Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recent research in social zooarchaeology has demonstrated the diverse, reciprocal nature of relationships between animals and humans in the past. Despite growing interest in avifaunal remains from archaeological contexts, birds are often understudied and undervalued compared to other classes of fauna. Birds played particularly multifaceted roles in many realms of prehistoric life. Human interaction with birds has been driven by concerns for subsistence and cuisine, economic production and trade, political legitimization and social status, decorative and artistic pursuits, and religion, ideology, and ritual practice; analysis of their remains and archaeological contexts can inform the study of almost every traditional aspect of archaeological research. The outcomes and implications of these interactions, including extinction and extirpation, effects on the environment and local bird populations, and changes in biogeography over time, extends the relevance of avifaunal studies beyond the archaeological spectrum to other social and natural sciences. The papers in this session demonstrate the wide range of research topics that avifaunal analysis can address, and the diverse ways in which birds were involved in prehistoric life. The breadth of this research demonstrates the great explanatory potential of the study of avifaunal remains and the relevance of these inquiries to a social zooarchaeology.

Other Keywords
Zooarchaeology • Trade and exchange • Ancestral Pueblo • Ritual and Symbolism • Subsistence and Foodways • Woodland • Mogollon • Pueblo • stable isotope analysis • ancient DNA

Geographic Keywords
United States of America (Country) • North America (Continent) • USA (Country) • New Mexico (State / Territory) • Oklahoma (State / Territory) • Arizona (State / Territory) • Texas (State / Territory) • Sonora (State / Territory) • Chihuahua (State / Territory) • Baja California (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-8 of 8)

  • Documents (8)
Documents
  • Archaeology and Ethnobiology of Late Holocene Bird Remains from the Northern Oregon Coast (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Wellman. Megan Spitzer. Torben Rick.

    This is an abstract from the "Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological bird remains from the Oregon coast have recently received renewed attention. We contribute to this discussion with an analysis of bird remains from the Late Holocene Par-Tee site (35CLT20) in Seaside, Oregon. We sampled the Par-Tee avifaunal assemblage to near-redundancy and...

  • Fort Ancient Wild Turkey (*Meleagris gallopavo) Harvesting Strategies (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Pollack. Bruce Manzano. Gwynn Henderson. Thomas Royster. Moriah Raleigh.

    This is an abstract from the "Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Wild turkeys (*Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) were an important component in the diet of the middle Ohio Valley’s Fort Ancient farming cultures from AD 1000 to 1750. Wild turkeys often accounted for about 4% of the meat consumed by village residents. Our research into Fort Ancient wild turkey...

  • The Human Experience of Transporting and Raising Scarlet Macaws at Paquimé in Chihuahua, Mexico (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Schwartz. Kelley L.M. Taylor. Michelle Hegmon.

    This is an abstract from the "Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the US Southwest and northwest Mexico, prehispanic people valued birds as dietary resources, for their ritual significance, as integral elements of Indigenous cosmologies, and for the economic value of their feathers. Their multifaceted significance is clearest at the site of Paquimé in...

  • Macaws and Parrots of the Arizona Mountains (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia Crown. Patrick D. Lyons.

    This is an abstract from the "Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the highest concentrations of macaws and parrots in the US Southwest was recovered from four sites in the mountains of east-central Arizona: Grasshopper, Kinishba, Point of Pines, and Turkey Creek Pueblos. This study reexamines the evidence for acquisition, care, and discard of the birds...

  • Tracking Individual Raptors in the Archaeological Record Using Stable Isotopes: Limitations, Possibilities, and Causes of Intraskeletal δ-Value Variation (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Miranda LaZar. Jonathan Dombrosky.

    This is an abstract from the "Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ability to track trade of socially valued goods made from raptor bones can give archaeologists a deeper understanding of both human-raptor interactions and networks of exchange. Reconstructing distribution of such goods from production centers, however, requires the ability to identify bones...

  • Turkeys in the Mimbres Valley, New Mexico: Pottery Iconography, Genetics, and Diet (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean Dolan.

    This is an abstract from the "Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Understanding the cultural and environmental context of turkey (*Meleagris gallopavo) domestication and husbandry contribute to key issues in anthropological archaeology and social zooarchaeology. Despite recent advances in turkey studies in recent years, the extent of domestication and...

  • Winter Garden Hunting along the Rio Grande Flyway: A Case Study in the Procurement of Migratory Birds by Puebloans along the Rio Grande (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Robin Cordero.

    This is an abstract from the "Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Garden hunting is a topic that has received substantial attention in archaeofaunal research over the past 30 years. However, these studies have tended to focus on hunting in active gardens during the growing season, or in fallow fields. Consequently, these past studies have often focused on the...

  • A Zooarchaeological Reassessment of the Parrots of Chaco Canyon (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Katelyn Bishop.

    This is an abstract from the "Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the earliest recovery of their remains in the 1890s, the parrots of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, have featured prominently in discussions of Chacoan trade, social complexity, ceremonial organization, and symbolism and ritual. Despite their prominence in interpretations of the canyon’s primary...