Hahn Highlights: Carolina Parakeet Beak
Posted On: 04/07/2017 - 11:11am, Posted By: Tyler Swinney, NAGPRA Coordinator and Tribal Liaison
Welcome to the first installment of Archaeology Collections’ long-term blog series: Hahn Highlights!
With the unseasonably warm weather we experienced in Cincinnati this winter, it feels like field season has been just around the corner for quite some time! So, over the next several months we will take a look at some of the most interesting finds from Cincinnati Museum Center’s Archaeology Field School at the Hahn Site, which is a late prehistoric settlement located east of Cincinnati on an elevated terrace within the floodplain of the Little Miami River Valley.
We’ll start with an interesting lab find from this week – a Carolina Parakeet beak that was recovered from Feature 325, a refuse-filled storage pit encountered during the 2015 field excavation that included several Madisonville-age (AD 1400-1650) diagnostic ceramic artifacts.
Feature 325 was located on the northeastern side of the Hahn site amongst a cluster of three superimposed pit features. With a maximum depth of 133 cm below ground surface, Feature 325 was well stratified and included six depositional horizons that contained large quantities of animal bone and primarily consisted of midden, mussel shell, clay, and ash. Although mammal remains occur in great numbers at Hahn, bird remains, other than wild turkey, are not common, and bird beaks are rarely recovered. This beak is especially significant because it is of a once common species that is now extinct.
The majority of Midwestern archaeologists have experience in zooarchaeology, the study of faunal remains recovered from archaeological sites. Because mammals are the most common class of animal represented in Midwestern faunal assemblages, most regional archaeologists can accurately identify some mammal bones. Bird, fish and reptile remains, however, are less commonly recovered, and species identification can be very difficult without the aid of a zooarchaeology specialist or a comprehensive comparative collection. Fortunately for us at Cincinnati Museum Center, we have a great comparative collection that includes both skeletal remains and animal taxidermies!
Once native to the eastern and central United States, the Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) was the only parrot species indigenous to North America. In the eighteenth century, Carolina Parakeets were observed in large noisy flocks that fed on cultivated fruit and agricultural crops such as corn. Considered an agricultural pest, they were slaughtered in great numbers. Habitat destruction and the demand for their colorful plumage by the millinery trade led to their rapid decline in the nineteenth century. The Carolina Parakeet has been presumed extinct since the early twentieth century. The last known wild specimen was collected in 1904, and the last Carolina Parakeet in captivity (Lady Jane) died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918.
Although we may never know how or why this Carolina Parakeet beak made its way into this late Fort Ancient cultural site, it is possible that this prehistoric specimen was hunted, perhaps through netting, for its colorful green and yellow feathers. Given their appetite for crops such as corn, it is also possible that Fort Ancient farmers worked to keep them out of their fields. Due to its small size, it is unlikely that Carolina Parakeets were particularly useful as a food resource for the Fort Ancient people living in the Cincinnati-area. Furthermore, due to their tendency for eating cocklebur seeds, Carolina Parakeets may have been poisonous! Indeed, John J. Audubon, the first taxidermist for Cincinnati Museum Center’s predecessor, the Western Museum, noted that cats apparently died after eating a Carolina Parakeet.