Fox Farm, a Large Fort Ancient Village in Mason County, Kentucky: Evidence of Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) Management?

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Current Research on Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) Domestication, Husbandry and Management in North America and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Investigations of wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) remains from archaeological sites in Central America and the American Southwest have generated new data about the management and domestication of this species. We applied the methods used in those studies to our analysis of a large sample of wild turkey bones recovered from Middle to Late Fort Ancient (A.D. 1300-1650) deposits at Fox Farm (15MS1), a large, intensively occupied Fort Ancient farming village situated on an interior ridgetop in northern Kentucky. Our study seeks to understand how and why the residents of Fox Farm lived in this setting for such a long time. Our data show that site residents were taking immature turkeys and egg-laying females. Unlike at most sites, however, where relatively equal numbers of males and females are present, the Fox Farm assemblage contains twice as many males as females. These patterns are discussed with respect to what insights they reveal about the potential management of turkeys by Fort Ancient people. Evidence for turkey management would fit into a broader emerging model of the active management of key natural resources in the area surrounding the Fox Farm site.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Current Research on Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) Domestication, Husbandry and Management in North America and Beyond

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23918