Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!
Vocabulary
• Chitin – a derivative of glucose that forms
the hard exoskeleton of bugs.
• Synanthropic – bugs that are adapted to
live with humans, often as parasites.
Norse Greenland
Thomas McGovern
– CUNY New York
Five liter samples were taken from all major
contexts, including room floors and sand
deposits adjacent to the site. They used a 300
mm mesh sieve and paraffin (kerosene) flotation
to disaggregate the samples, and a binocular
microscope to sort the remains .
• Pedicularis humanus (body louse) and P.
humanus/capitis (either body or head louse).
• Melophagus ovinus (the ked, found on
sheep) and Damalinia ovis (the sheep
louse)
• Human body louse and the human flea,
Pulex irritans.
• Goat louse (Damalinia caprae).
These allowed a structure to be identified as
a byre.
Coleoptera (beetles)
• X. concinnus and Quedius mesomelinus.
Other beetles include Boreophilia
islandica, Hydroporus morio, and
Colymbetes dolabratus, all of which were
probably introduced with peat cuttings
littered over the twig, moss, and woodchip
covered floor. These species are not
normally synanthropic, but seemed to
have found a niche in this indoor habitat
anyway.
• Lathridius beetle also occurs in house floor
samples. This beetle prefers to live in
moldy environments, such as old hay,
which also provides warmth for it to
maintain breeding populations. In addition
to beetles, Diptera (flies) are also
abundant and prefer the same warmth
given off my rotting plant material. The
presence of these insects indoors
indicates the presence of rotting plant
material inside the farmhouses.
• One particularly interesting find was a
vessel containing “Viking house fly”
remains and charred seaweed. Norse
literature explains that seaweed was
commonly used as a source of salt (for
preservation), and the vessel likely
contained seaweed treated meat or
cheese, which attracted the flies.
• A fireplace sample contained 22 human
lice and 18 human fleas, some of them
charred. This is the aftermath of nights
spent by the fire picking off ectoparasites
and flicking them towards the flames.
Thus, the picture painted from these
interpretations is not a pretty one.