Birds in the Bronze Age A North European Perspective

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.

Part I. Liftoff: 1. Strange birds; 2. Bird divination in the ancient world; 3. The Hvidegard burial revisited; Part II. Birdscapes: 4. Bronze birds; 5. Birds of the living; 6. Birds of the dead; 7. Birds of the rocks; Part III. Intra-actions: 8. Rethinking Bronze Age worldings; 9. The animacy of the rocks; 10. Bird intra-actions; 11. Cave birds: becoming bird.

Joakim Goldhahn is Professor of Archaeology at Linnaeus University, Sweden. An internationally known author on the Bronze Age in northern Europe, he has published more than twenty books and anthologies, as well as and numerous articles on topics such as Northern European rock art, Bronze Age burial rituals, bronze and stone smiths as ritual specialists, and war and memory.