Advanced studies on the archaeology and history of hunting edited by the ZBSA
11
11
11
Advanced studies on the archaeology and history of hunting
9 783529 014901
Raptor and human – falconry and bird symbolism
ISBN 978-3-529-01490-1
edited by the ZBSA
Karl-Heinz Gersmann ∙ Oliver Grimm (eds.)
Falconry, the art of hunting with birds (Frederick II) and a living human heritage (UNESCO), has left many traces, from western Europe and northern Africa to Japan. The oldest ascertained testimonies belong to the first millennium BCE. The present book, a cooperation between falconers and scientists from different branches, addresses falconry and bird symbolism on diverse continents and in diverse settings.
Karl-Heinz Gersmann ∙ Oliver Grimm (eds.)
Raptor and human –
falconry and bird symbolism throughout the millennia on a global scale
Raptor and human – falconry and bird symbolism throughout the millennia on a global scale
Advanced studies on the archaeology and history of hunting, vol. 1.1–1.4 Edited by the ZBSA/Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology in the Foundation of the Schleswig-Holstein State Museums, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig (northern Germany)
Raptor and human – falconry and bird symbolism throughout the millennia on a global scale
12 Edited by Karl-Heinz Gersmann and Oliver Grimm Publication in considerable extension of the workshop at the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA) in Schleswig, March 5th to 7th 2014
Cover picture: Skilled eagle master. Western Mongolia, August 2011 (photo used with the permission of Dr. Takuya Soma). Top to the left: Seal of the Danish king Knud IV (late 11th century). Redrawing. Taken from M. Andersen/G. Tegnér, Middelalderlige seglstamper i Norden (Roskilde 2002) 129.
Technical Editor: Isabel Sonnenschein Layout, typesetting and image editing: Matthias Bolte, Jürgen Schüller Print and distribution: Wachholtz Verlag – Murmann Publishers, Kiel/Hamburg 2018 https://www.wachholtz-verlag.de/raptor-and-human.html ISSN 2511-8285 ISBN 978-3-529-01490-1 Bibliographical data of the German National Library. The German National Library catalogues this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographical information is available online under . All rights reserved, including the reprint of extracts, in particular for duplication, the insertion into and processing in electronic systems and photomechanical reproduction and translation. © 2018 Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA) in the Foundation of the Schleswig-Holstein State Museums, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig, Germany. The editors have made every effort to identify all copyright owners. In the case that copyrights have not been cleared, please contact the editors or the publishing house.
5.000 km
3.000 km
Base Map: ESRI data set 9.3/ ZBSA Göbel 2014
Base Map:ESRI Data 9.3/ ZBSA Göbel 2014
The global perspective of the book. Orange: Eurasian steppe (presumed area of origin of falconry); green: the areas considered in the book (map Jürgen Schüller, ZBSA).
Falconry definition Falconry is defined as the taking of quarry in its natural state and habitat by means of trained birds of prey (according to the International Association for Falconry and Conservation of Birds of Prey [IAF] = www.iaf.org).
Frederick II of Hohenstaufen with a bird of prey. Miniature in his falconry book (folio 1v, Codex Pal. lat. 1071, Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg/Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana). Redrawing. After: Hunting in Northern Europe (Neumünster 2013) 344 fig. 1. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen was an early global actor in the 13th century, bringing together falconers and falconry traditions from far and wide.
UNESCO recognition of falconry as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (cf. Hewicker in this book, Fig. 6).
Book sponsors
The Archives of Falconry (Boise, Idaho, USA)
Association Nationale des Fauconniers et Autoursiers (France)
(Cultural Division, CIC/Headquarters, and CIC/German Delegation)
Emirates Falconers‘ Club
Deutscher Falkenorden (DFO)
European Foundation for Falconry and Conservation
Hagedoorn Stichting (Netherlands)
The Falconry Heritage Trust (Wales)
Club Mariae Burgundiae (Belgium)
North American Falconers’ Association
International Association for Falconry and Conservation of Birds of Prey
Marshall GPS
Orden Deutscher Falkoniere
Japanese Falconiformes Center
Nederlands Valkeniersverbond Adriaan Mollen
The Peregrine Fund (USA)
List of contents Book 1 Forewords Claus v. Carnap-Bornheim and Berit V. Eriksen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Oliver Grimm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Karl-Heinz Gersmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Oliver Grimm and Karl-Heinz Gersmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Adrian Lombard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Glossaries Bird glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Falconry glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Indices Short index: by author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Short index: by region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Short index: by topic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Summaries Summary English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Summary German . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Summary Russian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Summary Arabic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Chapter 1 – Falconry in action and raptor propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Thomas Richter Practicalities of falconry, as seen by a present-day falconer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Mohammed Ahmed Al Bowardi, Majed Ali Al Mansoori, Margit Gabriele Müller, Omar Fouad Ahmad and Anwar S. Dawood Falconry in the United Arab Emirates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Ata Eyerbediev This world is a hunting field and good deeds are the prey – the ethical side of tradition . . . . . 101 Dennis Keen The hunter, the eagle, and the nation: Qazaq traditional knowledge in the post-Soviet world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Keiya Nakajima Japanese falconry from a practical point of view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 V
