Birds in the Bronze Age

This book provides new insights into the relationship between humans and birds in Northern Europe during the Bronze Age. Joakim Goldhahn argues that birds had a central role in Bronze Age society and imagination, as reflected in legends, myths, rituals, and cosmologies. Goldhahn offers a new theoretical model for understanding the intricate relationship between humans and birds during this period. He explores traces of birds found in a range of archaeological context, including settlements and burials, and analyzes depictions of birds on bronze artefacts and figurines, rock art, and ritual paraphernalia. He demonstrates how birds were used in divinations, and provides the oldest evidence of omens taken from gastric contents of birds - extispicy - ever found in Europe.

• The first in-depth study of Bronze Age societies in Northern Europe from an ontological perspective
• Presents a new theoretical model to apply in the study of humans' relations to birds in which birds are perceived with an agency of their own
• Uses different strands of archaeological material and evidences assembled from different contexts, such as bird bones from settlement and burial contexts, bronze iconography, and rock art, to explore humans' relationship with birds in the Bronze Age