1. A Millennial Sustainability at the District Center farm of
Skútustaðir N. Iceland
Megan T. HICKS
City University of New York,
Ph.D. Program in Archaeology
mhick@hunter.cuny.edu
CUNY HERC Open Corkshop in Sustainability Science and Education
Archaeological CUNY
North Atlantic Biocultural Organization REU Institute Iceland Northern
(nabohome.org),
US National Science Foundation Science and
International Polar Year Education
Center

2. Sites
bandoned
before 1300
From McGovern et al 2007

3. Skútustaðir’s Main Farm Area
Mývatn’s Arctic Char
major Fishing grounds
southern Historic
route Hay infields Farm
Mound
Hay infields
Eider duck
habitat
Hay infields
Framengjar
(outer hayfields)

4. Excavation Areas:
approximate locations
2008 E1 & 2, D and F
2009 G and H
2010 H and E3
2011 H
F
D
H
G
Top of
farm
Mound
N
E3 E1&2
10 M
Aerial Kite Photograph by Garðar Guðmundsson (FSI)

5. Skútustaðir Present Infield & Midden Excavation Area

6. Area G
V1717
V1477
H1300
H1300
K1262
V940
V871
Profile by Edwald 2009, radiocarbon dates provided by SUERC

7. Zoo‐
archaeology
Preliminary
Results
Skútustaðir
Total Number of
Fragments (TNF) and
Number of Identified
Specimens (NISP)
(Hicks 2010)
Analysis began in 2009
and is ongoing. Results
are preliminary.
DATA from Hicks 2010

8. 13th c.
Increasing climate variability. Dugmore Caprine per Cattle : Myvatn
et al. 2012 Archaeofaunas (Brewington
et al. 2004)
A greater focus on cows than other Mývatn farms? DATA from Hicks 2010

9. Hay Portioning Reports late 19th c through early
20th c.
Hay portioning reports in the Mývatn
area apparently came into use after
“catastrophic shortages” in the mid
to late 1800’s
‐ The reports categorize hay and tally
livestock
‐ Tracked which farmers might need
support
‐ not all farmers complied with this
practice at first
Hay Portioning Reports Show:
• Individual level and community level
decision making to manage risk
• Landscape use
• Livestock demography
• Status differences Example of a hay portioning report
1896
Supported by the Comparative Island Ecodynamics project lead by Thomas H.
McGovern (National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs grant 1202692).

10. Species Proportions from 1882 Skútustadir
District Hay Report
Cattle
Horses
Sheep
Cattle to sheep
ratio at this time is
1:75

11. Livestock Counts from Skutustaðir District Hay
Report 1889
Sheep are the
250
near total focus
of early
modern
200 production
8 7
6
32 22 5
Ewes and
30
20 lambs are the
150 3
0
Horses
majority while
4
0
Wethers wethers are
76 55
70 3 3
67
65 Lambs more rare
6
23 18 Ewes
100 68
30 Calves
Among cattle,
Steer
40 40
15 Milk Cows
milk cows
2 3
outnumber
12 5
50
80 80 2
90
74 85 steer and
20 4 22
64
17 54 56 60 1
0
calves
12 2
0 1
0
28 13 12
26
20 17
0 0
1,5 0
1,5 0
1
2 1
2 0
1
3 0
1 0
1 1
2
2 1
0
2 0
2 0
1 0
0,5
10
0
0,5
12
0
Visible status
differentiation
between farms
and farmers.

12. Hay Stores in Skútustadir district 1896
measured in Vt. (1 Vt. = 80 pounds)
1000
900
800
700
600
500 Outfield Hay
400 Infield Hay
300 Land tenure
and resources-
200
this hay report
100 from 1896
shows the two
0
farms richest in
hay, border the
framengjar or,
“wet meadows”

13. IMPORTS
Colonial vs. Post‐industrial
1477 - 1717 tephra Early Modern
Red earthenware
Fish Hooks
Industrial
whitewares/porcelain
Sheet Industrially
Copper produced
Luxury nails
Tobacco
imports
Pipes
(walrus ivory
or incisor)
Photographs by A. Kendall, T. Petursdottir, M. Hicks, A. Edwald

