Bearded Vultures Have Collected Forgotten Human Objects in Their Nests for Centuries: A Study 0 55

The bearded vulture is a large and very rare bird of the hawk family that is endangered.

Bearded vultures prefer to build their nests in hard-to-reach places: in caves, niches under rocky outcrops, or high in the mountains. They are most commonly found in European mountain ranges, such as the Pyrenees. These locations typically have a dry climate, which helps preserve everything that ends up in the nest for many, many years.

More than ten years ago, Spanish scientists thoroughly studied 12 such ancient bearded vulture nests in southern Spain, where the birds themselves were already extinct — they disappeared about 70-130 years ago. Only now have they published their research in the journal Ecology.

The specialists not only sifted through the contents of the nests but also studied them layer by layer, as each layer represents the life traces of a specific generation of birds.

It turned out that over the centuries, these nests accumulated a vast amount of items: shells from their own eggs, bones and remains of prey, as well as various materials that bearded vultures used to furnish their homes.

But what interested the scientists the most were 226 objects that were created by human hands. Among the findings were:

a slingshot woven from esparto grass — a tough Mediterranean grass from which baskets, ropes, and even sandals were once made;
an old shoe;
a tip from a crossbow bolt;
a decorated, patterned piece of sheep skin;
a wooden spear.

The scientists decided to determine the age of these artifacts using radiocarbon analysis. It turned out that some items are over 600 years old. For example, the shoe is about 675 years old, and the decorated leather item is approximately 650 years old.

In addition to the items made and processed by humans, the researchers found 2,117 bones, 86 hooves, 72 fragments of skin, 11 bundles of wool, and 43 fragments of eggshell.