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Archaeological studies have demonstrated the increasingly important role of turkeys in the lives of ancient Puebloan peoples of the American Southwest. The origin of domesticated turkeys, however, remains an unanswered question especially given the absence of turkey ( Meleagris gallopavo ) in early and middle Holocene contexts prior to the arrival...
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... mexicana). The current geographic distribution of the western subspecies as presented by Schorger (1966;see also Mock et al. 2002) shows these populations as geographi-cally separated (Figure 1). Merriam's, the subspecies generally thought to be the strain found in Anasazi sites, is restricted to portions of Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, while the Rio Grande distribution includes much of Texas as well as northeastern Mexico. ...
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... A record which seemingly contradicts what we expect for the earliest identified human-turkey relationships and the domestication process itself. Investigating these questions may also help us place and determine how late Pleistocene and early/mid-Holocene exploitation of turkeys in the SW/NW occurred (e.g., Akins 2006;Newbold et al. 2012) and whether the incipient stages of turkey domestication were the result of individual turkey capture and penning/caging-or more likely tethering-that is present throughout the entire Ancestral Pueblo-era in this region. Shifting our perspectives on turkey penning may also help clarify the presumed intensification of turkeys that occurred after the Basketmaker periods in the SW/NW, and whether or not this represents a true shift in turkey exploitation strategies even while turkey penning remained unchanged during this era. ...
Penning turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo spp.) in the Ancestral Pueblo American Southwest/Mexican Northwest (SW/NW) involved the creation or use of a variety of spaces and contexts throughout AD 1–1600 and into the post-contact era. Turkey pens, or captivity, occur through simple tethering, reuse of abandoned pit houses or surface rooms, or creation of pens within villages, plazas, and elsewhere. Turkey dung, droppings, and eggshells are fundamental for determining the presence or absence of pens at archaeological sites. In this paper, I review the archaeological record for turkey pens and focus on three main questions: (1) how are turkey pens identified in the SW/NW, (2) if turkey pen construction or evidence for turkey captivity shifts through time, and (3) what the record of turkey penning informs us regarding the long-term human management of these birds and global perspectives on human–bird/human–animal management. Ancestral Pueblo peoples created an adaptive and flexible strategy for turkey penning, which successfully integrated these birds into ceremonial and socioeconomic processes for approximately 1600 years.
... Although recent research in the American Southwest has provided many details regarding the history and practice of turkey husbandry in this region (e.g., Badenhorst et al. 2012;McCaffery et al. 2014;McKusick 2001;Munro 2006Munro , 2011Newbold et al. 2012;Rawlings and Driver 2010;Speller et al. 2010), comparatively little research has been conducted on the subject in Mesoamerica despite the fact that all modern domestic turkeys descend from birds originally domesticated in Mexico during pre-colonial times (for exceptions, see Monteagudo et al. 2013;Speller et al. 2010; Thornton et al. 2012). To address this disparity, we conducted a review of the published and available unpublished archaeological evidence for early turkey use in the region. ...
... The appearance of turkeys outside their natural geographic ranges has also been used to infer that they were under some level of human control at the time these range shifts or introductions occurred. The pre-colonial ranges of wild turkeys throughout the Americas, however, are not always clear since modern ranges have been shaped and modified by several centuries of human hunting and landscape alteration (Mock et al. 2002:653;Newbold et al. 2012). Within Mesoamerica, it is especially difficult to reconstruct the past range of wild turkeys since wild populations of M. g. gallopavo have been largely extirpated over the last several centuries (Schorger 1966). ...
The turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is the only domesticated vertebrate to originate from North America. Accurate reconstructions of the timing, location, and process of its domestication are thus critical for understanding the domestication process in the ancient Americas. A substantial amount of recent research has been devoted to understanding turkey domestication in the American Southwest, but comparatively little research has been conducted on the subject in Mesoamerica, despite the fact that all modern domestic turkeys descend from birds originally domesticated in Mexico during pre-colonial times. To address this disparity, we have conducted a review of the available literature on early turkeys in the archaeological record of Mesoamerica. We evaluate the evidence in terms of its accuracy and use this evaluation as a stepping off point for suggesting potential avenues of future research. Although the lack of available data from Mesoamerica currently precludes detailed cross-cultural comparisons, we briefly compare the origins and intensification of turkey rearing in Mesoamerica with the American Southwest to generate more dialogue among researchers independently studying the topic in these two distinct but interconnected cultural regions. © 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York (outside the USA)
... To better understand how managed or domesticated resources were integrated into ancient Maya subsistence, ritual and political economies, we must first understand the process and extent of Maya turkey husbandry and domestication. The subject is only recently gaining traction in Mesoamerica and the Maya world (Thornton et al., 2012;Thornton and Emery, 2015;Lapham et al., this volume; Manin, Cornette and Lefèvre, this volume; Martinez Lira and Valadez, this volume) despite broad interest in the domestic dog in Mesoamerica (Blanco et al., 2006;Götz, 2008;Valadez Azúa et al., 2006, 2013, and the domestic turkey in the American Southwest (e.g., Badenhorst et al., 2012;Grimstead et al., 2014;Lipe et al., 2016;McCaffery et al., 2014;McKusick, 2001;Munro, 2006Munro, , 2011Newbold et al., 2012;Rawlings and Driver, 2010;Speller et al., 2010). In Mesoamerica, where the timing of domestication and the possible trade of turkeys are unclear, the lack of osteological markers distinguishing domesticated from wild birds is significantly problematic. ...
... 3. Kyle Bocinsky examined these eggshell fragments under an electron microscope, following the approach of Beacham and Durand (2007) and concluded that they did not represent full-term eggs that had hatched. 4. Several M. gallopavo bones are reported from Paleoarchaic deposits at North Creek Shelter in southern Utah (Newbold et al. 2012). Submitted March 26, 2015 Revised August 24, 2015; September 3, 2015; Accepted September 3, 2015. ...
The Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) was independently domesticated in Mesoamerica and the Southwest, the latter as the only case of Native American animal domestication north of Mexico. In the upland (non-desert) portion of the American Southwest, distinctive closely related mtDNA lineages belonging to haplogroup HI (thought to indicate domestication) occur from ca. 1 A.D. (Basketmaker II period) through early historic times. At many sites, low frequencies of lineages belonging to haplogroup H2 also occur, apparently derived from the local Merriam's subspecies. We report genetic, stable isotope, and coprolite data from Turkey remains recovered at three early sites in SE Utah and SW Colorado dating to the Basketmaker II, III, and early Pueblo II periods. Evidence from these and other early sites indicates that both the HI and H2 Turkeys had a predominantly maize-based diet similar to that of humans; prior to late Pueblo II times, the birds were kept primarily to provide feathers for blankets and ritual uses; and ritualized burials indicate Turkeys' symbolic value. We argue that viewing individuals from the HI and H2 haplogroups as "domestic" versus "wild" is an oversimplification.
The turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) represents one of the few domestic animals of the New World. While current research points to distinct domestication centers in the Southwest United States and Mesoamerica, several questions regarding the number of progenitor populations, and the timing and intensity of turkey husbandry remain unanswered. This study applied ancient mitochondrial DNA and stable isotope (δ13C, δ15N) analysis to 55 archaeological turkey remains from Mexico to investigate pre-contact turkey exploitation in Mesoamerica. Three different (sub)species of turkeys were identified in the archaeological record (M. g. mexicana, M. g. gallopavo, and M. ocellata), indicating the exploitation of diverse local populations, as well as the trade of captively-reared birds into the Maya area. No evidence of shared maternal haplotypes were observed between Mesoamerica and the Southwest United States, in contrast with archaeological evidence for trade of other domestic products. Isotopic analysis indicates a range of feeding behaviours in ancient Mesoamerican turkeys, including wild foraging, human provisioning, and mixed feeding ecologies. This variability in turkey diet decreases through time, with archaeological, genetic and isotopic evidence all pointing to the intensification of domestic turkey management and husbandry, culminating in the Postclassic period.
