Long before smartphones, text messages, or even the telephone, humans had a high-tech communication system: pigeons. These birds once carried secret messages across battlefields, served as a source of food, and even helped fertilize crops. Now, new research reveals just how long this partnership has lasted — and it stretches back further than anyone knew.
Scientists have discovered that humans first tamed pigeons about 3,500 years ago on the island of Cyprus. That's nearly 1,000 years earlier than previous research had suggested. The findings come from studying ancient pigeon bones dug up at a site called Hala Sultan Tekke, near a salt lake on Cyprus's southeastern coast.
Anderson Carter, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, led the study. Her team examined 159 pigeon bones that were about 3,400 years old, dating to the Bronze Age. By analyzing chemical traces left in the bones, the researchers found that these pigeons ate a diet very similar to what humans were eating at the time. This strongly suggests the birds were living alongside people — not just visiting for food, but actually living with humans.
"Humans forgetting about pigeons happened relatively recently in human history," Carter told AFP.
For thousands of years, pigeons were genuinely useful. They carried messages during wartime. People ate their meat and used their droppings as fertilizer for fields. Pigeons even appeared as religious symbols. Carter said pigeons were still doing important jobs as recently as the 1800s and 1900s. Then the telegraph was invented, followed by the telephone, and suddenly the birds were "out of a job."
But because humans had spent so many centuries breeding pigeons to live close to us, the birds just stayed put in cities. It was only when enormous industrial cities grew in the 1800s and 1900s that people began seeing pigeons as dirty pests spreading disease. Today, many buildings sprout metal spikes to keep pigeons away — a sharp contrast to the days when humans actively welcomed them.
Canan Cakirlar, another researcher on the study, said understanding this ancient connection might help people see pigeons differently. Carter added that she hopes the research encourages people to recognize that "their story is also our story."
The study was published in the journal Antiquity. For a bird most of us step around on sidewalks without a second thought, it turns out pigeons have been alongside us almost as long as writing, the wheel, or the first cities.