zooarchaeologist, Rolf Lie, an explicit methodology was not published along with the
identifications (Weber 1992 , 1993 , 1994 ; Ballin Smith 1995 ) and that they had thus
not been replicated. (The methodology for identifying worked reindeer antler has been
replicated in the Bergen laboratory by Anne Karin Hufthammer, but this research was
on Norwegian combs of Scandinavian style rather than Scottish combs of indigenous
style; A.K. Hufthammer pers. comm.).
Recently, however, Ashby ( 2006 ) – building on Lie’s work and analogous research in
Novgorod by Smirnova ( 2005 ) – has studied worked antler identification in detail. His
research corroborates many of the original attributions. Some combs of indigenous style
found in Orkney have a high probability of being made from reindeer antler imported
from Scandinavia (Figure 30. 4 ). What Ashby has also observed, however, is that none of
these combs demonstrably precedes the Viking Age. The earliest combs previously
alleged to be of reindeer antler (including middle and late Iron Age examples from
Howe, see Ballin Smith 1994 : 177 – 8 ; 1995 ) he considers to be too poorly preserved for
definitive identification and one is almost certainly made of red deer. Thus his research
both supports and undermines the Myhre hypothesis, which probably cannot be
accepted in its original form.
The earldom hypothesis is the most traditional of the four considered. It can
be summarised as follows: a period of early ninth-century trade, migration and
acculturation was followed by the creation of an earldom of Orkney in the late ninth
Figure 30. 4 A comb of indigenous ‘Pictish’ style recovered from settlement predating a mid-tenth-
century pagan grave at Buckquoy, Orkney. It is probably made of reindeer antler imported from Norway
despite past scepticism regarding this suggestion (Ashby 2006 ).
–– chapter 30 : The Norse in Scotland––