Abstract
This paper examines the climatic deterioration occurring in the 14th and 15th Centuries towards the end of the Norse Settlement in Greenland and its possible effects on the size and shape of domestic mammal (sheep and goat) bones. A review of biogeographical and nutritional factors affecting the size and shape of mammal bones is presented and used as a framework to predict potential changes in sheep bone size and shape at two sites from Norse Greenland; Gården under Sandet in the Western Settlement and Ø34 in the Eastern Settlement . The results are tentatively interpreted as indicating that bone growth was influenced both as a direct result of decreased temperature and as a result of a reduction in the vegetation productivity and hence animal nutrition. The negative effect of this on the human population is discussed.
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Acknowledgments
I thank Greg Monks for giving me the opportunity to present this work at ICAZ2010 in Paris and the Paddy Coker Research Fund for funding my trip to Paris to attend the conference. I also thank SYNTHESIS for funding a research trip to the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen where a large part of the data used in this paper was collected, and Kim Aaris-Sørensen and Inge Bødker Enghoff of the Zoological Museum for their help and advice during my stay there. Georg Nyegaard is due thanks for donating his bone measurement data from Ø34 and for his advice on the site. Peter Popkin, Polydora Baker and Fay Worley kindly let me look at their results from the English Heritage Sheep Project and discuss them within this paper. Dan Bashford drew the map illustrations Figs. 11.1, 11.2 and 11.3 and Charlotte Davies provided further assistance with graphics. Julie Bond provided academic support throughout my Ph.D. project of which this research forms a small part. I thank Greg Monks, Ola Magnell and Jette Arneborg for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this paper. Finally, I thank the many others who provided help and support throughout my Ph.D. research.
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Cussans, J.E. (2017). Biometry and Climate Change in Norse Greenland: The Effect of Climate on the Size and Shape of Domestic Mammals. In: Monks, G. (eds) Climate Change and Human Responses. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1106-5_11
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