Karl-Heinz Gersmann Some thoughts on the emergence and function of falconry from the perspective of a practicing falconer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Ellen Hagen From museum education to practical falconry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 S. Kent Carnie North American falconry, from its earliest centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 S. Kent Carnie The Archives of Falconry: a North American effort to preserve the tangible heritage of falconry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Jevgeni Shergalin Falconry Heritage Trust: history, structure, goals, current and future work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Hans-Albrecht Hewicker The History of the Deutscher Falkenorden (DFO) and its international relations . . . . . . . . . . 187 Tom J. Cade and Robert B. Berry The influence of propagating birds of prey on falconry and raptor conservation . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Chapter 2 – Raptors in zoology and biology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Frank E. Zachos Birds of prey – An introduction to their systematics, taxonomy and conservation . . . . . . . . . 223 Anita Gamauf Palaearctic birds of prey from a biological point of view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Chapter 3 – Human evolution, history of domestication and the special role of the raptor-human relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Kristiina Mannermaa Humans and raptors in northern Europe and northwestern Russia before falconry . . . . . . . . 257 Dirk Heinrich Are trained raptors domesticated birds? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 Walter Bednarek Emotions and motivation of the falconer and his relationship with the trained raptor – attempt at an evolutionary-biological interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Sara Asu Schroer A view from anthropology: falconry, domestication and the ‘animal turn’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 VI
Chapter 4 – Raptors and religion, falconry and philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 David A. Warburton Egypt and earlier: birds of prey in the human mind at the dawn of history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 By Kerry Hull, Mark Wright and Rob Fergus Avian actors: transformation, sorcery, and prognostication in Mesoamerica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 Daniela Boccassini Falconry as royal “delectatio”: understanding the art of taming and its philosophical foundations in 12th- and 13th-century Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Chapter 5 – History of falconry: pioneers of research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389 Leor Jacobi and Mark Epstein Hans J. Epstein: falconry’s extraordinary historian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391 Rolf Roosen “The noblest form of hunting ever” – Kurt Lindner and falconry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
Chapter 6 – History of falconry: basic reflections and new perspectives . . . . . . . . . 421 Ivan Pokrovsky Stable isotope analysis in raptor and falconry studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423 Alexandra Pesch Confiding birds: some short remarks on the “head-with-bird-on-top-of-horse-motif” on Migration Period gold bracteates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431 Vera Henkelmann The evidential value of falconry depictions in book illuminations, on seals, and on tapestries in middle Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449 Wietske Prummel The archaeological-archaeozoological identification of falconry – methodological remarks and some Dutch examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
Book 2 Oliver Grimm From Aachen in the west to Birka in the north and Mikulčice in the east – some archaeological remarks on bird of prey bones and falconry as being evidenced in premodern settlement contexts in parts of Europe (pre and post 1000 AD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
VII
Ulrich Schmölcke Central European burials with birds of prey from the middle of the 1st millennium AD – a short survey of the early history of archaeozoology in connection with these burials . . . . . 495 Stephan Dusil Falconry in the mirror of normative sources from Central Europe (5th–19th centuries) . . . . . . 507 Baudouin Van den Abeele “On the dunghill”: the dead hawk in medieval Latin and French moralising literature . . . . . . 523 Ricardo Manuel Olmos de León The care of hunting birds in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance according to the Spanish falconry treatises (1250–1565) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539 Robert Nedoma New words for new things – an overview on lexical borrowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
Chapter 7 – Eurasian steppe: geographic origins of falconry? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563 Pavel Kosintsev and Aleksei Nekrasov An archaeozoological survey of remains of birds of prey in the West Eurasian steppe . . . . . . 565 Leonid Yablonsky (†) Were the Early Sarmatian nomads falconers in the southern Urals, Russia, during the 4th century BC? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579 Ulambayar Erdenebat A contribution to the history of Mongolian falconry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587 Takuya Soma Ethnoarchaeology of falconry in nomadic and sedentary society across Central Asia – rethinking the “Beyond the Boundary” phenomenon of ancient falconry culture . . . . . . . . . . 603 Ádám Bollók A history of the Hungarians before the end of the ninth century: a reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619 Claus Dobiat, with an archaeological-historical introduction by Oliver Grimm The rider fibula from Xanten in western Germany (around 600 AD) with a reference to the falconry of nomadic horsemen of the Eurasian steppe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637 Hans Nugteren Names for hunting birds and falconry terms in Kipchak (Northwestern Turkic) . . . . . . . . . . . 645 Jürgen Udolph Eastern Slavic names of birds of prey – traces of contact with Turkic peoples? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 663
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Chapter 8 – Roman Empire: the West (Rome) and East (Constantinople) with very little evidence for falconry up to the 5th/6th centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683 Florian Hurka Falconry and similar forms of hunting according to ancient Greco-Roman sources . . . . . . . . 685 Andreas Külzer Some notes on falconry in Byzantium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699
