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posted by janrinok on Wednesday November 30 2016, @11:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the giving-someone-the-bird dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dlb on Thursday December 01 2016, @01:08AM

    by dlb (4790) on Thursday December 01 2016, @01:08AM (#435228)
    Our state's DNR has been reintroducing turkeys locally. Small flocks of the gregarious bird have become a common site along side the road, and surprisingly, it's uncommon to see a turkey road kill. They're smarter than they look.
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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by edIII on Thursday December 01 2016, @01:38AM

    by edIII (791) on Thursday December 01 2016, @01:38AM (#435237)

    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.