Finding Moby : novel approaches to identifying human-cetacean relationships in Atlantic Scotland, from c. 2500 BC to c. AD 1400

This thesis examines cetacean bone zooarchaeological assemblages and investigates human-cetacean relationships on the Scottish Islands. Cetaceans provide a wide variety of resources including flesh, baleen, bone and oil and although cetacean bone is found on archaeological sites spanning millennia this material is often overlooked due to methodological and interpretive hurdles. By identification and examination of cetacean remains through time and space this thesis explores human-cetacean relationships in Atlantic Scotland over a four-thousand-year period. A key part of this work is the development of a method and toolkit for morphometric identification of cetacean vertebrae. This is achieved through study of a large novel dataset combined with data from existing studies and drawing on research into functional morphology and evolutionary biology. Species-level identifications using this method are possible, and the data covers all species which inhabit north-eastern Atlantic today, and one third of all species globally. Cetacean bone assemblages from two multiperiod sites, Cladh Hallan and Bornais, are recorded, analysed and identified using morphometric data and biomolecular analyses (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry). Investigation reveals complex patterns of utility. The Hebridean islanders used cetacean meat, oil, bone and likely blubber, but use also went beyond functional utility, and cetacean remains represent social processes. There are hints that active whaling may have occurred in prehistory, and comparison of historical evidence with zooarchaeological data revels complex patterns from the Norse period suggesting interplay between cetacean exploitation and that of other marine species. While many cetacean species were exploited, the sperm whale held a special place in the Hebridean past and the relationship with this animal may have been the focal point of human-cetacean relationships on the islands. The methodological advances and analysis of two large cetacean bone assemblages shed new light on human-cetacean relationships in the past and pave the way for future investigations.