Archaeology Magazine - January/February 1990 - 177

Forum

Floundering
by

MARK

the
in
ROSE

"An

archaeologist? Do you
gy
X
on digs?"
^.go
I study fish
"Actually
bones." My answer usu'

either
a
ally evokes
blank look of disbelief
or one of puzzlement.
Clearly I am expected
to say somethinglike "Whyyes,
I just got back from Machu Picchu." Even archaeological colleagues seem to expect something loftier than fish bones fór them "working on a corpus
of Etruscan bronze vessels"or
"investigatingacculturationand
ethnicity in colonial Bolivia,"
would be a more suitable reply.
Potentially,fishbones can tell
us much about ancient peoples, such as
where, how, and when they fished, what
they caught and how important fishwere
in their diet, and what the environment
in whichthey livedwaslike.Why then do
people look askance at fish bones? Perhaps it is easier for them to envision past
cultures by studying stone tools, pottery,
or sculpture. For whatever reason, fish
bones have been neglected.
Except for a scatter of earlier reports,
it is only within the past quarter century
that archaeologists have really started
looking at fishremains. Today,members
of the Fish Remains Working Group of
the International Council for Archaeozoology are striving to improve our understanding of this field. Participating in
the development of this branch of archaeology is exciting because we get to
ask basic questions about fish bones that
archaeologistsworkingwith other material, like Etruscan bronze vessels,don't get
to ask. Understandinghow fishbones"behave" in the archaeological record is a
good example. The bones we excavate
represent only a fraction of the fish
caught by the inhabitants of ancient sites.
How the fishwere processed,cooked,and
disposed of determines what bones we
recover and then study. Other factors include later human activity at the site and
the excavation methods used.
Andrew Jones, of the Environmental
Archaeology Unit at the University of
88 Archaeology

BYPHILIPANDERSON
ILLUSTRATION
Y)rk, has conductedresearchon fishbone
behavior for the past several years. His
work has included such experiments as
"Walkingthe Cod," and "Man Eats Herring." In the former,Jones (approximate
weight 167pounds) placed a modern cod
skeletoninside a bag and walkedon it. After 25, 75, 175, and 375 steps he recorded how the bones fragmented. In addition
to producing crunching noises, Jones
demonstrated that not all fish bones are
equally durable - which explains why
somebones turn up at archaeologicalsites
more often than others. In "Man Eats
Herring"- one in a series of experiments
in which fish were also fed to dogs, cats,
pigs, and rats- Jones recorded what
bones survived the chewing process and
corrosive effects of the human digestive
system.The breakageand deformationof
herring bones chewed and digested by
Jones himself proved to be similar to that
found in herring bones from tenthcentury latrine pits in York. How bones
behaveas they are fragmented or are consumed by people or scavenging animals
is a vital matter if we are to accurately interpret archaeological fish bones.
This past September the Fish Remains
Working Group met, for the fifthtime, at
Stora Korno, a small island offthe Swedish coast near Lysekil. There some 30
specialistsfrom Europe and North America pursued other questions that had
neverbeen askedbefore.RebeccaNichol-

Past
son, also from the University of
York, gave an outstanding, detailed paper on "Burnt Fish
Bones: What Value to Archaeology?" Using both open fires
and controlled burning, she investigated fundamentad questions such as how much bone
survives burning at various
temperatures and do bones of
some species survive burning
better than the samebonesfrom
different fish.
Not all the papers at Stora
Korno dealt with questions of
fishbone survival. Leifjonsson
of the Central Board of National Antiquities in Sweden,
and host of the Stora Korno
conference,presented "Violetis
Nice," a paper about staining
modern skeletonswith alizarin.
Leif findsthat stained fishbones
show,more clearlythan unstained bones,
variations in surface texture that can be
usefulin distinguishingfishspecies.Apart
from its enhanced utility, the violet cod
skeleton Leif brought for demonstration
purposes was aesthetically appealing.
At least one of the fishspecialistsin the
group doesn't work with bones at all.
MedievalhistoriemRichard Hoffmannof
YorkUniversity in Ontario is concerned
with fish and fisheries. Currently he is
researchingthe history of carp cultivation
in western Europe. Carp were an important resource in the Middle Ages,but we
don't know exactly when carp were introduced into western Europe or when
cultivation methods spread throughout
the continent. Hoffmann is scouring the
archives of ancient families and the
libraries of remote monasteriesin pursuit
of answers.
The research being done by this group
is what good archaeology is all about - a
combination of inventive thinking and
persistent footwork. Surely there are
other fieldswithin archaeologythat, like
fish bones, have been neglected for no
legitimate reason. Yetif we don't explore
these areas but stay with more familiar
subjects, our view of the past will be
incomplete - merely a reflection of our
own academic traditions and cultural
tastes. Another article on the Parthenon
frieze? Another book on Precolumbian
goldwork? I'll take the fish, thank you.

Archaeology Magazine - January/February 1990

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - January/February 1990