Household-level Management of Small game at Teotihuacan, Mexico: Zooarchaeological and Isotopic Proxies from Plaza of the Columns Complex

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Complex Human-Animal Interactions in the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the absence of large domesticates, one of the New World’s largest cities seems full of paradoxes. At Teotihuacan, the two known domesticates, the dog and turkey (17%), and the largest readily available herbivore, deer (11%), were not major contributors to animal protein, yet, there is no evidence of elevated cases of animal protein deficiency in the human remains. Continuing previous scholarship on rabbit management in the city, we present zooarchaeological and isotopic results of animal management from a state-coordinated feasting deposit at a civic administrative center in the urban core at Plaza of the Columns Complex. Small game seems to have provided most of the predictable resources to feed the masses. We hypothesize that household-level management of small game, including rabbits, quail, and turkey, were adaptive strategies in the urban core, providing predictable and accessible animal protein to a highly metropolitan and densely occupied city. Variability in the isotopic values indicative of degrees of anthropogenic diet, even among domestic turkeys, likely originate from diverse acquisition strategies (household, market, and opportunistic hunting), scale of operation (for immediate household consumption versus market exchange), and urban density.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Complex Human-Animal Interactions in the Americas

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52494