Bird remains from Vilnius Lower Castle, Lithuania (13th–19th centuries) reveal changes in social status and unusual bird pathologies.

This paper focuses on the 1,224 bird remains found during the excavations of 1990–2015 in the Vilnius Lower Castle, Lithuania. The faunal material originates from a wide time span of the 13th to the 19th centuries. To explore the bird consumption in different periods of occupation of the castle and between different social strata, we analyzed the bird specimens by morphological characteristics. The study included taxonomical identification, recording the taphonomic features and pathologies, and assessing age and sex. As expected, the majority of the bones belong to the domestic chicken, but it is mostly the presence of wild taxa such as hawk, swan, and wild galliforms that demonstrates the various roles the birds played in peoples' everyday lives. Additionally, a few pathologies like avian osteopetrosis were identified that are unique to the eastern Baltic region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]