Avian resources in Medieval and Modern Belgium

As part of a wider project aimed at clarifying the importance and role of
birds in past human societies, the use of avian resources in the medieval
and Modern periods is explored in the geographical area of modern
Belgium. A previous synthesis carried out on the Brussels area highlighted
variations in the exploitation of birds, mainly related to the social status of
urban consumers (Thys & Van Neer 2010).
The present contribution is based on studies of archaeozoological
assemblages from about sixty archaeological sites spread over the Belgian
territory, in order to expand the scope of the previous observations made
on the material from Brussels. This larger corpus includes other cities as well
as other types of occupations, such as castles or abbeys. Diachronic trends
are examined in these different categories of sites and are compared with
each other. The influence of the social status, the geographical location and
the natural environment are evaluated on the basis of the archaeological
remains of the domestic and wild bird species.