Preliminary Report on the 2012 Archaeofauna from E47 Gardar in the Eastern Settlement, Greenland

The excavation at E47 Gardar took place during the 2012 collaborative fieldwork carried out in a cooperation between the Greenland National Museum and Archives, CUNY, U Stirling, National Museum of Denmark, and the Archaeological Institute Iceland coordinated by the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization research cooperative (NABO www.nabohome.org). In response to initial reports on substantial drainage ditch disturbance by Hans Kapel (Kapel 2005) and the ditch profile cleaning and column sampling work done by the UK team (Buckland et al 2008), Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu/the Greenland National Museum & Archives (NKA) in 2011 requested international support for an emergency rescue excavation aimed at recovering as much of the exposed and degrading cultural deposits exposed by the 2004-05 drainage ditches at Gardar/Igaliku. One major objective of the 2012 season was thus the recovery of animal bones and other organic remains, and this preliminary paper reports on the animal bone collection (archaeofauna) recovered.