Chapter 9 – Case study: raptor catching, raptor trade and falconry in northern Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709 Oliver Grimm and Frans-Arne Stylegar A short introduction to Norway, its Viking Age (800–1000/1050) and the question of the origin of falconry in the country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711 Terje Gansum The royal Viking Age ship grave from Gokstad in Vestfold, eastern Norway, and its link to falconry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717 Ragnar Orten Lie Falconry, falcon-catching and the role of birds of prey in trade and as alliance gifts in Norway (800–1800 AD) with an emphasis on Norwegian and later foreign participants in falcon-catching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727 Inge Særheim Place names from south-western Norway with reference to the catching of falcons . . . . . . . . . 787 Lydia Carstens Land of the hawk: Old Norse literary sources about the knowledge and practice of falconry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 799 Maria Vretemark Birds of prey as evidence for falconry in Swedish burials and settlements (550–1500 AD) . . . 827 Sigmund Oehrl An overview of falconry in Northern Germanic and insular iconography, 6th /7th centuries AD to c. 1100 AD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 841 Åsa Ahrland Imagery of birds of prey and falconry in the High and Late Middle Ages (1150–1500) in the Nordic countries – reflections of actual hunting practices or symbols of power? . . . . . 861 Joonas Ahola, Frog and Ville Laakso The roles and perceptions of raptors in Iron Age and medieval Finno-Karelian cultures through c. AD 1500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 887
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Matti Leiviskä The role of birds of prey in Finnish place and personal names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 935 Anne Birgitte Gotfredsen Traces of falconry in Denmark from the 7th to the 17th centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 947
Book 3 Dirk Heinrich, with an appendix by Wolf-Rüdiger Teegen Falconry in the Viking Age trading centre of Haithabu and its successor, the medieval town of Schleswig? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 973 Natascha Mehler, Hans Christian Küchelmann and Bart Holterman The export of gyrfalcons from Iceland during the 16th century: a boundless business in a proto-globalized world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995 Brian Smith and John H. Ballantyne The collection of falcons and ‘hawk hens’ in Shetland and Orkney, 1472–1840 . . . . . . . . . . . . 1021 Kristopher Poole Zooarchaeological evidence for falconry in England, up to AD 1500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1027 David Horobin The pen and the peregrine: literary influences on the development of British falconry (8th century to the present) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1055 Eric Lacey The charter evidence for falconry and falcon-catching in England and Wales, c. 600–c. 1100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1089 Richard Almond Hunting from the fist: looking at hawking and falconry in late medieval England (1000–1500) through art history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1117 Kester Freriks Bird trapping and falconry in Valkenswaard, the Netherlands, from the 17th to the 20th centuries – about wild birds as jewels on the falconer’s hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1149 Ignaz Matthey The symbolism of birds of prey and falconry in the visual arts of the Netherlands, 1400–1800 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1171
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Chapter 10 – Raptors and falconry in premodern Europe: overall studies . . . . . . . . 1193
José Manuel Fradejas Rueda Falconry on the Iberian Peninsula – its history and literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1195 Algirdas Girininkas and Linas Daugnora Premodern hunting with birds of prey in the historical Lithuanian lands: entertainment, politics or economic necessity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1215 Liina Maldre, Teresa Tomek and Jüri Peets Birds of prey from Vendel Age ship burials of Salme (c. 750 AD) and in Estonian archaeological material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1229 Andrei V. Zinoviev Early falconry in Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1251 Baudouin Van den Abeele Medieval Latin and vernacular treatises on falconry (11th–16th c.): tradition, contents, and historical interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1271
Chapter 11 – Raptors and falconry in premodern Europe: specific studies . . . . . . . 1291 Babette Ludowici Chamber grave 41 from the Bockshornschanze near Quedlinburg (central Germany): evidence of the practice of falconry by women from the middle of the 1st century? . . . . . . . . 1293 Ralf Bleile Falconry among the Slavs of the Elbe? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1303 Wolf-Rüdiger Teegen The skeletons of a peregrine and a sparrowhawk and the spatial distribution of birds of prey in the Slavonic fortification of Starigard/Oldenburg (Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany, 7th–13th centuries) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1371 Zbigniew M. Bochenski, Teresa Tomek, Krzysztof Wertz and Michał Wojenka Falconry in Poland from a zooarchaeological perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1399 Virgílio Lopes Hunting scene with hawk from Mértola in Portugal (6th /7th centuries AD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1411 Cliff A. Jost A depiction of a falconer on a disc brooch of the 7th century from the cemetery of Münstermaifeld, District of Mayen-Koblenz, south-western Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1421 Katharina Chrubasik The tomb of the Polish King Władysław II Jagiełło (1386–1434) and its possible connection with falconry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1427 XI
Andreas Dobler The Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel and falconry in the 18th century. Depictions of a hunt with falcons in the Schloss Fasanerie museum near Fulda, Hesse (Germany) . . . . . . . . 1439
Book 4 Martina Giese The “De arte venandi cum avibus” of Emperor Frederick II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1459 Martina Giese Evidence of falconry on the European continent and in England, with an emphasis on the 5th to 9th centuries: historiography, hagiography, and letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1471 Agnieszka Samsonowicz Falconry in the history of hunting in the Poland of the Piasts and the Jagiellons (10th–16th centuries) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1491 Sabine Obermaier Falconry in the medieval German Tristan romances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1507 Baudouin Van den Abeele Falconry in Old French literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1519 Ingrid A. R. De Smet Princess of the North: perceptions of the gyrfalcon in 16th-century western Europe . . . . . . . 1543 Péter Kasza Falconry literature in Hungary in an international perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1571 Robert Nedoma Germanic personal names before AD 1000 and their elements referring to birds of prey. With an emphasis upon the runic inscription in the eastern Swedish Vallentuna-Rickeby burial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1583 Jürgen Udolph Falconry and bird catching in Germanic and Slavonic place, field and family names . . . . . . . 1603
