• The potential is demonstrated for zooarchaeology of integrated dental analyses
• Regional redistribution and control of pastoral resources is identified in Late Iron Age Orkney
• Herding systems in Norse Orkney indicate a pre 12th Century AD development of manorial estates

Abstract

A key goal for archaeozoology is to define and characterise pastoral farming strategies – how did people in the Middle Iron Age / Viking Late Norse period organise their farming ?

In the last decade, some of the most innovative approaches for addressing these questions have centred on the mammalian dentition, including sampling of stable isotopes, dental microwear analysis and the study of dental disease. It is when these techniques are integrated and combined with more traditional approaches, such as tooth eruption and wear, however, that their full potential is realised. In this article we demonstrate how such an integrated dental analysis combining isotopes, microwear, dental development, dental pathologies, tooth eruption and wear can be used to elucidate changing pastoral practices and their impacts on the landscape from the Iron Age and Viking-Late Norse periods in the North Atlantic islands, a period of significant socio-economic and cultural change in this region.

Analysis focuses on two case study sites, Mine Howe, dating to the Atlantic Middle Iron Age and the Earl’s Bu, one of the residences of the Orkney Earl’s from the 10th to 13/14th centuries AD. Each of the techniques applied to the sheep/goat and cattle dentition identifies clear differences between the two sites, in diet, in culling season, herd health and stress levels, all of which point to potential differences in underlying husbandry practices. These are related to wider socio-economic developments in Orkney at these periods, specifically increasing control of pastoral resources and economic production by North Atlantic elites in the Middle Iron Age and the emergence of manorial estates in Late Norse/Early Medieval Scandinavia.

For the full paper click Toiling with Teeth