Constructed Spaces and Managed Species: Niche Construction Theory and "Wild" Turkey Management during the Mississippian Period in the Southeastern United States

Summary

Pre-Columbian peoples of the Southeastern United States systematically altered their environment through forest clearing, gardening, terraforming, and urban planning. The end result of these activities encouraged certain native animals like the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) to occupy these constructed and managed environments, especially forest-edges and agricultural fields. The sustained daily interactions between species resulted in a special and complex human-turkey relationship. In some areas of the Americas the end result is evidenced as domestication, while in the Southeastern United States, a unique style of free-range turkey management was in place by at least AD 1250. Working from the theoretical basis of niche construction theory, we bring together the ethnographic and ethnohistoric record of Southeastern Native Americans, biological literature on wild turkeys, and morphometric data from a Mississippian Period (ca. AD 1250-1450) archaeological turkey assemblage to present a more nuanced understanding of the cultural engagement of a not-so wild species.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Where the Wild Things Are Not: Human-Animal Interaction in the Space between Wild and Domestic   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15926