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THE WILSON JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY • Vol. 123, No. 1, March 2011 
population dynamics. After the publication of E. 
O. Wilson’s Sociobiology (edited by Robert 
Trivers), interest in sexual selection surged. 
Birds, with their obvious sex differences in 
plumage and behavior and their anthropomorphic 
appeal, remained a centerpiece of the debate over 
sexual selection. British naturalist Edmund Selous 
concluded from hours of observing wild birds 
that some animals must choose their mates, as 
did Julian Huxley from his early work on the 
courtship behavior of Great Crested Grebes 
(Podiceps cristatus) (although he later rejected 
that view). Bower birds (Ptilonorhynchidae), with 
their elaborate mating arenas and innate prefer¬ 
ences for colorful decorative objects, were 
invoked for decades by some scientists as proof 
of conscious animal aestheticism, an idea dis¬ 
credited by Australian ornithologist Jock Mar¬ 
shall. Surprisingly, preeminent ornithologist Ernst 
Mayr conducted his research on female mate 
choice not in birds but in Drosophila fruit flies; 
readers might be chagrined to learn of his 
declaration that “there is not as much difference 
as you might imagine.” 
Despite this rich history of inquiry, the decades 
separating Descent of Man and Sociobiology are 
frequently dismissed by modem biologists as 
bereft of significant advancements in sexual 
selection. Milam attributes this narrative of 
‘renewal of sexual selection and female choice 
partly to efforts by organismal biologists to 
reclaim evolution from molecular biologists, 
whose recent triumphs in biochemistry threatened 
to monopolize public attention and funding. For 
Milam, this “eclipse narrative” served to paint 
evolutionary organismal biology as a dynamic 
field with pressing new questions that could be 
addressed only in nature, not in the laboratory. 
Fortunately, the momentum of synthesis cannot be 
contained, and today Darwin’s second great idea 
is actively tested by dyed-in-the-wool field 
biologists and genomic technocrats alike—some¬ 
times, even in tandem.—ELEN ONEAL, Post¬ 
doctoral Researcher, Duke University, 125 
Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708, USA; e- 
mail: eo22@duke.edu 
BIRDS. By Dale Serjeantson. Cambridge Man¬ 
uals in Archaeology. Cambridge University Press 
Cambridge, UK. 2009: xxvi + 486 pages, numerous 
illustrations. ISBN: 978-0-521-86617-0 (hard¬ 
back); 978-0-521-75858-1 (paperback). $85.52 
(hardback); $46.67 (paperback).—It is unfortunate 
that the title of this book, even with inclusion of the 
series name, is singularly uninformative. The 
intention of the volume is to summarize the 
importance of birds to the field of zooarcheology. 
This entails interpretation of avian remains, mostly 
bones, but also including eggshells, feathers, skin, 
and other traces found in depositional environ¬ 
ments that were created mainly by human activity. 
The content goes well beyond bones and stones, 
however, and includes an overview of human/bird 
interactions that also uses evidence from ancient 
depictions and writings. The topics cover not just 
birds as food and sources for bone implements, but 
also uses of birds for sport (e.g., hawking), 
aesthetics (pets, ornaments), ritual and symbolism, 
and environmental reconstruction. Treatment of 
some of these subjects is at times perfunctory. The 
introductory parts include some general informa¬ 
tion about birds, and mainly deal with zooarcheo- 
logical methodology such as ascertaining age and 
sex, species identification, collecting and recording 
techniques, the processes by which bones become 
incoiporated in deposits (taphonomy), differential 
survival of various skeletal elements, and their 
modification by humans. Much of this is too 
elementary to be of use to anyone with experience 
in the field but insufficiently comprehensive for 
someone with no experience at all. 
I began reading this book in the middle, in the 
chapters on domestication, which gave me a much 
more favorable impression than I was able to 
maintain with further reading. It is this section 
that I hope will prove most useful and informative 
for ornithologists. An entire chapter is devoted 
to the “chicken” ( Gallus gallus ), which may 
originally have been domesticated for cockfight¬ 
ing rather than for meat or eggs. Most intriguing is 
the increasing evidence for pre-Columbian intro¬ 
duction of chickens into the New World along a 
Pacific coastal route. Shorter accounts deal with 
turkeys, geese, ducks—including Muscovy Duck 
(Cairina moschata ), pigeon ( Columba livia), pea¬ 
fowl ( Pavo ), guineafowl ( Nurnida ), and Scarlet 
Macaw ( Ara macao). The accounts include his¬ 
torical and archeological evidence for timing 
and origin of domestication, and the morpholog¬ 
ical changes that took place subsequently as a 
result. 
Whereas the background of paleontologists is 
in biology and geology, most zooarcheologists 
receive their training in the cultural milieu of the 
social sciences, which often imparts a different 
