What Did the Bishop Have for Dinner?

By Liam Farrell Feb 09, 2014

The answer to that question can be found among these bones, cleaned and drying on newspaper in the lab of George Hambrecht, assistant professor of anthropology. The 17th-century leftovers were taken from an archeological dig at Skálholt, an Episcopal cathedral and bishop’s residence in southern Iceland.

Hambrecht describes himself as standing where “archaeology meets climate science”—he studies animal remains to reconstruct historical ecological conditions and learn from their interactions with humans.

This work involves looking at lots of bones. Scroll through the slideshow to see more specimens from Hambrecht’s lab.

1 of 5

What’s interesting about these 300 to 400-year-old cattle skulls from Iceland is not so much what’s there, but what isn’t—Hambrecht says these cattle didn’t have horns and had their buds cauterized even though that would have made them worthless for trade. He speculates they could be evidence of early scientific experimentation with breeding or just conspicuous consumption, since cattle needed horns to be considered legal tender.

What do you make crafts out of without wood? As it turns out, whale skeleton is one answer. This piece of whale vertebra was used as a butcher’s chopping block, Hambrecht says, and the strikes from a cleaver are still visible.

Early New York City was a great place for pigs, what with all the trash to eat. Hambrecht’s hog bones are from a park near City Hall, and he says these leg bones belonged to some large pigs growing fat in the filthy New York streets.

These sheep mandibles from Iceland are a good way to find out what was happening in the environment, Hambrecht says. If the teeth are worn unevenly, that’s a sign of extra grit from erosion in the surrounding landscape.

Not everything in the lab is that old, though. These elegant cod bones are part of Hambrecht’s comparative collection; as only 10 to 20 years old, the bones are a critical part of analyzing and reconstructing historical fish populations. “It’s one of the most important natural resources out there, and it’s largely been trashed,” he says.