Chapter 12 – Raptors and falconry in premodern times in areas outside Europe . 1629 Karin Reiter Falconry in the Ancient Orient? I. A contribution to the history of falconry . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1631 Karin Reiter Falconry in the Ancient Orient? II. The Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1643
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Karin Reiter Falconry in Ugarit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1659 Susanne Görke and Ekin Kozal Birds of prey in pre-Hittite and Hittite Anatolia (c. 1970–1180 BCE): textual evidence and image representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1667 Paul A. Yule Archaeology of the Arabian Peninsula in the late pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods (1st millennium CE): background sketch for early falconry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1691 Anna Akasoy Falconry in Arabic literature: from its beginnings to the mid- 9th century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1769 Touraj Daryaee and Soodabeh Malekzadeh Falcons and falconry in pre-modern Persia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1793 Ulrich Schapka The Persian names of birds of prey and trained raptors in their historical development . . . . 1809 Leor Jacobi ‘This Horse is a Bird Specialist’: Falconry intrudes upon the Palestinian Mishnah in Sasanian Babylonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1831 Leslie Wallace The early history of falconry in China (2nd to 5th centuries AD) and the question of its origins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1847 Fangyi Cheng From entertainment to political life – royal falconry in China between the 6th and 14th centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1865 Fangyi Cheng and Leopold Eisenlohr Ancient Chinese falconry terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1883 Ho-tae Jeon Falconry in ancient Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1891 Takayo Kaku Ancient Japanese falconry from an archaeological point of view with a focus on the early period (5th to 7th centuries AD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1919 Yasuko Nihonmatsu Japanese books on falconry from the 13th to the 17th centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1937 José Manuel Fradejas Rueda Falconry in America – A pre-Hispanic sport? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1947
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Central European burials with birds of prey from the middle of the 1st millennium AD – a short survey of the early history of archaeozoology in connection with these burials By Ulrich Schmölcke
Keywords: History of archaeozoology, falconry, grave goods, birds of prey, Iron Age Abstract: In contrast to contemporary Scandinavia with its many burials of men that include raptors, only very few human graves with bones of bird of prey are known from the Central European 1st millennium AD. This observation, plus the fact that most of the species identification in Central Europe referring to this go back to the 19th century, raise the question of whether even these few records are reliable. To understand the background of the determinations, the paper gives a short history of the discipline of archaeozoology with a species focus on the identification of bird remains. This part is followed by a presentation and discussion of all seven German and Swiss burials with bones, originally identified as being from a bird of prey. The finds from the sites of Quedlinburg-Boxhornschanze, Alach, and Eschwege, which all date to 550– 640 AD and which all yielded female goshawks are highly reliable, which makes the link with falconry even more probable since, in falconry, owing to gender dimorphism, the larger females were used. In contrast, the identification of the raptor records from Selzen and Hedehusum are questionable, and the report from Staufen is scientifically not acceptable. The eagle claw at a grave in Elsau seems not to be connected with falconry since there was no pre-modern falconry with eagles in Europe as far as we know. The results of this study are in line with the present state of knowledge about the early history and distribution of falconry in Central Europe during the Migration Period and shortly after. Later on, traces of this kind of hunting disappeared from burials with the growing influence of Christianity. Another result of the study is that the identification of animal bones, even to species levels, in old publications back to the 19th century are generally not to be challenged.
Introduction In the middle of the 1st millennium AD there is evidence for the practise of falconry in large parts of Europe. Partly this evidence comes from written sources such as laws or from depictions; partly it comes from raptor remains found during archaeological excavations of settlements. Another source are bones from birds of prey from human graves, because before people converted to Christianity in large parts of Europe grave goods were generally common, including animals. The animal species most frequently deposited as grave goods were horses and dogs, however birds of prey are also known. For the late 1st millennium AD of Sweden, almost 40 wealthy graves with at least one cremated bird of prey and many remains of different animal species were excavated (Vretemark in 495
this book). Obviously, the practice of giving birds of prey to the deceased started in Sweden during the second half of the 6th century and became a tradition for almost 500 years up to the Christianization of large parts of Scandinavia at the end of the 1st millennium AD. From contemporary Central Europe, however, only very few graves – in fact six – with birds of prey and a possible connection to falconry are known, among several that were excavated in the 19th or early 20th centuries (Tab. 1; Fig. 1). Thus, questions have to be raised, not only regarding the historical and archaeological background or cultural historical aspects, but also as to the reliability of these few records. The contrast between the find situations in mid-east Sweden and Central Europe is so striking, that possibly tamed birds of prey played little or no role as grave furnishings in Central Europe at all. This question can only be clarified by evaluating the publications about those finds. Tab. 1. List of the only known burials from the 1st millennium AD with – potentially – birds of prey as gifts. Sorted by the reliability of bird identification. For detailed information about the first reference of the bird remains in scientific literature see text. sex of the date of the sex of the buried archaeological conbird burial (AD) human text of the grave
Quedlinburg
excavation date or identified first reference of the species bird remains 1913/14; 1966 hawk
f
550–610
woman
nobility
Alach
1990
hawk
f
560–640
man
nobility
Eschwege
1985
hawk
f
560–640
woman
nobility
Selzen
1848; 1880-1889
sparrow hawk
?
