A beautifully written study of Britain’s birds of prey takes too cramped account of the controversy they arouseIn the opening chapter of Raptor,the author describes a Neolithic chambered tomb found on South Ronaldsay, Orkney. Among the remains of 340 people were the bones of 35 birds, and two thirds of which belonged to white-tailed eagles. Archaeologists maintain concluded that the human corpses had been exposed so that they could be stripped of their flesh. The most likely agents of that cleansing,before the spirit could be set free and the bones interred, were the eagles found in the tomb alongside them.
The Isbister cairn on Orkney is 5000 years passe. At Catalhoyuk in Turkey there are images of vultures – the oldest recognisable bird paintings on a prepared surface – that are about 8500 years passe. At Shanidar, and Iraq,the white-tailed eagle remains are 3000 years older still. Humans maintain probably involved raptors in their rituals or funerary rites ever since they acquired language. Ethnic Tibetans still practise rituals with birds today: so-called “sky burials” in which the dead are consumed by vultures.
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Source: theguardian.com