14. Bird eggs and bird bones: long term sustainable resource management
Hofstadir 12 101 12
Skútustaðir 23 8 2
Waterfowl
17 9
Steinbogi
Ptarmigan
Coastal Birds
Sveigakot 23 697 6
Hrisheimar 7 230
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Egg Shell,
magnified Egg Shell,
In situ at SKU
Data from McGovern et al. 2006 and Hicks 2010 Egg shell in situ at Skútustaðir
(All phases combined, no AVSP)

16. Fish and Marine Resources‐ “coping with hard
times?”
Skútustaðir: Preliminary NISP of Seals
Higher proportion of fish into the early modern
period?
DATA from Hicks 2010

17. Future Directions
• Ongoing faunal analysis
• SEM Identification of egg shell from all phases
• Additional Archival Research
• Continued outreach with the Kids’ Archaeology
Program
http://www.nabohome.org/projects/kap/fornleifaskol
ibarnanna1.pdf

18. THANK YOU
Colleagues: Thanks to Dr. Thomas H. McGovern, Dr. Sophia Perdikaris. Our work partners at
Fornleifastofnun Islands, especially Thora Petursdottir and Agusta Edwald. Orri Vesteinsson
and the field teams in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 which included CUNY Graduate
students George Hambrecht, Frank Feeley, Aarron Kendall, Seth Brewington and Amanda
Schriener, Marianne Robson (Uni. Bradford), Veronique Forbes (Aberdeen) and Val De Feu
(Stirling). Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) students from Brooklyn College
under the supervision of Dr. Sophia Perdikaris also contributed greatly in the field.
Community: Thanks to our hostess at Skútustaðir, Gerdur Benediktsdóttir. We also owe many
thanks to Dr. Arni Einarsson for locating this important site in 2007 and providing us with
excellent support and hospitality at the splendid Mývatn Research Station. Thanks are also
due to the students, community supervisors, and school staff of the Kids Archaeology project,
Iceland (KAPI, formerly Fornleifaskóli barnanna).
Support: Funding support from the US National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs
Arctic Social Science Program through International Polar Year grant 0732327 is gratefully
acknowledged. This report is a product of the International Polar Year program and of the
NABO research cooperative.

19. Sources Cited
Brewington, S., R. Harrison, C. Amundsen, and T. H. McGovern.
2004. An early 13th‐century Archaeofauna from Steinbogi, Mývatn District, Northern
Iceland. NORSEC Laboratory, CUNY. New York, NY, USA. Report No. 11
Andrew J. Dugmore, Thomas H. McGovern, Orri Vésteinsson, Jette Arneborg, Richard Streeter, and Christian Keller. Cultural
Adaptaion, componding vulnerabilities and conjunctures in Norse Greenland
2012 PNAS March 6, 2012 vol. 109 no. 10 3658‐3663
Hicks, Megan. 2010. Skútustaðir: an Interim Zooarchaeological report following the 2009 field season. Norsec Report No 48.
www.nabohome.org.
Karlsson, Gunnar. 2000. Iceland’s 1100 years: the history of a marginal society. C Hurst: London.
McGovern, Thomas, Sophia Perdikaris, Arni Einarsson, and Jane Sidell.
2006 Coastal Connections, local fishing, and sustainable egg harvesting: patterns of Viking age inland resource use in Mývatn
district N. Iceland. Environmental Archaeology. Volume 11 No.2.
McGovern, Thomas H., Orri Vésteinsson, Adolf Fridricksson, Mike Church, Ian Lawson, Ian A. Simpson, Arni Einarsson,
AndyDugmore, Gordon Cook, Sophia Perdikaris, Kevin J. Edwards, Amanda M. Thompson, W. Paul Adderly, Anthony Newton,
Gavin Lucas, Ragnar Edvardsson, Oscar Aldred, and Elaine Dunbar. 2007. Landscapes of Settlement in Northern Iceland: Historical
Ecology of Human Impact and Climate Fluctuation on the Millenial Scale. American Anthropologist 109(1) 27‐51.
ISLEIF Database administered by Fornleifastofnun Islands, Icelandic Institute of Archaeology
www.instarch.is/english/ Iceland
Hicks 2012, 77th SAA’s