Biomolecular Approaches to Documenting Ancient Maya Turkey Husbandry and Use

Summary

The turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is the only domesticated vertebrate to originate from North America. Accurate reconstructions of turkey husbandry and use are thus critical for understanding the domestication process in the ancient Americas. Isotopic and genetic (aDNA) research has yielded substantial insights into the history of turkey use and domestication in the American Southwest, but such methods have not been widely used in Mesoamerica to date, 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 isotopic and genetic analyses on turkey remains from ancient Maya archaeological sites to evaluate: 1) when and where non-local domestic turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) were first introduced to and adopted by the ancient Maya, 2) whether the ancient Maya also reared captive or tame populations of the local ocellated turkey (Meleagris ocellata), and 3) the utility of stable isotope ratios to distinguish between wild and managed turkey populations. Our results suggest isolated early (pre-AD 1000) introductions of turkeys to the Maya region. We further conclude that wild and managed/domesticated turkeys maintained distinct diets that may be determined through light stable isotope analysis.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Applications of Isotope Research in Zooarchaeology

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