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Man and Bird in the Palaeolithic of Western Europe considers the nature of the interaction between birds and hunter-gatherers. It examines aspects of avian behaviour and the qualities that could be (and were) targeted at different periods by hunter-gatherers, who recognised the utility of the diversity of avian groups in various applications of daily life and thought. It is clear from the records of excavated sites in western Europe that during the evolution of both the Neanderthal period and the subsequent occupations of Homo sapiens, avian demographics fluctuated with the climate along with other aspects of both flora and fauna. Each was required to adapt to these changes. The present study considers these changes through the interactions of man and bird as evidenced in the remains attached to Middle and Upper Palaeolithic occupation sites in western Europe and touches on a variety of prey/predator relationships across other groups of plant and animal species. The book describes a range of procurement strategies that are known from the literature and artistic record of later cultures to have been used in the trapping, enticement and hunting of birds for consumption and the manufacture of weapons, domestic items, clothing, ceremony and cultural activities. It also explores how bird images and depictions engraved or painted on the walls of caves or on the objects of daily use during the Upper Palaeolithic may be perceived as communications of a more profound significance for the temporal, seasonal or social life of the members of the group than the simple concept of animal. Certain bird species have at different times held a special significance in the everyday consciousness of particular peoples and a group of Late Glacial, Magdalenian settlements in Aquitaine, France, appear to be an example of such specialised culling. A case study of the treatment of snowy owl at Arancou in the Atlantic Pyrenees seems to illustrate such a specialisation. Discussion of the problems of reconciling dating and research methods, of the last two hundred years of Palaeolithic research, and of possible directions for future research offer an open conclusion to the work.

Relatively few bird images have been found on the walls of decorated caves or rock surfaces in Western Europe by comparison with the abundance of mammalian representations. Those that may be interpreted as belonging to a particular avian genus are most usually restricted to a limited range of species; aquatics, game birds and raptorial species are predominant, with the occasional passerine. The depiction of an actual species was not perhaps the primary intention of the artist and certainly it is not always entirely clear from the visible marks on the cave wall, or by viewing them in the expectation of

The previous chapters have considered some of the behaviour patterns and niche requirement of men and birds in relation to regional ecology, dispersal, migration, diet and predation. Where relative frequencies are published, it is possible to see clearly which bird families were most frequently taken by hominids and other predators. Certain genera or families of birds regularly appear with greater frequency than others. On sites occupied by Hunter-Gatherer groups the bias towards these groups of birds remained similar throughout the phases of both Middle and Upper Palaeolithic cultures. The most frequent avian groups found on settlement cave sites are the

As was noted in earlier chapters, the remains of snowy owls occur sporadically throughout the Palaeolithic record in Europe. Individuals of the species Nyctea scandiaca are known to have been present on sites across Europe during the late Quaternary. It was not a phenomenon exclusive to the end of the Last Glaciation in France. There are records of the species from the Middle Pleistocene onwards across western and central Europe, from Germany in the North to Gibraltar and Puglia in the South and from a rare find in Devon in the West to Binegade in Azerbaijhan in the East. There

Compared with rate of change in Hominid technology during the Middle Palaeolithic, the speed of innovation during the Upper Palaeolithic appears rapid. This was in part a response to relatively rapid climatic fluctuations. The changes in climate and in the cultural markers of social development between 40,000 years BP and 10,000 years BP, when the ice finally retreated from Western Europe happened relatively quickly. The changes in the environment also impacted on the diversity of avian behaviour and resulted in differences in the human exploitation of the resources available. The years between 40,000 years BP and 28,000 years BP coincided

Hunter-Gatherer communities rarely waste resources and during the Palaeolithic, animal and plant materials were gathered to serve a multiplicity of purposes. They provided sustenance, shelter, clothing, fibres, tools, domestic equipment and supports for artistic expression and information about the local ecology and seasonal environment. Birds have never been of primary economic importance in hominid societies but they can provide a source of commodities that contribute useful and interesting extras to basic subsistence, to technical effectiveness and to the comfort and cultural life of the group at the time and provide researchers of our own time with valuable information about the

Some of the aspects of avian ethology as they are related to Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer settlers are revealed in the fossil record that has been recovered from occupation sites and caves in western Europe and have something to say about the life of the birds themselves during the Upper Pleistocene. Conversely while an avian presence may provide some information regarding the environment of hunter-gatherer peoples, its absence may be a reflection of ecological or other issues of human priorities. Yet an even more important situation relevant to the issues raised by current climate change is that even though there were long

Many of the earliest signs of Hominid presence in western Europe were initially found as waterworn stone tools, like handaxes, flaked flint and bone in the gravel deposits of ancient river terraces. In Europe the names given to sites where discoveries of early hominid evidence were made during the 19th and 20th centuries gave their names to the human species and artefact types, names like Heidelberg, Swanscombe, Atapuerca, and Mauer came into the vocabulary of prehistorians. In Britain, one of the early sites was at Westbury-sub-Mendip in Somerset, where a quantity of avian and mammal bone material was recovered. The