Abstract
From the Pueblo I to the Late Pueblo III periods (725–1280 CE), in the Mesa Verde and McElmo Dome regions of the American Southwest, turkey use continuously increased, then declined during the final period of widespread residential occupation in the region. Increasing aridity in the Late PIII period may have limited agricultural productivity, and consequently, the ability to provision turkeys. In this paper, we use C, Sr, and O isotope analyses of turkey bone (n = 95) from archaeological contexts to investigate whether the turkey diets and the locations where they were raised changed over time as a consequence of demographic and social changes in the region. Our results show that almost all turkeys were raised by Puebloan maize farmers in or in the vicinity of the McElmo Dome region and fed a C4-based diet, presumably dominated by maize, during the whole period under study. However, it seems that they were fed less maize during the late thirteenth century. Perhaps facing lower yield harvests, maize was prioritized for human consumption, which resulted in less intensified turkey production efforts and reduced investment in maize-provisioned flocks. Our results also attest to the occasional use of local (likely wild) turkeys not provisioned with maize, and one wild turkey brought in from a more distant area.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Bridget Ambler and the staff of the Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum for their assistance with the archaeological sample collection. We also thank Bruce Bradley, David Dove, and Four Corners Research and the staff of Crow Canyon Archaeological Center for their assistance with additional samples.
Funding
This project is funded by a National Science Foundation grant (BCS-1460436) to Jeffrey R. Ferguson and Karen Schollmeyer. The acquisition of the Nu Plasma II MC-ICP-MS was funded by the National Science Foundation (grant BCS-0922374). The Archaeometry Laboratory is supported by the National Science Foundation (grant BCS-1912776).
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Jacques Burlot: conceptualization, formal analysis, investigation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, visualization, and supervision; Joan Brenner-Coltrain: conceptualization, methodology, validation, formal analysis, investigation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, and funding acquisition; Virginie Renson: conceptualization, methodology, validation, investigation, writing—review and editing, and funding acquisition; Karen Schollmeyer: conceptualization, resources, writing—review and editing, and funding acquisition; Amanda Werlein: investigation; Jeffrey R. Ferguson: conceptualization, resources, writing—review and editing, project administration, and funding acquisition.
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Appendix 1: isotopic baseline of the Mesa Verde Region (US Southwest)
Appendix 1: isotopic baseline of the Mesa Verde Region (US Southwest)
Based on analysis of 55 rodents and 94 plants, Burlot et al. (2022) defined 13 zones in the Mesa Verde region delimited by their geography and geology (Fig. 5). Zone 1, whose geology includes primarily Pleistocene aeolian deposits with exposures of Cretaceous Dakota Sandstone and Upper Jurassic Morrison formation sandstone and mudstone, is the zone in which sites under study are located. Baseline faunal and plant samples collected in this zone feature a strontium isotopic range between 0.70934–0.70956. Called the “McElmo Dome Interval”, it distinguishes Zone 1 from other zones in study area. Zone 6, corresponding to the La Plata Mountains, presents higher 87Sr/86Sr values and, conversely, Zone 10, located to the south, has lower 87Sr/86Sr values (Burlot et al. 2022).
Map of the Mesa Verde region showing the thirteen main geologic and geographical zones (basemap source: Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey). Legend simplified from the original map
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Burlot, J., Coltrain, J.B., Renson, V. et al. Turkey domestication and provisioning in the Mesa Verde Region (US Southwest), Pueblo I to Pueblo III (725–1280 CE): C, Sr, and O isotope analyses. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 16, 36 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-024-01937-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-024-01937-2