Some archeological research done in the mid 1950's revealed that the island was inhabited about 600 years ago. The inhabitants occupied the island for some 200 years according to the evidence. Apparently these people supported themselves by fishing and limited agriculture. Evidence also showed that they had fairly sophisticated boats similar to canoes and it is believed that they were seaworthy enough to allow interisland trading. The report that I read kept referring to these people as the "Bird People", a term that intriqued me.
Apparently the people treated the hill on the island as a religious location making frequent pilgramages to the summit for ceremonial purposes. A small cave on the northern slope near the summit contained some pottery shards and most interestingly, cave drawings. The drawings illustrated various activities that one would expect of native peoples of the time. In one area, seemingly reserved for special drawings, was a most remarkable series of drawings. These drawings to this day are the subject of heated debate among scholars. Professor Arnold B. Vogelhund who headed up the 1954 expedition published a lengthy paper on his findings. When he presented his findings at the 1959 convention of the European Archeological Society in Stockholm a great controversy was triggered.
To better understand the controversy I should describe the cave drawings that were reproduced in the text I found. Unlike typical cave drawings that are usually crude stick figures these were highly sophisticated and almost photographically accurate. That was only a small part of the controversy however. This departure from the usual style of cave drawings caused some experts to doubt their authenticity. Subsequent testing of the actual cave drawing pigments however have verified their age at 500 - 600 years old. In fact, no one has been able to prove that the drawings are anything other than authentic and dated as that age.
The greatest controversy of the drawings though was the subjects and activities that they illustrated. They seemed to document a process or a ceremony. The hill was shown in profile and people were shown engaged in an activity at the bottom of the hill, climbing the hill, and engaged in activity at the top of the hill. At the bottom of the hill they were shown assembling strangely shaped structures which they are then shown as carrying on their backs to the peak. The remarkable thing is that the structures closely resembled the Rogallo hang gliders of today. Even more remarkable is the fact that the figures are shown as running down the hill and soaring into the air apparently to glide back down to the base of the hill. If the drawings are authentic it means that they flew five hundred years before Otto Lillienthal or the Wright Brothers.Perhaps now you can understand why Professor Vogelhund was such a controversial character. He is claiming that man flew in the fifteenth century using hang gliders made of primitive materials but with very sophisticated design.
The name, Bird Island, that is used today is derived from the name used for the island after the 1950's, Vogelvolks Insel. After Professor Vogelhund's controversey some called it Vogelhund Insel. These names became shortened to Vogel Insel or Bird Island in english
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