Vivesholm : animal bones elucidate the medieval castle on Gotland, its animal husbandry and the house foundations.

The castle Vivesholm is located about two miles north of Klintehamn on the west side of Gotland. The castle was built around year 1395 and burned down in the end of the 14thcentury. Around the 17th and the 18th century the castle was re-used. However, the emphasis on its use is during the middle ages. This paper aims at getting an insight in the animal husbandry at Vivesholm by analyzing the osteological material. The analysis revealed that bones from sheep/goat were more common than bones from cattle. This means the inhabitants most probably eat meat from smaller herbivores more often than meat from cattle. Pigs have also been consumed at the castle but not in the same extent as sheep/goat and cattle. Hunting as well as fishing hasn’t had a significant role for the inhabitants of Vivesholm, at least not in terms of bones found from e.g. game and fish. The inhabitants of the castle probably had its own stock but also a supply of meat products from elsewhere. Further aim with this paper was to illustrate the use of the house foundations at Vivesholm. For this, the result from the osteological analysis was compared with the archaeological finds. The analysis revealed that Vivesholm probable were built to be in use for a long period, but when the castle was burned down in the end of the 14thcentury, the castle had an abrupt end. The different foundations, both within and outside the dyke, have been interpreted into a smithy, a storehouse, a house for cooking and a lodging house. Inside the northern parts of the castle there was a place for butchery and most of the osteological material comes from this place