• Join
    • Become a Member
    • Renew
    • Give a Gift Membership
    • Member Benefits
    • Update Your Information
  • Donate
    • Donate
    • Monthly Giving
    • Year-End Giving
    • Become a Member
    • Update Your Information
    • More Ways to Help
  • Take Action
    • Volunteer
    • Make Your Voice Heard
  • About
    • What We Do
    • Annual Reports
    • Position Openings
    • Team & People
    • Partners & Friends
    • Policies & Financials
  • Things to Do
    • Events
    • Archaeology Café Online
    • Exhibits
    • Classes
    • Field School
  • Explore
    • Free Resources
    • Projects
    • Protection Efforts
    • Ancient Cultures
    • Videos
    • Virtual Southwest
    • Places to Visit
  • Store
    • Archaeology Southwest Magazine
    • All Products
  • News
    • Blog
    • Press Releases/Announcements
    • Southwest Archaeology Today
    • Sign up for E-News
  • Join
    • Become a Member
    • Renew
    • Give a Gift Membership
  • Donate
    • Donate
    • Monthly Giving
    • Year-End Giving
    • Become a Member
    • More Ways to Help
  • Take Action
    • Volunteer
    • Make Your Voice Heard
X
  • About
    • What We Do
    • Annual Reports
    • Position Openings
    • Team & People
    • Partners and Friends
    • Policies and Financials
  • Things to Do
    • Events
    • Archaeology Café Online
    • Exhibits
    • Classes
    • Field School
  • Explore
    • Free Resources
    • SW Archaeology 101
    • Projects
    • Protection Efforts
    • Ancient Cultures
    • Videos
    • Virtual Southwest
    • Places to Visit
  • Store
    • Archaeology Southwest Magazine
    • All Products
  • News
    • Blog
    • Press Releases/Announcements
    • Southwest Archaeology Today
    • Sign up for E-News

Talking Turkey: Unexpected Encounters with New World Domesticates

Preservation Archaeology Blog
  • Home
  • >
  • Preservation Archaeology Blog
  • >
  • Talking Turkey: Unexpected Encounters with New Wor...

By Katherine A. Dungan, Research Assistant

With Thanksgiving nearly upon us, we thought that it would be fun to share with our readers our own memorable turkey experience, as captured on film when we were recording Archaeology Southwest’s Mule Creek videos. But first, a bit of background on turkeys and their role in the prehistoric Southwest:

(November 23, 2011)—Although other New World domesticates often appear in Thanksgiving dinners—maize might make an appearance of one kind or another, and squash (or at least one type of squash) is likely to show up as pumpkin pie during dessert—nothing symbolizes Thanksgiving quite so much as the turkey. Modern domestic turkeys are descended from birds domesticated in Mexico, meaning that your Thanksgiving turkey is more closely related to birds that were served up in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan than to birds you might see in your backyard somewhere in the United States.

 

These are designs incorporating turkeys from black-on-white bowls made during the Classic Mimbres phase in southwestern New Mexico, as drawn in essays by Jesse Walter Fewkes, published by the Smithsonian in 1923 and 1924.
These are designs incorporating turkeys from black-on-white bowls made during the Classic Mimbres phase in southwestern New Mexico, as drawn in essays by Jesse Walter Fewkes, published by the Smithsonian in 1923 and 1924.

In the Southwest, domestic turkeys may have been present as early as the last centuries BCE or early centuries CE. Evidence for domestic turkeys, including droppings, eggshell, and feathers, has been found at Basketmaker III sites in the northern Southwest, and, by the protohistoric period, turkey pens were in use at Paquimé in northern Chihuahua and at sites scattered throughout the Puebloan Southwest. In Mule Creek, we have a small amount of turkey bone from 3-Up, the only site for which we have a complete faunal analysis of our excavated material.

A turkey depicted in the Post-Classic Maya document known as the Dresden Codex. McKusick discusses the larger image in her monograph on the ritual importance of birds, and digital versions of the entire codex are available from the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies (www.famsi.org).
A turkey depicted in the Post-Classic Maya document known as the Dresden Codex. McKusick discusses the larger image in her monograph on the ritual importance of birds, and digital versions of the entire codex are available from the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies (www.famsi.org).

Although we think of turkeys primarily as food animals, prehispanic Southwestern people may have valued turkeys largely for their feathers, which were used in the creation of ritual objects and more mundane items, including textiles. Charmion McKusick has argued for the importance of turkeys as ritual sacrifices, perhaps associated with Mesoamerican rain deities.

Recent research suggests that, unlike maize, domestic turkeys were not initially brought into the Southwest from central Mexico, however. In a genetic study published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, it was determined that most archaeological Southwestern turkey remains were more closely related to birds living today in the eastern U.S. and northeast Mexico than to central Mexican or modern domestic turkeys. This suggests that domestication of turkeys also took place outside of Mesoamerica, though not necessarily in the Southwest.

A final point to consider as you watch the cheerful turkey-shaped balloons in the Macy’s parade: turkeys have a belligerent streak, as well. Among native groups in the southeastern U.S., turkeys were specifically associated with warfare. After meeting the turkeys in the video, I can see why.

For more information on birds in the prehispanic Southwest, check out this past issue of Archaeology Southwest Magazine. Information for this post was drawn from the following sources: Hudson, C. 1976 The Southeastern Indians. U. of Tennessee Press; McKusick, C. 2001. Birds of Sacrifice. Arizona Archaeologist No. 31. Arizona Archaeological Society; Munro, N. 2006. The role of turkeys in the Southwest. In the Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 3, Environment, Origins and Populations, ed. W. Sturtevant, pp. 463–470. Smithsonian; Speller, C. et al. 2010. Ancient mitochondrial DNA analysis reveals complexity of indigenous North American turkey domestication. PNAS 107(7):2807–2812. Any mistakes in data or interpretation are mine.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Explore the News

  • Preservation Archaeology Blog
  • Press Releases/Announcements
  • Southwest Archaeology Today

Related to This

Involved

Katherine A. Dungan

Related Posts

  • Mule Creek in Memphis

  • Even Farther Underground: The Pithouses of Mule Creek

  • The Sherds of Gamalstad: Ceramic Chronology in Mule Creek

Want to help us? Make a donation

or take action

© 2020 Archaeology Southwest
Formerly the Center for Desert Archaeology

520.882.6946
Contact
  • Donor Portal
  • My Store Account
  • Contact Us
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Press Room