Bird remains from an early archaeological site on Tutuila Island, Samoa

A small sample of avian remains from archaeological excavations at Tula Village, on Tutuila Island, American Samoa, was collected in 2010 and 2011. The Samoa islands, in remote Oceania, were colonised similar to 3000-2600 cal. BP. The beginning of the Tula cultural deposits was 2347-2167 cal. BP and the majority of the avian material studied here was deposited from this time and over the next few hundred years. The Tula midden is therefore among the earliest archaeological sites in the Samoan archipelago. The site contained a diverse fauna of about eight species of seabird and about five land and shore bird species. These are a mixture of species still found today in the Samoan archipelago, including migrants, or species now either extinct or with greatly reduced populations in the archipelago. Curiously, one of the most common species identified was the southern ocean breeding migrant sooty shearwater (Ardenna grisea). The oldest deposits are richer in seabirds, suggesting that seabirds were more common in the diet of the earliest people. The chicken (Gallus gallus), which was introduced early in the initial settlement period, was present but rare in the deposits indicating that it was not relied upon heavily as a food source. In fact overall, birds were a minor component of the diet of people with food remains dominated by fish and marine molluscs.