Pigeon Bones Found at an Ancient Cyprus Settlement Reveal That Our Relationship With These Birds Began Earlier Than We Thought

Before common pigeons were considered urban pests, people domesticated them and relied on them for meat, fertilizer, messages and more. A new study suggests humans have lived alongside the winged creatures for at least 3,400 years

Sara Hashemi | Daily Correspondent

May 29, 2026 10:00 a.m.

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If you live in a city, pigeons are probably part of your daily life. But before they were considered an urban nuisance, humans domesticated them and used them as messengers, as a source of meat and fertilizer and even as pets. Now, a new study has found that the human-pigeon relationship goes back even further than previously thought.

Analyses of pigeon bones at an archeological site in Cyprus hint that the birds were partially domesticated as early as 1400 B.C.E. The findings, published earlier this month in the journal Antiquity, push back the direct evidence of domestication in common pigeons, also called rock doves, by around 1,000 years, and reveal how long they’ve been intertwined with human lives.

“Pigeons have been with humans for a very, very long time,” says study co-author Anderson Carter, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, to Rachel Nuwer at the New York Times. “We’ve shaped their whole species, and they’ve shaped many of our stories and histories.”

Previously, the earliest known bones of domesticated pigeons came from Hellenistic Greece and were dated to around the fourth century B.C.E. But it’s hard to identify wild versus domesticated versions of these birds based solely on their bones, because their skeletal shapes can greatly vary.

So Carter and her colleagues investigated other clues. First, they collected 159 common pigeon bones from Hala Sultan Tekke, which was a Late Bronze Age harbor city in southeast Cyprus.

A chemical analysis of some of the specimens revealed that the birds’ diets were remarkably similar to those of people who lived in Cyprus during the same period. The finding suggests the animals were either eating food provided by humans or picking up their scraps.

“This very likely means that they were domesticated or on their way to being domesticated” at around 1,400 B.C.E., says study co-author Canan Çakırlar, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Groningen, in a statement.

Additionally, many of the pigeon bones were found burned and buried in a sacred space with remains of other animals deemed to be leftovers from human feasts. “The bones were likely burned either as a means of discarding waste after consumption or as part of an offering or ritual,” the study authors write in the paper. “Either way, the location and method of deposition—within covered pits in a ritual space—is intentional.”

The findings provide new insights into the human-pigeon relationship and indicate that it started much earlier than previously believed, says Angelos Hadjikoumis, a zooarchaeologist at the Cyprus Institute who was not involved in the work, to the Times. It also raises more questions, he adds. Did people intentionally domesticate their eventual feathered companions, or did the process happen naturally as the birds settled near humans? And what roles did the animals play in ancient human societies?

The researchers hope the findings will shift our view of pigeons as urban pests. In fact, we heavily relied on the birds as messengers until fairly recently, when technological advancements like the telegraph and telephone made one of their main roles obsolete, Carter tells the Agence France-Presse. But they’ve been conditioned to depend on us for thousands of years, so they continue to linger close by.

“One of the most exciting aspects was seeing people’s reactions to the research,” Carter says in the statement. “People that previously ignored pigeons on the street suddenly realize that this bird actually has a very interesting history.”

The ultimate goal of the research, she adds, is “to change how we interact with and think about this bird and other animal species and start realizing that their story is also our story.”

Sara Hashemi | Read More

Sara Hashemi is a science writer and fact-checker currently based in New York City. Her work has appeared in Sierra, The Body, Maisonneuve magazine and more.