500–750
woman
nobility
Staufen
1892
falcon?
?
c. 700
man
nobility
Hedehusum
1890
falcon?
?
780–850
man
nobility?
Elsau
2003
sea eagle
?
800–900
woman
nobility
site
In this respect, it is the aim of this paper to make a comparative survey of these finds from an archaeozoological point of view, with a special focus on three questions: First, as to the identification of the excavated bones as those of raptors in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it should be asked, how reliable are the old zoological determinations of these bones? To answer this question, an outline of the beginnings of archaeozoological research in Central Europe will be given with a special focus on bird remains. Such a summary seems to be necessary to evaluate the published identifications, in particular because in some cases the bones in question are lost.1 In this context, all morphological information available about the bones of birds of prey in the six graves will be summarised and reviewed. A second question relates to the reliability and significance of old archaeological reports about the find circumstances. This question will be touched upon only briefly, because it has been already considered by archaeological experts publishing these same burials (see below). Finally, an interpretation of the mentioned Central European finds should be given both from a zoological and from a historical point of view. What can we learn from the result of this study about the earliest occurrence of falconry in Central Europe?
1 Until present, there are no comprehensive descriptions of the history of the discipline. Short summaries or studies with regional focus are published e.g. by Becker /Benecke (2001) for Germany and by several authors in a number of papers in the 11th issue of Archaeofauna (International Journal of Archaeozoology) from 2004.
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NORTH S E A
B ALTIC SEA
Hedehusum
Frisians Saxons Quedlinburg
Thuringians
Francs
EschwegeNiederhone
Alach
Selzen
Alamanni Staufen
Elsau
N Base map: Gfk GeoMarketing 2008
500 km
Fig. 1. Burials mentioned in the text and contemporary Germanic tribes in parts of central Europe (map J. Schüller, ZBSA).
The beginnings of archaeo-ornithological research in Central Europe In the same decades during the middle of the 19th century when in Central Europe the interest in scientific research of the very early history of humans began, and significant sites were excavated by the first archaeologists, the history of archaeozoology or zooarchaeology also started. It continued the discipline of Comparative Anatomy, which took a central role in zoological sciences in the early 19th century and which is closely connected to the French Georges Cuvier (1769–1832; for details and further literature see Corona-M. 2010). Cuvier was the first who considered two basic tenets: an identification of a single bone allows conclusions to be drawn for the complete animal, sometimes even at species level, and the wildlife of the past looked very different to the one of today (Cuvier 1812a; 1812b). Alongside others interested in the former relationships between animals and humans, he found similarities between his reconstructions of former species and the work of antiquarians, who were also excavating and analysing remains from the past (Cuvier 1812a), and he published a highly innovative study from a methodological point of view about ancient Egyptian ibis mummies (Cuvier 1804). Large assemblages of animal bones were found whenever archaeologists unearthed former human settlements or graves in regions with the possibility of the preservation of organic material. Not in every case, but sometimes, the archaeologists asked zoologists or veterinarians to identify the bones 497
and to give some interpretations. In Central Europe, the hour of birth of the analyses of animal remains from archaeological sites is closely related to the work of two naturalists, the Danish Japetus Steenstrup (1813–1897) and the Swiss Ludwig Rütimeyer (1825–1895). Steenstrup’s name is linked with the large and famous Danish Mesolithic shell middens that accumulated between 5000 and 4000 BC (he called them Køkkenmøddinger, which became an established term), which were hills consisting mainly of mollusc shells. When Steenstrup saw these features in the 1830s for the first time, he was very interested in dating them and in understanding the nature of the large amounts of fish, bird and mammal remains in the middens. To identify the animal remains he used a reference collection of modern bones. He published the first results in 1851, in a brilliant interdisciplinary volume together with the archaeologists Jens J. A. Worsaae (1821–1885) and the geologist Johann G. Forchhammer (1794–1865) (Forchhammer et al. 1851). 