Fishing at Vivallen : stable isotope analysis of individuals from a South Saami burial ground

• Main Authors: Fjellström, Markus, Lidén, Kerstin, Eriksson, Gunilla
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Stockholm University, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies 2022
• Subjects: Vivallen; Sápmi; diet; mobility; Late Iron Age; Early Middle Ages; History and Archaeology; Historia och arkeologi; saami
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:raa:diva-6346

Vivallen is a Late Iron Age/Early Middle Ages South Saami site with a burialground as well as a large dwelling site in Härjedalen, Sweden, located in the borderland between Saami and Norse groups. As food can be used as an indicator of cultural affiliation, we investigated the relative importance of various foodstuffs at this site, performing δ13C and δ15N analysis of human and faunal skeletal remains. The site was located along the St Olaf pilgrimage route, implying that some of the buried individuals may not have been local to the site, and therefore we performed δ34S analysis to study mobility. We set out to investigate if there were any changes in diet and mobility over the lifespan of the people buried at Vivallen. The results showed that freshwater fish were an important part of the diet, whereas reindeer and big game do not seem to have been major proteinsources. We could not identify any substantial changes in diet in the individuals over time. Our results further demonstrated low mobility among the individuals,with one exception, a female who evidently grew up somewhere else.