Scientists say centuries of human life have been preserved inside bearded vulture nests in Spain, finding hundreds of human artifacts, including a shoe and painted sheep leather, mixed with animal bones and eggshells in ancient Bearded Vulture eyries.
A team that excavated and analyzed 12 nests used repeatedly by Bearded Vultures (Gypaetus barbatus) between 2008 and 2014 reported the results this week in the journal Ecology. The researchers recovered 2,483 remains altogether, including 2,117 bones, 86 hooves, 72 pieces of leather, 43 eggshell fragments, and 226 human-made objects that appear to have been carried to the nests by the birds.
The finds ranged widely in age, with carbon-14 dating showing some items to be more than 650 years old.
“These nests have acted as natural museums,” the study’s authors wrote, noting the nests’ protected positions in caves and rock shelters and their stable, dry microclimates that favor long-term preservation. “Thanks to the solidity of Bearded Vulture nest structures … they have conserved historical material in good condition.”
Scientists found a slingshot among the human artifacts in the Bearded Vulture’s nest
Among the human-made items were a slingshot woven from esparto grass, fragments of basketry, a wooden lance, and what the researchers describe as a rough grass-and-twig footwear called an agobía. One sandal was dated back almost 674 years, and a piece of ochre-painted sheep leather to 651 years, a basket fragment dated back to close to 151 years ago.
The authors used archaeological stratigraphic methods, plus radiocarbon and proteomic analyses, to place artifacts in time and to identify materials. The shepherding of objects into nests apparently occurred over many generations of birds. The team surveyed more than 50 well-preserved historical nests in parts of southern Spain and excavated 12 in detail.
The researchers say the material tells two stories at once. One story of the vultures’ diet and the other of the people who lived and worked nearby. Bearded Vultures are specialized bone eaters, and most of the nests’ biological remains were ungulate bones; the human-made items show production and repair of plant-fiber goods such as sandals, ropes, and basketry that were common in the Mediterranean countryside for centuries.
The Bearded Vulture is Europe’s most threatened vulture species
“Stratigraphical studies of old nests of accumulator species provide new taphonomic and interdisciplinary information about regional ecology as well as local ethnographic, historical, and biocultural conditions,” the paper states. The study also has conservation implications. The Bearded Vulture is Europe’s most threatened vulture species, with 309 known breeding pairs and 144 pairs in the Pyrenees, the authors note. Because nests accumulate dietary and environmental evidence over long time spans, they can help reconstruct past ecosystems and guide habitat restoration and species reintroduction plans.
The authors argue that nests occupied repeatedly over decades and centuries are a powerful tool for studying long-term trends in biodiversity, prey availability, and human-animal interactions. They note, for example, that similar radiocarbon work has shown other raptor eyries remained in use for hundreds and even thousands of years elsewhere, providing deep time context for ecological change.
The authors thanked regional authorities in Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia for permits and assistance. They said further analysis of pollen, twigs, and other materials from the nests could yield finer seasonal and environmental reconstructions, and that the ethnographic artifacts open new opportunities for collaboration between ecologists, archaeologists, and historians.
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