2 In the following decades, Steenstrup studied in more detail the representation of the different skeletal parts of birds in the middens, and he could demonstrate that the Stone Age people carried only such parts of the birds to their settlements that are rich in meat or useful for tool manufacture. Furthermore, Steenstrup pointed out that the distribution of the bird species gives evidence for fowling, mainly during winter (Steenstrup 1886). These innovative approaches – in modern terms: palaeoeconomical and palaeoecological interpretations – were widely reflected in the scientific community, e.g. by Charles Lyell (1883) in his wellknown book “Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man”, which greatly influenced scientists of several disciplines in the years after its publication. Lyell was the first scientist who combined the brand new theories of very different disciplines, in particular about the geological history of earth, the existence of former ice ages, Darwin’s arguments concerning the evolution of species and data from archaeological excavations. In the mentioned volume, Lyell summed up and discussed the results of the identification of the animal remains by Japetus Steenstrup. In the same year, 1883, in Switzerland the professor of zoology Theophil Rudolf Studer (1845–1911) published the comprehensive study “Die Thierwelt in den Pfahlbauten des Bielersee’s” (English: “The animals in the pile dwellings at Lake Bieler”). Studer was not interested in the avifauna, but in the succession of domestic animals from the Stone Age onwards. However, he gave an interesting indication, writing that “besides rich findings and artefacts, the animal bones were collected carefully and came to the Museum for Natural History in Bern with an exact description of the find circumstances” (original text: “Neben den reichen Funden und Artefakten wurden auch die Thierknochen mit Sorgfalt gesammelt und kamen mit genauer Fundplatzangabe an das Berner Museum für Naturgeschichte” (Studer 1883, 1). Accordingly, in Switzerland, animal remains were already recognised as an important archaeological find group in the early 1880s. This fact is mainly thanks to the zoologist Ludwig Rütimeyer who had already established a new kind of scientific discipline about 30 years ago: Since 1860, Rütimeyer had published several papers and books about the analysis of thousands of Stone Age and Bronze Age bone remains (e.g. Rütimeyer 1860; 1861), and these works are considered today as the first archaeozoological studies. To identify the bones he built up and curated a comprehensive collection of modern animal remains as a reference for the archaeological finds (Wittmann 2013, 48f.). Based on these bones and skeletons he was able to identify in the archaeological assemblages about twenty different species of birds, including several birds of prey, “[o]bschon die Bestimmung von Bruchstücken von Vogel[…]knochen weit misslicher ist, als jene von Säugethieren” (1861, 113; translation: even if the identification of fragmented bird bones is far more difficult than in the case of mammals). 2 Under the direct influence of Steenstrup’s research, the German anatomist Friedrich Matthias Claudius published a very early and surprisingly detailed study about animal bones from a Central European Late Neolithic site (Claudius 1861). Today, this study is almost forgotten and not listed in relevant literature about the research history of this discipline (e.g. Corona-M. 2010).
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Contemporaneous scientists admired Rütimeyer for the perspicacity of his conclusions und his exceeding originality (Burckhardt 1897). Referring to the works of both Steenstrup and Rütimeyer, Lord Avebury used in 1865 the name “zoologico-archaeologists” for the first time (Avebury 1865, 169). However, between the last decades of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th centuries, studies about the animal bones unearthed in the course of archaeological excavations remains relatively rare in Central Europe and only few of them included comments about the identified bird bones (e.g. Müller 1888). Two of the first bird bone specialists were the Danish brothers Oluf (1855–1889) and Adolf Herluf Winge (1857–1923; see Winge 1903; 1904).3 To sum up, in the second half of the 19th century in Central Europe the first experts in (bird) bone determination became known and their ground-breaking and often very accurate work was already based on comparative collections of modern specimens. Coming back to the actual topic of this paper, it has to be proven in each single case if the identification of the remains of birds of prey in human graves unearthed in the 19th century seems to be reliable.
The
archaeological and zoological reports and the find circumstances of the grave finds
with remains of birds of prey
Quedlinburg-Boxhornschanze (Harz, Saxony Anhalt) The reported remains of a bird of prey from Quedlinburg-Boxhornschanze derive from grave no. 41 of this cemetery, which dates to between 550–610 AD (Fig. 2a–b). Grave 41 was placed apart from the main cemetery field and contains the remains of two dogs and a human. The feature was already destroyed when excavated in 1913 (Schulz 1925), but it is still quite remarkable (Schmidt 1966; Ludowici 2009 and in this book): The grave was larger than all the others (3 m in length,
Fig. 2a. Female goshawk from the woman’s burial (chamber grave 41) in QuedlinburgBoxhornschanze (Saxony Anhalt), AD 550–610. Proximal part of humerus, fragments of both mandibles, tarsometatarsal and vertebra. No scale (photo by Dr. Hans-Jürgen Döhle, Halle/Saale).
3 In Britain, the situation was different. At the latest from the 1890s, archaeozoological studies were well established there, and one of them dealt with bird remains exclusively (A ndrews 1899).
