Why Has Avian Archaeology Not Yet Emerged?

In the more than 15 years since the formal inauguration of primate archaeology, which studies the material record of all nonhuman primates, there has been surprisingly little interest in constructing a similar program for birds. Yet there is rich evidence for avian culture and complex tool use, dating back over a century and at times exceeding that for nonhuman primates. Rather than the end of archaeology's anthropocentric era, as some have contended, primate archaeology emerged from the space opened by anthropology's interest in the human-animal boundary, a space which, conversely, does not exist for birds – thus avian archaeology has been impeded, even a priori excluded from consideration. I contend that biosemiotics is the necessary grounding for avian archaeology, or the excavation of avian ways of knowing as inscribed in the environment. This program seeks to foreground birds as individuals and historical actors: entities that not only signify and interpret, but are signified and interpreted, in their own right.