Birds in Cultural History

Berkay Dinçer
Modern archaeology, says the author, considers cultures together with their natural surroundings. Birds, as part of this natural environment, feature in archaeological studies for two reasons: Firstly, analysing bird bones found on the site can provide a fair idea on how the surroundings were at the time to which these bones belong to. Secondly, even though images of species may or may not mean that those species were to be found in the region, they will definitely be indicators of the way those societies view their environments and the birds.

Berkay Dincer also discusses the importance of bird in different cultures by relating many examples of prehistoric and historic images of birds, both from Turkey and from around the world. An insight on the use of birds as symbols throughout history brings the article to a close.

This abstract in English was originally published in the bulletin of Turkish Bird Research Society IBIBIK in the year 2002, Number 3, page 31.