Flying through history: human-raptor relationships in Britain

Raptors are icons of the British landscape. For millennia they have held a variety of relationships with humans; from captive companions used in falconry, as symbols of status and power, to scavengers of waste and excarnated bodies. Yet despite their cultural symbolic and environmental importance, there is a distinct lack of comprehensive scholarship examining raptors as a collective, particularly from a bioarchaeological perspective. As both pets and pests' raptors present a fantastic opportunity to explore how human-bird relationships are influenced by both biological and cultural factors. This research will provide a systematic study of birds of prey in Britain from the Neolithic to present with particular focus on little investigated species and marginal periods to establish a broad chronological baseline. The results will have implications not only for understanding past human attitudes to the natural world, but to contextualise modern conservation efforts. Working alongside and under the supervision of leading researchers in the field of zooarchaeology and human-animal relationships this project aims to:
- Investigate how human-raptor relationships evolved from the prehistoric to Early Modern period?
- Explore the spatial distribution of osteological remains, falconry equipment and iconographical representations to illuminate the abundance and scope of human-raptor relationships.
- Discuss raptor management in the present and the importance of understanding the life-histories of raptors to inform on rewilding debates, mitigating strategies of extinction and captive breeding legislation.

To contextualise these aims, original research will be conducted using four complementary methods over three years:
1. Zooarchaeology:
This dissertation will be the first to comprehensively record raptor osteological remains as the primary evidence for investigating changing raptor-human relationships. Traditional zooarchaeological analysis, including the recording of metrics, pathologies and traumas will be recorded for all available raptor remains, as well as collated from pre-existing datasets in both published and grey literature. Specialist techniques including geometric morphometrics (GMM) and stable isotopic analysis will also be considered.

2. Spatial Analysis:
Distribution maps of osteological remains will be created to analyse raptor species distribution through time and settlement types and will be compared to ecological models and place name studies. While iconographic depictions and material culture will be analysed to examine the distribution of falconry paraphernalia (specifically hawking rings and vervels) which when analysed in conjunction with historical, linguistic and faunal data, will create a comprehensive spatial timeline of raptors and falconry in Britain.

3. Historical Analysis:
Zooarchaeological, biomolecular and iconographical data will be integrated with historical scholarship on raptors, drawing upon key sources such as hunting treaties to provide a more nuanced understanding of changing human-raptor relationships. Particularly examining the location of recorded eyries, attempts at early Victorian captive breeding regimes and international raptor trade.

4. Current Management and Biodiversity:
Current and historical raptor legislation will be examined and compiled with archaeological data to comment on the current situation of raptors within Britain in relation to the past. Furthermore, this deep time data will be used to examine and address current re-wilding strategies. Finally, this research will explore the current popular culture of falconry and bird watching, and will discuss the designation of falconry as a living human heritage within Britain.