Feathered Fauna: A Look at Bird Usage Among the Fremont

Summary

Bird use among the Fremont is a topic that has been under studied in recent times by archaeologists. We seek to address this lack of current information regarding how birds were used by the Fremont. Although birds likely only played a secondary role in the subsistence economy when compared to large mammals, birds were clearly a supplemental food source. In addition to being a food source, wing and leg elements of large birds were sometimes modified and used as a bone resource for constructing cultural artifacts such as beads and whistles. Indeed, birds likely played an important role in both subsistence and social activities in Fremont society. There has also been research arguing for the existence of a Fremont bird cult. Newly obtained bird bone data from sites in Utah Valley have bird bones found in a variety of contexts. We will compare new bird bone data to other Fremont sites excavated in the past several decades, to present a more recent analysis about bird use among the Fremont.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16634