Dale Serjeantson. Birds.

Dale Serjeantson. Birds. DALE SERJEANTSON. Birds. xxvi+486 pages, 169 illustrations, 61tables. 2009. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). ; 978-0-521-75858-1paperback. As an ornithologist reviewing a book intended primarily for anarchaeological readership, I find myself straddling two stools. On theone hand, the ornithologist wants to mention the assertions that, if notwholly erroneous, do not ring true. For-example, it is stated that thechicks of altricial altricialsaid of birds which are hatched with their eyes closed. birds are able to fly and feed themselves as soon asthey leave the nest, which is by no mean universally the case. As forthe 90g greenfinch Carduelis chloris (p. 232), it would be unable to getoff the ground to reach any reader's suspended garden feeder! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] On the other hand, it seems only fair to judge the book against thearchaeological yardstick that it sets itself, to explore how humanactions can be illuminated by bird remains. That is a broad brief thatextends, to paraphrase the jacket blurb, to the consumption of wildbirds, the domestication domesticationProcess of hereditary reorganization of wild animals and plants into forms more accommodating to the interests of people. In its strictest sense, it refers to the initial stage of human mastery of wild animals and plants. of birds, cockfighting cockfighting,sport of pitting gamecocks against one other. Though popular in ancient Greece, Persia, and Rome, cockfighting has been long opposed by clergy and humane groups. and falconry falconry(fôl`kənrē, fô`–, făl`–), sport of hunting birds or small animals with falcons or other types of hawks; eagles are used in some parts of the world. , birds inritual and religion, and the role of birds in ecological reconstruction.In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , Serjeantson casts her net far more widely than thechicken coop. How does the book set about fulfilling these aims? The first halfdeals with the nitty-gritty of avian archaeology, how to identifyspecies from their bones, how to assess whether a bone assemblage mightrepresent a sample derived from the breeding season or an alternativeseason, and more besides. In a nutshell, how to interpret correctly birdremains round in an archaeological context. The second half promised to be the more interesting, intending toconsider, for example, the extent to which birds provided the principalfood of prehistoric communities (rarely) or whether the bird remainsscattered through archaeological sites might provide insights intoclimate-induced changes in geographical distribution that were notalready generated from other, more tractable tractableeasy to manage; tolerable. taxa (again, rarely). Inher commendable quest to cover the ground thoroughly, Dale Serjeantsonfires off a wealth of pertinent examples, at the expense of a clearnarrative. Too many paragraphs are simply a collection of barely-linkedexamples. Except where they had access to concentrations of wildfowl orseabirds, prehistoric communities generally made less use of birds forfood than of mammals. Some of the reasons for this are obvious. Birdstend to be more difficult to catch and they also come in smaller packets(body sizes) which yield less reward for the hunter's effort.Another part of the explanation is more subtle and interestingbiologically. Terrestrial mammals most commonly feed on foliage whiletheir avian counterparts feed on seeds or insects. Since there is a lotof greenery and less of the high-quality low-density food targeted bybirds, mammals of a given body size exist at 10-20 times the density ofbirds of similar size--which makes them more harvestable by people.Geese, unusual among birds in being relatively large-bodied and grazers,go some way to proving the point, for they have been a favourite targetfor hunters, ancient and modern. The critical points made, there are fascinating morsels that werenew to me. For instance, I did not know that Alexander the Great and hisarmy played a key role in spreading the chicken westwards nor that theself-same chicken provides evidence, along with the sweet potato, ofpre-Colombian contact between the Polynesians and South America. I wouldnot necessarily have guessed that, at least for birds, bone tools appearto survive better than waste bone, and I welcomed the reminder that thehouse sparrow Passer domesticus almost certainly spread across northernEurope in close association with people in the aftermath of thePleistocene. I suspect Serjeantson is right to be sceptical that thescarcity of medullary medullary/med��ul��lary/ (med��ah-lar?e)1. pertaining to a medulla.2. pertaining to bone marrow.3. pertaining to the spinal cord. bone, characteristic of laying female birds, inarchaeological deposits represents any worthy conservation ethic amongour forebears. A more likely explanation is that, because birds breed inseasons of plentiful food, they were then ignored by hunters. To helpthe archaeologist confronted with unfamiliar avian material, this bookusefully points out how to proceed, ideally with the help of a goodreference collection and an obliging tutor. As a signpost into ascattered literature and as an aid in that most difficult of scientificsteps, formulating the right question, I can see even greater value. AndI, a left-hander, shall retain my review copy to remind me that, whennext I come to pen a book review, I should use a quill from agoose's right wing. M. DE L. BROOKE University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, UK (Email: m.brooke@zoo.cam.ac.uk)