People and Birds in the Southern Levant: Ecological, Economic and Symbolic Relationships during the Early Neolithic

纵观历史，世界各地的人们都与鸟类有着特殊的关系。鸟类，连同它们的巢和蛋，一直是食物的来源；它们的羽毛、飞行和歌声激发了艺术家、作家和音乐家的灵感；鸟类激发了科学家对生态学和进化的基本认识；政治家、宗教领袖和军阀都把鸟作为他们的象征，无论是恐吓还是安抚。这种复杂的人鸟关系网络在黎凡特南部尤其引人注目，该地区现在主要由以色列、巴勒斯坦和约旦覆盖，从该地区艺术和文学中对鸟类的描绘就可以看出这一点。例如，在《旧约》中，鹰、鸽子、鹳、乌鸦和其他鸟类作为信使、预兆、隐喻和食物来源出现。鸟类在黎凡特文化中的普遍存在也许并不奇怪，因为该地区鸟类生活的丰富和多样性，尽管栖息地的丧失和环境的变化正日益威胁着这一点。一个合理的主张是，在黎凡特的史前文化中也发现了人类与鸟类之间各种各样的生态、经济、社会和象征关系，这些关系为历史时期和当今的文化提供了基础。这个项目将通过重建黎凡特最早的定居社会，即新石器时代早期（约12,000-10,000年前）的人鸟关系来探索这一概念。这些是前陶器新石器时代A文化的社区。虽然主要以狩猎和采集为生，但这些社区越来越多地种植野生植物和管理野生山羊群，这些活动最终导致了驯化和农业经济。因此，这些新石器时代早期的社区不仅在黎凡特，而且在整个世界史前史中都扮演着特别重要的角色。在利用来自众多考古遗址的数据的同时，该项目将重点关注最近在WF16和El-Hemmeh定居点发掘的鸟类骨骼。这是该地区新石器时代遗址中发现的最大的鸟类骨骼。除了家庭活动外，WF16和El Hemmeh都有复杂的社会和象征性活动的证据；这些鸟骨来自精心记录的环境，包括墓葬、垃圾堆、壁炉和占领废墟。这些鸟骨将被归类，并根据英国特林自然历史博物馆的鸟类骨骼对比收藏进行物种鉴定。这也将确定哪些身体部位存在，以及尸体是如何处理的，以此推断这些鸟是被用作食物、展示、仪式还是作为活鸟在现场饲养。对数据的解释将利用四个额外的信息来源：背景信息，例如鸟骨是来自垃圾堆还是墓葬；此前发表的来自该地区其他新石器时代遗址的鸟骨数据；鸟类生态学，这样我们就可以知道鸟类的外观和习性，比如它们是否迁徙或有令人印象深刻的羽毛；以及该地区人鸟关系的历史和人种学证据。为了综合和解释这一系列的信息，该项目将汇集一个由新石器时代考古学家、考古动物学家、文化历史学家和鸟类学家组成的跨学科团队。研究人员将分别在英国、德国和约旦工作，大约需要两年时间才能完成。项目团队将与致力于鸟类保护的非政府组织约旦鸟类观察组织密切合作，该组织将利用研究成果来支持其工作，以提高人们对鸟类对环境和社会福祉重要性的认识。

People throughout the world and throughout history have had special relationships with birds. Birds, together with their nests and eggs, have been sources of food; their plumage, flight and song have inspired artists, writers and musicians; scientists have been motivated by birds to gain fundamental insights about ecology and evolution; politicians, religious leaders and warlords have adopted birds as their symbols, whether to intimidate or reassure. This complex web of people-bird relationships is especially striking in the southern Levant, the area now primarily covered by Israel, Palestine and Jordan, as evident from the representation of birds within the region's art and literature. Within the Old Testament, for instance, eagles, doves, storks, ravens and other birds appear as messengers, omens, metaphors, and as sources of food. The pervasiveness of birds in Levantine culture is perhaps not surprising because of the abundance and diversity of bird life within this region, although this is increasingly threatened by the loss of habitats and environmental change. It is a reasonable proposition that varying arrays of ecological, economic, social and symbolic relationships between people and birds were also found in prehistoric cultures within the Levant, and that these provided the foundations of those in the historical periods and the present day. This project will explore this notion by seeking to reconstruct people-bird relationships within the earliest sedentary societies of the Levant, those of the early Neolithic, c. 12,000-10,000 years ago. These were communities of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A culture. Although primarily living by hunting and gathering, these communities were increasingly cultivating wild plants and managing herds of wild goats, activities that ultimately led to domestication and farming economies. As such, these early Neolithic communities have a particularly important role to play in not only Levantine but world prehistory in general. While drawing on data from numerous archaeological sites, the project will focus on the bird bones acquired from recent excavations at the settlements of WF16 and El-Hemmeh. These are the largest collections of bird bones ever recovered from Neolithic sites in the region. Both WF16 and El Hemmeh have evidence for complex social and symbolic activities in addition to those of a domestic nature; the bird bones come from meticulously documented contexts including burials, rubbish pits, hearths and occupation debris. The bird bones will be catalogued and identified to species using the comparative collection of bird bones at the Natural History Museum located at Tring, UK. This will also identify which body parts are present and how the carcasses had been treated as a means to infer whether the birds had been used for food, for display, within ritual or even kept as live birds at the site. Interpretations of the data will draw on four additional sources of information: contextual information, such as whether the bird bones came from rubbish pits or burials; previously published bird-bone data from other Neolithic sites in the region; avian ecology, so we will know about the appearance and habits of the birds identified, such as whether they were migratory or had impressive plumage; and historical and ethnographic evidence for people-bird relationships within the region. To synthesis and interpret this range of information the project will bring together an inter-disciplinary team composed of Neolithic archaeologists, an archaeo-zoologist, a cultural historian and an ornithologist. It will take approximately two years to complete, with researchers based in the UK, Germany and Jordan. The project team will work closely with JordanBirdWatch, an NGO committed to bird conservation, which will draw on the research outcomes to support its work in raising awareness about the importance of birds to the well-being of environments and society.