There and Back Again: A Foragers-Farmers Model of Turkey Domestication (Part I)

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.

The human-domesticate relationship has long been a focus of archaeologists, and advances in archaeological science have revealed the dynamics of husbandry practices. But why domesticate? Evolutionary ecology suggests expanding human populations, depressed habitats, and the need to produce more food are potential reasons for adoption, but the timing, nature, and decision-making processes of this transition remain unclear. Focusing on the turkey (Meleagris gallapavo) we ask: why fodder, if hunting wild turkeys provides a comparable source of meat? Drawing on the central place foraging model, we hypothesize that distance of wild turkey procurement is an important factor in transitioning to domesticates. Results demonstrate that turkey hunting remains energetically profitable, even when round trip travel distances are ~100km, but the energetic cost required to provision domesticated turkeys are high. In order for the domesticated bird to produce net caloric gains that outweigh returns from hunting, only ~15% maize-foddering costs can be expended prior to slaughter at full body weight. This comparison suggests that domesticates should only be adopted when local and non-local habitats are extremely depleted, and/or non-caloric currencies are optimized. Ethnohistorical and ecological data are used to explore several currencies optimized during domestication.

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24422