Human–Bird Interactions Through Time: Proceedings of the 11th ICAZ Bird Working Group Meeting

Bird remains have often been seen as a niche field in zooarchaeological research overshadowed by the study of mammals despite their considerable cultural, symbolic and economic significance as well as their potential as a proxy for environmental reconstruction. This special issue of The International Journal of Osteoarchaeology includes papers delivered at the 11th International Council for Archaeozoology Bird Working Group which took place on 5th to 8th June 2024 at the University of Copenhagen. The meeting was the first in-person meeting of the working group after the COVID-19 pandemic, thus providing an opportunity for the community to reconnect whilst online streaming allowed others to present or follow the conference remotely. This collection includes fourteen papers which promote avian remains as a critical line of archaeological evidence and demonstrate their capacity to illuminate past human–environment interactions. Papers include analysis of assemblages, comparison with historical evidence, developments in zooarchaeological methodology and taphonomic analysis, as well as application of biomolecular techniques. Collectively, these studies underscore the interpretive potential of avian assemblages and advocate for their systematic integration into broader archaeological narratives. Understanding the formation of assemblages of avian bone is essential if we are to decipher how the lives of humans and birds were entwinned. Two papers presenting the taphonomic signatures of birds of prey will aid interpretation of actors responsible for bone accumulations (Guardia et al. 2025; Marqueta et al. 2025). Analysis of the bone mineral density of the Willow ptarmigan (Dirrigl and Buchanan 2025) will improve our ability to disentangle cultural behaviour and other taphonomic processes. Application of taphonomic studies identified Neanderthals as among the accumulators of bird bones at Upper Palaeolithic caves in France (Garcia-Fermet 2025). Goffette et al. (2026) studied the taphonomic history of legacy collections from Upper Palaeolithic caves in Belgium to further our understanding of Magdalenian cultural adaptations. The paper also demonstrates the presence of proteomic markers of glue and taphonomic traces of metal excavation tools illustrating how collections of avifauna are influenced by research history. Two further research examples from Europe are presented in this volume. Walker et al. (2025) demonstrate the Viking introduction of chickens into Norway with birds being exploited for eggs and feathers as well as meat. The value in bird products is also discussed by Kivikero (2025) in the analysis of early 17th century historical evidence for trade in water birds around the Baltic region, with archaeological evidence illustrating that the tradition had been ongoing for centuries. Three papers presented results of research in Southwest Asia with Russell (2025) summarizing the evidence for shifting migration patterns in ducks and geese through the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. Her analysis showed how hunting of birds was also influenced by local cultural traditions. Analysis of bird remains from Early Upper Palaeolithic Manot Cave in the Southern Levant demonstrated how people were focusing on easy-to-hunt birds found in the local environment. These were an important part of the subsistence strategies but also hunted for non-dietary rationale (Ujma et al. 2025). Another study considering the increased breadth of human diet towards the end of the Pleistocene focused on how the Early Natufian (Late Epipalaeolithic) occupation at el-Wad showed that people harvested from a diverse waterfowl community, shifting to an increase in game birds and birds of prey later in the sequence (Amos et al. 2025). Two papers presented the role of chickens introduced into Japan. Eda et al. (2025) confirmed that early introductions in the Yayoi period (10th century BCE to 3rd century CE) were male birds with no evidence that they were kept for successive generations. Their research leveraged the increase in proteomic research on birds to confirm that the juveniles were other species of Phasianidae. Chicken consumption only became common in the Edo period (17th to 19th centuries CE) and the paper by Hsu et al. (2025) compared consumption across three early modern cities, demonstrating regional and social differences in the ways that chickens were incorporated in people's diets Two diverse papers from the Americas are included in the volume. Tivoli et al. (2025) demonstrated that the hunting practices in the Beagle Channel at the southern tip of South America involved harvesting colonies of seabirds reflecting people's adaptations to the local environment. Ainsworth et al. (2025) contrasted turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) management strategies across different socio-environmental settings of the US Southwest/Mexican Northwest. The results highlighted the importance of understanding the role of turkeys as members of the wider avifaunal community, where the environment shaped the variety of human–bird interactions including turkey husbandry. The lifeway of a bird is often highly mobile, and species are often symbolically imbued non-human actors that cross ontological boundaries such as wild/domestic, terrestrial/aerial and resource/relational being. Reframing analysis as the study of human-avian worlds will further move research away from the notions of the purely utilitarian association between humans and birds. Hunting and trapping of birds can be understood as a negotiated encounter. Birds are not passive prey—their mobility, vigilance, and learned avoidance actively shape when, where, and how humans can attempt capture. Successful hunting or trapping depends on humans becoming aware of avian lifeways from reading migratory timing, nesting locations and feeding grounds to understanding avian responses to disturbance. Interactions are situationally responsive which unfold within shared landscapes that birds also structure through their own choices and movements. Capture is contingent and relational, produced through moments of alignment between human strategies and avian behaviour. Hunting failures would have been equally impactful changing the practices of both hunters and prey. Research on bird domestication benefits from perspectives that conceptualize domestication as a non-linear process emerging from sustained human-bird interactions rather than a singular economic or technological achievement. This approach foregrounds birds as agents whose behaviors, life histories, and ecological affordances shaped pathways of management, captivity, commensalism, and selective breeding. Further research is needed into how avian species contributed to changing ecologies through guano, seed dispersal, as a means of pest control or waste removal. We need to improve the visibility of ecosystem services of birds in the archaeological record. Further research could clarify how avian life cycles influenced the timing of human activities and thus how human practices were affected by the nesting, molting, and migration of birds. Our knowledge of how bird migration patterns changed through glacial periods is also patchy but future studies should consider communities of birds as they converge on biodiversity hotspots with resultant symbiosis or competitive exclusion. Application of species distribution modeling could address this, but we need empirical data to test such models. Additional research focusing on how birds adapt to anthropogenic change in environments, landscapes, and increasing urbanization would help determine the impact of human society on avian life over the long durée. How did new nesting sites, either deliberately constructed or incidentally created, influence the avian world? How did birds influence the soundscape, and how were the color and plumage of birds incorporated in human culture? Birds should be central narrators of archaeological pasts in which birds are treated not merely as supplementary data points but as key agents through which past human societies, environments, and relationships can be understood. Birds can narrate pasts by making visible seasonal rhythms, landscape use, symbolic systems, and multispecies entanglements that might otherwise remain obscured. As the papers in this volume attest, avian remains are central to understanding how past worlds were co-produced by humans and birds within shared ecological and cultural systems. We would like to thank the students who helped with the online streaming of the Bird Working Group meeting and Asta Salicath Halvorsen for her help running the conference. Funding to support travel was provided by the International Council for Archaeozoology and the University of Copenhagen, School of Archaeology. Additional funding was received from the Independent Research Fund Denmark, Research Project 2 (1024-00032B) and the European Union (ERC-2023-COG HORIZON AviArch, 101125532). This work was supported by Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond (1024-00032B) and European Commission (ERC-2023-COG HORIZON AviArch, 101125532). This work is an editorial in nature and does not involve the collection or analysis of original data, human participants, animals, or identifiable personal information. As such, formal ethical approval was not required. The views expressed are those of the author and are based on critical analysis and interpretation of existing literature and publicly available information. Care has been taken to ensure accuracy, appropriate attribution of sources, and adherence to standards of academic integrity. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.