Ancient companions: How Bronze Age Cyprus fell for the pigeon

Domestic animals have long been some of our closest companions. While dogs, cats, horses, cattle and chickens have all played major roles in human history, domestic pigeons may be a little less familiar. But they are no slouch when it comes to cultural importance.

Charles Darwin wrote about domestic pigeon diversity to explore his theories of evolutionary change. Contemporary biologists have even trained teams of pigeons to identify cancerous cells from medical images with an accuracy rivalling that of oncologists.

Yet despite their contributions to society, we still know little about the origins of these birds. The wild form of all domestic pigeon breeds is a slate-grey bird called the rock dove, which lives on cliffs and nests in caves. I study them in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, where colonies can be seen foraging for grain in fields. Scientists believe that these birds first learned to steal crops thousands of years ago, increasing our ancestors’ proximity to them.

Soon, they became a regular source of meat and fertiliser. This pulled rock doves down an evolutionary route which has resulted in today’s proliferation of over 300 domestic breeds.

However, the where and when of the earliest phases of this process have remained unclear. Scientists generally think that pigeons were first domesticated in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean. Until now, the earliest direct evidence for domesticated pigeons came from Greece around 2,300 years ago. For decades, those of us studying pigeons have had to handwave this evidence, saying they were “probably domesticated as early as 3,000 years ago”.

Now, new research exploring ancient human-pigeon interactions in Cyprus has provided fascinating insights into the earliest stages of this millennia-long relationship. Starting in the Bronze Age (3,650-3,950 years ago), pigeon figurines became common in Cyprus, and the island developed a strong association with these birds, later identified as the birthplace of the love goddess Aphrodite.

In the new study, researchers examined bones collected at Hala Sultan Tekke in Cyprus dating back to the Late Bronze Age, about 3,350 years ago. Their assessments included stable isotope analysis, using chemical signatures in the bones to determine what the birds ate. This showed their diets were remarkably similar to those of their human neighbours, reflecting a consistent diet of grains. Rock doves must have been living alongside people at that time, who may even have been deliberately feeding them.

Interestingly, some of the bones had been burnt and buried in ritual spaces. Previous research at the same site found a pigeon within a tomb containing an adult man, suggesting rock doves held an important cultural role on the island.

Whether this relationship can be called domestication is up for debate. For most biologists, domestication involves evolutionary changes occurring due to human use, rather than just living alongside us. Nevertheless, the results strongly indicate that ancient humans had an intimate interaction with a species which has gone on to become one of the most important birds in our history.

The Conversation