Let’s talk turkey: Exploring the use of turkeys in the Southwest United States through ancient DNA analysis
Camilla Speller is a doctoral student in the Archaeology Department at Simon Fraser University. In 1999, she received her BA in Archaeology and Physical Anthropology from the University of Calgary. Her MA research, completed at SFU, used ancient DNA analysis to examine the distribution of preferred salmon species at an archaeological site on the Northwest Plateau. Her PhD research interests continue to be focused on ancient DNA analysis of archaeological faunal remains to study past subsistence strategies. She is in the final year of her PhD program, and her dissertation centers on the pre-contact use of wild and domestic turkey in the Southwest United States.
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As one of the few New World animal domesticates, the turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) represented an important resource for the Ancestral Pueblo of the Southwest United States. Despite the rich history of Southwest archaeology, several questions concerning the domestication and use of turkey remain unanswered, including the geographic origin of turkey domestication, the subspecies that were exploited, and the process by which turkey stocks were bred and traded within the region. This study applied ancient DNA analysis to nearly 200 archaeological turkey remains to investigate the distribution of turkey subspecies and domestic stocks within the Southwest. The results of this study are presented.