Avian aurality in Anglo-Saxon England

Reconstructions of past human experience have generally focused on the visual and the tactile. When sound has been considered, it is usually in terms of anthropogenic noises, created within human-built environments. While these studies are valuable, they frequently overlook a ubiquitous aspect of soundscapes in previous cultures: birdsong. As with other animals, birds were far more than just sources of food in past societies; they were key aspects of people’s daily lives and the ways they experienced their worlds. Using an integrated approach that combines archaeology, onomastics and textual evidence, this paper explores the roles of bird sounds in Anglo-Saxon England. Through the use of the middle-late Saxon site of Bishopstone as a case study, the importance of birds and their noises for defining place and time is highlighted.