Abstract
Palaeopathological and metrical analyses of faunal remains have the potential to illuminate features of past husbandry practices including demography, stocking, injury and care, housing, transport and movement, diet, and breeding. This paper presents the results of metrical and palaeopathological analyses of turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) remains from nine assemblages excavated from sites across the American Southwest.Metrical data demonstrate variation in the size and overall morphology of turkeys across these sites and support the idea that meat production was not the sole purpose for turkey husbandry. The most frequently-occurring type of lesion in any skeletal element was trauma (physical injury), and 36% of these pathologies were present in ulnae. Lesions in ulnae at five sites provide evidence for the possibility that feathers were harvested from live turkeys at some sites.
Highlights
Whilst there is a broad acceptance of turkey domestication in some form, there is little understanding of quotidian husbandry practices, and interpretations are often based upon wild turkey behaviour or modern breeds and methods
Disease and injury in past animal populations were influenced by a range of human and environmental effects, as is the case today
Faunal material from nine sites in New Mexico and Utah which ranged in date from 900 to 1678 CE was examined for this research
Summary
Whilst there is a broad acceptance of turkey domestication in some form, there is little understanding of quotidian husbandry practices, and interpretations are often based upon wild turkey behaviour or modern breeds and methods. Lacking are studies of turkey keeping, or turkey-specific animal husbandry, a focus of this volume (Thornton, in this issue). Palaeopathology is one potentially powerful, if underdeveloped, area which can shed light on this subject. It provides a means of accessing a portion of the life histories of individual animals, vividly illustrates the impact of human behaviour, and reveals aspects of human attitudes to animals (Davies et al, 2005; Thomas and Miklíková, 2008; Bartosiewicz and Gál, 2013). Lesions present in faunal remains can inform upon the environment in which animals were kept (indoors or outdoors, damp conditions, stocking density), their feeding regime (nutritional deficiencies and excesses), handling methods (trauma), patterns in breeding (inherited conditions), as well as the care they may have received (Udrescu and Van Neer, 2005)
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