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breadth and depth), the buried person was a young female, and there were several valuable grave goods (such as a glass vessel of Frankish production), which date the chamber to the time span 550–610 AD. In the grave, the remains of two dogs and bones from a raptor (including the skull) were also found. The bird was firstly identified as a goshawk by Dr. Otto-Friedrich Gandert, an archaeologist from Berlin (Schmidt 1966, fn. 33a, p. 191; photo of the skull at p. 184) and a few years later verified by Dr. Hanns-Hermann Fig. 2b. Female goshawk from the woman’s burial (chamber grave 41) in Quedlinburg-Boxhornschanze. Skull. No scale (after Schmidt 1966, Müller. He was in those days one of Fig. 13c). the most well-known and most respectable archaeozoologists in Central Europe (Müller 1980) and author of a very learned short article regarding European falconry history (Müller 1993). Müller took and provided measurements from the skull and reasoned that the remains derive from a female goshawk.4 Consequently, this grave find is surely indisputable. The skeleton from Quedlinburg seems to be a unique find in European grave contexts since usually only bones of birds of prey have been preserved in burials. Alach (City of Erfurt, Thuringia) The Alach cemetery is a burial site with 21 graves; based on the archaeological finds the occupation time was between 560 and 640 AD. From the grave 1/81, unearthed during an excavation campaign in 1981, derive not only eggs, but also a variety of other animal remains: pig, chicken, and fish. In the south eastern corner of the chamber, on and next to vessels, the bones (their number is not published) of a female goshawk have been found (Timpel 1990, 94). The identification of the animal bones, including the bird of prey, was done by Dr. Hans-Joachim Barthel, a well-informed excavator of the Thuringian State Agency for Cultural Heritage during the second half of the 20th century. It is very plausible that his identification is correct, although he gave no further information about this record. Grave 1/81 was located in the centre of a circle of five horse burials. The burial contained a 40–50 year-old man, who was furnished with high quality armament, e.g. several swords. Also, other objects of bronze and iron (belt buckle, scale, horse harness, etc.) show that he was a member of high society (Timpel 1990, 104–108). Eschwege-Niederhone (Werra-Meissner-Kreis, Hesse) The Eschwege site is a burial ground with 28 graves from the Carolingian period (9th c.), but in the present context only an older feature is of interest. In the northwestern area of the burial ground there is a grave chamber of extraordinary dimensions and older than all the other graves around that have been excavated (grave no. 17). This wooden grave chamber, archaeologically dated to c. 560–640 AD (Merovingian period), was built for a 50–60 year-old, 1.8 m tall man, who was buried wearing gold
4 Unfortunately, the most relevant bones from the skeleton including the skull can no longer be found (the author would like to thank Dr. Hans-Jörg Döhle, Halle, for his efforts and photographing the remaining bones).
500
brocade clothes. The grave goods are very representative and attest his high status, e.g. the weaponry, a glass cup, a drinking-horn and a horse harness (Sippel 1987). Besides the remains of pig, sheep, deer, moose and goose a partly preserved skeleton of a bird of prey has been found, which was identified as a female goshawk by Dr. Reinhard Ziegler, employed in those days at the well-respected Institut für Paläoanatomie, Domestikationsforschung und Geschichte der Tiermedizin at Munich University and later on curator and head of a department at the Natural History Museum in Stuttgart. Although no further details about the find were published, the identification is trustworthy, in particular because Professor Joachim Boessneck, one of the famous German archaeozoologists of the second half of the 20 th century and founder of that institution, routinely verified the determinations of his co-workers.5 Selzen (Landkreis Main-Bingen, Rhineland-Palatine) The exact date is not known, but shortly before 1845 a local teacher excavated six old graves near Selzen. His observations and the salvaged finds were published after the prehistorian Ludwig Lindenschmit had continued the excavation of the grave field (Lindenschmit/Lindenschmit 1848). One of the graves the teacher had excavated (grave no. 2; cf. Zeller 1992, 195) was a female burial with rich grave goods such as amber jewelry and silver bracelets; these findings point to a burial of the Merovingian period (late 5th century to c. 750 AD; Ludowici in this book). As the teacher told Lindenschmit, the grave also included a skeleton of a bird as an offering, but he had not paid particular attention to this find (Lindenschmit/Lindenschmit 1848). Somewhat surprisingly, thirty years later Lindenschmit wrote that these bird bones were “certainly” (original: “mit großer Sicherheit”, Lindenschmit 1880, 132) the remains of a sparrow-hawk. However, he gave no further details, neither about the number of the bones (he called them “Gerippe”, i.e. carcass) nor who had identified the species. Since it is even unclear if he himself ever saw the bones, let alone a zoologist, it is hard to trust this information. Today, the location of the bones is unknown (Zeller 1992, 195). The graves Lindenschmit published were part of a larger Merovingian burial ground; however, no further evidence for falconry has been found (Zeller 2005). Staufen (Ldkr. Dillingen, Baden-Württemberg) In 1892, a single, rich masonry chamber grave with roof slates was discovered beneath the Romanesque church of Staufen. Obviously the man in the grave was buried under the floor of an older stage of the church, so very probably he was a Christian. Noteworthy is his silver belt buckle with a St Andrew’s cross, dating the burial to the late 7th century or around 700 and underlining his upper social status (Stein 1967, 138f.; Böhme 1993, 506). The workers who unearthed the old grave reported later that there were bones of a pigeon or of a falcon across the right hand of the buried man (Stein 1967, 249f.). Apparently they did not keep the bones, in any case they are lost and were never analysed zoologically. Hedehusum (Gemeinde Utersum/Föhr, Schleswig-Holstein) In 1890, in a funeral urn dated to the period from the late 7th to the mid 9th century and excavated in burial mound no. 7 at Hedehusum, some grave goods uncommon for this region and time were found: amongst the remains of a man, a broken piece of a fine Frankish green glass vessel, indicating long-distance connections of the deceased or trade, a knife, burned bones plus the tooth of a dog as well as bones of a bird were found (Splieth 1892, 31; La Baume 1952/53; Eisenschmidt 2004). The excavator, Dr. Wilhelm Splieth, surrendered the bird remains to his colleague from Kiel University,
