SPECIAL ISSUE PAPER Birds in Early Medieval Greater Poland: Consumption and Hawking D. MAKOWIECKI, a T. TOMEK b AND Z. M. BOCHENSKI b * a Laboratory for Natural Environment Reconstruction, Institute of Archaeology, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Szosa Bydgoska 44/48, PL 87-100 Torun, Poland b Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals, Polish Academy of Sciences, Slawkowska 17, PL 31-016 Krakow, Poland ABSTRACT The paper analyses more than 2000 avian remains from four sites that played a crucial role in the formation of the Polish State in the early Middle Ages: a stronghold and suburbium (extra-mural settlement) at Ostrów Lednicki, a settlement at Dziekanowice and a stronghold at Grzybowo. At least 25 taxa were found at all the sites. The domestic chicken clearly dominates among all the avian remains, followed by geese of the ge- nus Anser. Other taxa, recorded in smaller numbers, indicate a mosaic of aquatic, woodland and open hab- itats. The relatively high percentage of immature domestic chicken (28–38%) suggests that it was kept both for meat and eggs. Hawking at Ostrów Lednicki can be indirectly inferred from the presence of remains of fe- male goshawks and their possible prey. Remains of the peacock, capercaillie and black grouse support the high status of the sites. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key words: bird remains; domestic chicken; Early Medieval; Greater Poland; hawking Introduction The administrative and economic cradle of the modern Poland developed in the present Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) in the 10 th century. The first official written name of Poland – Civitas Schinesghe – was men- tioned in an 11 th century papal regesta called the Dagome iudex. It was the work of the first historical Pol- ish dynasty – the Piast dynasty. They built a network of fortified strongholds, around which developed rural settlements inhabited by agricultural and ancillary populations (Barford, 2001; Buko, 2008). The major strongholds or gords (Polish gród) in the early Polish state were used as the headquarters of the kingdom – the so called sedes regni principales. In the 10 th century the settle- ment complexes situated on Ostrów (‘island’ in Polish) Lednicki and at Dziekanowice on the eastern shore of Lednica Lake were among the most important in the country. It is possible that the baptism ceremony of Mieszko I (the first historical ruler of Poland) took place in the palatium on the island in AD 966 (Kurnatowska, 2004). Thanks to this the new state became a full mem- ber of contemporary Christian Europe. The stronghold at Grzybowo, like the one at Ostrów Lednicki, belonged to one of the many political and administrative centers of the new state of Christian Europe. The archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological research as well as the scarce historical data indicate that the inhabitants of the early medieval settlements in Poland based their food supplies on agriculture and stock breed- ing. Their diet was supplemented by hunting wild mam- mals and birds, as well as by fishing. While the importance of particular species of mammals and fish is relatively well known (e.g. Makowiecki, 2001, 2006, 2008, 2009; Buko, 2008), birds have seldom been stud- ied in detail. They were found in most faunal collections retrieved from early medieval sites but the information is often limited to the list of species. Noteworthy excep- tions include studies by Waluszewska-Bubień (1971, 1973), Nogalski (1984), Makowiecki & Gotfredsen (2002) and Makowiecki et al. (2007) but their papers deal with settlements in other regions of Poland. The role of birds in the subsistence economy in the early medieval settlements of Civitas Schinesghe and Poland has been * Correspondence to: Zbigniew M. Bochenski, Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals, Polish Academy of Sciences, Slawkowska 17, PL 31–016 Krakow, Poland. e-mail: BOCHENSKI@isez.pan.krakow.pl Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 15 October 2013 Accepted 4 November 2013 International Journal of Osteoarchaeology Int. J. Osteoarchaeol. (2013) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/oa.2366