AbstractIn the US Southwest and Northwest Mexico, people and turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) have had a reciprocal relationship for millennia; turkeys supplied feathers, meat, and other resources, whereas people provided food, shelter, and care. To investigate how turkeys fit within subsistence, economic production, sociopolitical organization, and religious and ritual practice in the Mimbres Valley of southwestern New Mexico, we report on genetic (mtDNA) and stable isotope (δ13C, δ15N) data from turkeys recovered from Mimbres Classic period (AD 1000–1130) sites. Results indicate that Mimbres aviculturists had haplogroup H1 and H2 turkeys, and most ate maize-based diets similar to humans, but some ate nonmaize and mixed diets. We contextualize these data to other turkey studies from the northern Southwest and discuss how the human-turkey relationship began, the evidence for pens and restricting turkey movement, and the socioecological factors related to turkey management during the Classic period, particularly the challenges associated with providing maize to turkeys during times of environmental stress. This study has broad relevance to places where people managed wild, tame, and domestic animals, and we offer new insights into how prehispanic, small-scale, middle-range agricultural societies managed turkeys for ritual and utilitarian purposes.

The pre-Hispanic settlement of Paquime (1150/1200-1450 CE) in northwestern Chihuahua exhibits extensive evidence of exchange connections with distant communities, including the remains of over 300 scarlet macaws (Ara macao), brilliantly plumed birds whose geographic origins lie at least 1000 km southeast in the humid lowlands of Mexico. Archaeological and historic records indicate that these birds were prized for their many cosmological associations, the multi-colored feathers which were widely traded and used in ceremonial attire, and their ability to mimic human speech. We use archaeological and isotopic investigations to infer the diet and geographic origin(s) of Paquime's scarlet macaw population. We examine 29 scarlet macaw bone samples from Paquime using radiogenic strontium isotope analysis. Our results demonstrate that Paquime's scarlet macaw population was primarily raised locally, though Paquime's inhabitants also acquired scarlet macaws from nearby Casas Grandes region settlements in Chihuahua and extra-regional locales that may have been as far away as their endemic homeland in Veracruz in eastern Mexico. Ultimately, our findings indicate that macaw aviculture at Paquime was complex and not congruent with any single previously proposed model.

The occurrence of nonlocal objects, raw materials, and ideas in the southwestern United States (U.S. SW) has long been recognized as evidence of interaction between prehispanic peoples of this region and those of greater Mesoamerica. Although many archaeologists have analyzed the directionality and potential means by which these objects and concepts moved across the landscape, few have assessed the degree to which Mesoamerican practices and traditional assemblages remained intact as the artifacts and ideas moved farther from their places of origin. The current study analyzes the distribution and deposition of blue-green stone mosaics, a craft technology that was well established in Mesoamerica by the Late Preclassic period (300 BC–AD 250) and spread to the U.S. SW by the start of the Hohokam Pioneer period (AD 475). We assess the spatial distribution, contextual deposition, and morphology of mosaics at sites within Hohokam Canal System 2, located in the Phoenix Basin of Arizona. We use these data to infer mosaics’ social value and function within Hohokam social structure. Analyses suggest that, although the technology of mosaic making may have originated in Mesoamerica, the contexts and ways in which mosaics were used in the Hohokam regional system were decidedly Hohokam.

The frequent deposition of animals in public spaces suggests a key role in public rituals in the prehispanic U.S. Southwest. Using ethnographic evidence and large-scale analysis of faunal remains in the Tonto Basin area of central Arizona, I ask whether ritual fauna cluster in socially integrative spaces and what implications this had for integrating migrant Puebloan populations with local people. The Tonto Basin area is typically considered Hohokam, but exhibits influence from neighboring Sinagua and Puebloan regions. The emergence of the Salado phenomenon and public architecture in the region is evidence of broad sociopolitical and religious change involving specific treatments and storage of fauna. I find that ritual fauna cluster in room contexts associated with socially integrative architecture suggest a centralization of ritual practice and storage. Ultimately, Tonto Basin communities targeted specific taxa for the enactment of public activities, aiding in the integration of non-local people.