5 Many thanks for this background information to Dr. Reinhard Ziegler, Stuttgart.
501
the zoologist Professor Walther Flemming, to this day a well-known cell biologist (Hardy/Zacharias 2008). Flemming identified the remains as probably (“wahrscheinlich”, Splieth 1892, 28) from a falcon. Unfortunately, the bones were meanwhile lost, and the significance of their identification was recently estimated differently (cf. Dobiat 2013, 352 vs. Prummel 2013, fn. 2). However, Flemming was a very accurate scientist – in fact he was the first to observe and to describe systematically the chromosomal details of a cell division – and in the early 1890s he was an eminently respectable professor in Kiel with access to the zoological collections. Consequently, his determination of a bird of prey bone should be taken seriously, be it a falcon or another bird of prey species. Elsau (Bezirk Winterthur, Switzerland) In 2003, in the church of Elsau, a female burial from the 9th century was excavated, which yields unique features. Obviously, some years after the funeral, the woman’s burial was reopened and filled with rocks and both the paw of a fox and the claw of a white-tailed eagle were placed on top of this rock layer (Wild/Langenegger 2006; Wild 2010). The species identification made by the experienced archaeozoologist Dr. Heidemarie Hüster-Plogmann from Basel University is beyond suspicion (see Wild/Langenegger 2006, fn. 60 and fig. 20). Due to isotope analyses, it could be concluded that the woman was very mobile in the pre-Alpine region and this mobility, alongside the position of the grave in a church, supports the interpretation of the woman as a member of the nobility (Tütken et al. 2008). Since the present study specifies all Central European burials with remains of birds of prey, the Elsau grave has to be included. There is, however, no evidence for any link to falconry since, as far as we know, eagles were not used for falconry in premodern Europe; R ichter in this book). The reasons for the deposition of the eagle claw have been discussed intensively, without arrival at any final conclusions, but certainly there is no link to hunting or hawking (Wild 2010).
Conclusions The present review has demonstrated that several records of falcons or goshawks in Central European graves from the 1st millennium AD are convincing from an archaeozoological point of view, even if some of the excavations and identifications were made a long time ago. High reliability applies to the finds from Quedlinburg, Alach, and Eschwege, not least because female goshawks were recorded there. The identifications of the mentioned records from Selzen and Hedehusum are questionable, whereas only the report from Staufen is scientifically not acceptable (the eagle claw at the Elsau grave seems not to be connected to falconry). From a cultural historic view, these results are in line with the present state of knowledge of the distribution of falconry in Central Europe during Late Antiquity, Migration Period and Early Medieval times, starting roughly from the middle of the 1st millennium AD. Analyses of historical, archaeological and archaeozoological sources have shown that falconry became relatively widespread in Central Europe in the middle of the 1st millennium AD. In this area, falconry is first traceable in Germanic Laws that date to about 500 AD (Giese 2013; Dusil in this book) and, a little later, in Scandinavian pagan graves (Vretemark 2013). From the 7th century onward, falconry was relatively regular in the whole area in question (Dobiat 2013). Significantly, all three most reliable records presented in this study originate from the time between 550 and 640 AD (Tab. 1). Only the cremation burial with a potential co-cremation of a falcon in Hedehusum is younger and dates to approximately 800 AD; furthermore it originates from an area with very little mention of falconry in law codes (Prummel 2013, 361). The fact that the number of records of this very special hunting technique in Central European graves is so extremely limited after 700 AD is due to the impact of Christianisation. Since – normally – Christians were not buried with grave goods, the number of animal bones in graves decreased in 502
general with the progress of the Christian missionaries. As known from written sources as well as from archaeological finds, wide parts of Central Europe were Christianised during the 8th and 9th centuries with the expansion of the Frankish Empire (Müller-Wille 2003; cf. Bierbrauer 2003 for the Alpine region). Aside from the cultural historical aspects concerning falconry, this present small study shows that identifications of animal bones, even to species level, in old publications dating back to the 19th century are generally not to be challenged. The quality of the determinations was always dependent on the quality of the reference collections, and collecting objects to understand and present diversity, taxonomy and relationships within the fauna was one of the main tasks of the zoological museums from at least 1850 (cf. K retschmann 2006, esp. 76–86). Nevertheless, before including such records in our own analyses or reviews it is always necessary to go back to the original papers of the archaeologist or zoologist, and to try to evaluate the reliability of their data. Just taking reported information from secondary literature could transmit the wrong information from one generation to the next.
Acknowledgement I would like to thank my colleague Oliver Grimm for detailed and fruitful discussions about the topic and the present paper.
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Dr. Ulrich Schmölcke Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA) Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen Schloss Gottorf Schloss Gottorf, 24837 Schleswig Germany
[email protected]
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