Duck fleas as evidence for eiderdown production on archaeological sites

Veronique Forbes

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2015.05.008

Duck fleas as evidence for eiderdown production on archaeological sites

Veronique Forbes

Archaeology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

12 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Eiderdown has long been an important resource for northern cultures in the past but is overlooked in archaeology. Down, presumed to be from Eider ducks, has only been identified from a handful of high status burials in Scandinavia. In order to test whether an archaeoentomological indicator for eiderdown production could be established, a survey of insects from two eiderdown productions sites in Iceland was conducted. The results identified over 500 duck fleas Ceratophyllus garei Rothschild and several beetle species from raw eiderdown and processing residue, as well as from pitfall traps placed in the floor of buildings where the down was stored and processed. It is argued that despite the fact that bird fleas parasitic on Eider ducks are not host-specific, their life history and microhabitat requirements, as well as the method employed to collect eiderdown, makes duck fleas a reliable indicator for eiderdown harvesting in archaeology.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	105-111
Number of pages	7
Journal	Journal of Archaeological Science
Volume	61
Early online date	4 Jun 2015
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2015.05.008
Publication status	Published - Sept 2015

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgements
This project was undertaken as part of my doctoral studies funded by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CACR-2009-39) in the United Kingdom. I would like to thank my supervisors Karen Milek and Andrew Dugmore for their help and support. I also wish to thank Jónas Helgason, his son Alexius Jónasson and Baldur Vilhelmsson for kindly having allowed access to the eiderdown stores and workshops at Æðey and Vatnsfjörður and for having provided assistance when needed. I would like to thank Fornleifastofnun Íslands for supporting my fieldwork at Vatnsfjörður, as well as Paul Ledger and Garðar Guðmundsson for their help during fieldwork. I am especially grateful to Richard Marriott for his invaluable help with flea identifications and for lending me reference material. Erling Ólafsson and Jan Klimaszewski also helped with the beetle identifications. Consultation of the BugsCEP database (Buckland and Buckland, 2006) aided the redaction of this paper.

Keywords

Archaeoentomology
Archaeoparasitology
Eiderdown
Eider ducks
Bird fleas
trade

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Forbes 2015 duck fleas and eiderdown
© 2015. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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Cite this

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title = "Duck fleas as evidence for eiderdown production on archaeological sites",

abstract = "Eiderdown has long been an important resource for northern cultures in the past but is overlooked in archaeology. Down, presumed to be from Eider ducks, has only been identified from a handful of high status burials in Scandinavia. In order to test whether an archaeoentomological indicator for eiderdown production could be established, a survey of insects from two eiderdown productions sites in Iceland was conducted. The results identified over 500 duck fleas Ceratophyllus garei Rothschild and several beetle species from raw eiderdown and processing residue, as well as from pitfall traps placed in the floor of buildings where the down was stored and processed. It is argued that despite the fact that bird fleas parasitic on Eider ducks are not host-specific, their life history and microhabitat requirements, as well as the method employed to collect eiderdown, makes duck fleas a reliable indicator for eiderdown harvesting in archaeology.",

keywords = "Archaeoentomology, Archaeoparasitology, Eiderdown, Eider ducks, Bird fleas, trade",

author = "Veronique Forbes",

note = "Acknowledgements This project was undertaken as part of my doctoral studies funded by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CACR-2009-39) in the United Kingdom. I would like to thank my supervisors Karen Milek and Andrew Dugmore for their help and support. I also wish to thank J{\'o}nas Helgason, his son Alexius J{\'o}nasson and Baldur Vilhelmsson for kindly having allowed access to the eiderdown stores and workshops at {\AE}{\dh}ey and Vatnsfj{\"o}r{\dh}ur and for having provided assistance when needed. I would like to thank Fornleifastofnun {\'I}slands for supporting my fieldwork at Vatnsfj{\"o}r{\dh}ur, as well as Paul Ledger and Gar{\dh}ar Gu{\dh}mundsson for their help during fieldwork. I am especially grateful to Richard Marriott for his invaluable help with flea identifications and for lending me reference material. Erling {\'O}lafsson and Jan Klimaszewski also helped with the beetle identifications. Consultation of the BugsCEP database (Buckland and Buckland, 2006) aided the redaction of this paper.",

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doi = "10.1016/j.jas.2015.05.008",

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N2 - Eiderdown has long been an important resource for northern cultures in the past but is overlooked in archaeology. Down, presumed to be from Eider ducks, has only been identified from a handful of high status burials in Scandinavia. In order to test whether an archaeoentomological indicator for eiderdown production could be established, a survey of insects from two eiderdown productions sites in Iceland was conducted. The results identified over 500 duck fleas Ceratophyllus garei Rothschild and several beetle species from raw eiderdown and processing residue, as well as from pitfall traps placed in the floor of buildings where the down was stored and processed. It is argued that despite the fact that bird fleas parasitic on Eider ducks are not host-specific, their life history and microhabitat requirements, as well as the method employed to collect eiderdown, makes duck fleas a reliable indicator for eiderdown harvesting in archaeology.

AB - Eiderdown has long been an important resource for northern cultures in the past but is overlooked in archaeology. Down, presumed to be from Eider ducks, has only been identified from a handful of high status burials in Scandinavia. In order to test whether an archaeoentomological indicator for eiderdown production could be established, a survey of insects from two eiderdown productions sites in Iceland was conducted. The results identified over 500 duck fleas Ceratophyllus garei Rothschild and several beetle species from raw eiderdown and processing residue, as well as from pitfall traps placed in the floor of buildings where the down was stored and processed. It is argued that despite the fact that bird fleas parasitic on Eider ducks are not host-specific, their life history and microhabitat requirements, as well as the method employed to collect eiderdown, makes duck fleas a reliable indicator for eiderdown harvesting in archaeology.

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DO - 10.1016/j.jas.2015.05.008

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SP - 105

EP - 111

JO - Journal of Archaeological Science

JF - Journal of Archaeological Science

ER -

Duck fleas as evidence for eiderdown production on archaeological sites

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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