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The modern open area excavation of this major Viking Age hall and its associated buildings offered a unique opportunity for North Atlantic zooarchaeology, allowing comparisons of bone assemblages from fully excavated middens and structures and the combination of horizontal and vertical stratigraphic perspectives on the interpretation of site formation processes. The close cooperation between excavators and specialists continued from fieldwork through postexcavation analysis, and has unquestionably improved the quality of this chapter. The analysis and interpretation of the Hofstaðir archaeofauna has also greatly benefited from comparative zooarchaeological evidence from contemporary nearby sites in the Mývatn area (Mývatnssveit) carried out under the larger Landscapes of Settlement project, and this analysis will make use of comparative zooarchaeological data from the contemporary sites of Sveigakot (SVK) and Hrísheimar (HRH). Both of these sites are on the southern side of the Mývatn basin, near the present boundary of the interior erosion desert. Both were settled before Hofstaðir, with cultural deposits directly upon the AD 871±2 landnám tephra. Sveigakot appears to have been initially a relatively low status site which achieved modest prosperity in the mid-10th century before declining in the 11th century and being finally abandoned in the 12th century. This site probably saw several cycles of abandonment and re-occupation, possibly by households of declining status. The site of Hrísheimar (just across the Kráká River from Sveigakot) by contrast seems to have been of solid upper-middle status, and is associated with a pre …