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Archaeologists have unearthed evidence that native Americans were raising turkeys for centuries before the European colonists even arrived in the Americas.
"Our research tells us that turkeys had been domesticated by 400-500 AD," explained Gary Feinman, an archaeologist at The Field Museum in Chicago, in a press release.
Dr. Feinman and colleagues found unhatched turkey eggs alongside the bones of both juvenile and adult birds at a 1,500-year-old archaeological site in Oaxaca, Mexico. "The fact that we see a full clutch of unhatched turkey eggs, along with other juvenile and adult turkey bones nearby, tells us that these birds were domesticated," Feinman said.
We know Native American cultures like the Mississippians practiced intensive agriculture. It looks like they also practiced animal husbandry. It's a much different picture from the hunter-gatherers of the modern, popular imagination.
(Score: 5, Informative) by edIII on Wednesday November 30 2016, @11:48PM
It isn't difficult at all to live alongside Turkeys. Amazingly funny and expressive creatures, they can grow fond of human interaction. Of course, corn helps. Helps a lot, and will even turn them into little stalkers that will knock their beaks on your window in the morning. I can see Tonto getting pissed because a turkey crept into the tee-pee trying to get his attention.
If you were nice to the Turkeys with corn and a friendly non-threatening demeanor (read: slow movements), you could easily have 20-30 Turkeys (our population) spending a good part of the year with you. Just feed them corn on the ground, and provide an area where other smaller creatures and predators avoid it. To my knowledge, the most difficult part of reproduction for turkeys comes from the fact that the little ones don't roost in trees for some time. That means the mom has to run around on the forest floor protecting them. We've lost every baby turkey for 3 years in row from our farm cats. Which has got us thinking about how we may corral the females and the young ones for a few months and then release them. Similarly, I imagine it was within the means of native Americans to provide these safe spaces for them, that they would attract to naturally.
I wouldn't imagine the native Americans were taking the females either, as you need females to make more turkeys, and only one dominant male is needed. We've considered taking one for Thanksgiving, but never considered taking a female. When they lose a male, they don't care. If a female is injured, the females will stick around trying to help her.
They can get quite tame, and willing to follow a human around. I've lead at least 12 of them into a forest one walking in a single file line, which was a lot funnier and cuter than it sounds. Domesticated may be a stretch, since you can't really *touch* a turkey for any reason, but friendly coexistence is possible quite easily.
Oddly enough, our turkeys always take a vacation around Thanksgiving and don't appear again till the weekend after. It's like they understand why my uncle is staring at them :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday December 01 2016, @12:34AM
You should tell them that they are safe if they use a dominant male to make babies.
Americans eat thanksgiving turkeys which are bred to be so fat they can't reproduce naturally, and have to be artificially inseminated.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dlb on Thursday December 01 2016, @01:08AM
(Score: 3, Funny) by edIII on Thursday December 01 2016, @01:38AM
They're fairly adept at avoiding objects. Smarter than they look?
I once heard three males go nuts, and by the time I saw them they were chasing each other around a tree like a cartoon. You couldn't tell who was chasing who, and the chased had to be chasing a chaser within a foot. Went on for at least 10 minutes until they tired of running, or the chased finally decided to alter direction.
Never thought turkeys would be a comedy show, but they certainly are.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:55AM
Hard to have a "happy thanksgiving" with Standing Rock going on.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek