Bird remains from archaeological sites have the potential to inform research on many aspects of prehistoric life. In Mesoamerica, they were a food source, as well as a source of feathers and bone. But they were also components of ritual performance, dedicatory offerings, subjects of iconographic representation, characters in myth, and even deities. Their significance is demonstrated ethnographically, ethnohistorically, and archaeologically. This thesis addresses the role of birds at an Early Formative period ceremonial center on the Pacific coast of Chiapas, Mexico. The avian faunal assemblage from the site of Paso de la Amada was analyzed in order to understand how the exploitation and use of birds articulated with the establishment of hereditary inequality at Paso de la Amada and its emergence as a ceremonial center. Results indicate that birds were exploited as a food source as well as for their feathers and bone, and that they played a particularly strong role in ritual performance.

In the North American Southwest, the long-term centrality of birds to Pueblo ceremonial life has been demonstrated both ethnographically and archaeologically. Whole birds, their parts, and their feathers have been frequent participants in or components of ritual practice. Despite the wide acceptance that Chaco Canyon was a central location for ceremony and ritual in the northern Southwest during the Pueblo II period, few details of the nature of ritual practice have been reconstructed. This dissertation explores the use and significance of birds in Chaco in order to reconstruct details of ceremonial life during the canyon’s major occupation (800-1150 CE). Six museum collections were examined to produce a dataset that presents avifaunal remains from Chaco Canyon excavated over the last 130 years. This research demonstrates that, while birds may have been occasional contributions to diet, and while their bones were used to manufacture certain bone ornaments and implements, their primary importance in Chaco Canyon was in ceremonial life. Birds were active and frequent participants in ritual practice, used widely across the canyon. Many local and several exotic types of birds were important to the inhabitants of Chaco Canyon; foremost among these were eagles, hawks, macaws, and turkeys. The distribution of these birds between different sites, however, hints at the presence of social hierarchy in the canyon, and that differentiation may have been based in ritual authority and differential access to certain ceremonial resources. Results not only shed light on the value of birds to the prehispanic occupants of Chaco Canyon and on the nature of Chacoan ritual, but also demonstrate the importance of (re)examining collections from historic excavations, and the value of using legacy and archival data to enhance provenience and contextual information in studies of Chaco’s material culture.