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Conference / Symposium

Colloquium- The Economics of Raising Turkeys in the Northern US Southwest, AD 100-1600

About the event

Dr. Bill Lipe (Professor Emeritus) and Dr. Shannon Tushingham (Assistant Professor)
WSU Anthropology Department

A genetically distinctive variety of domestic turkey existed in the Northern or Upland Southwest from about 100 AD until sometime after full Spanish domination of the Pueblo Indians in the 1600s.  Throughout, the birds appear to have subsisted primarily on maize grown by their Pueblo keepers. They appear to have been valuable initially as a source of feathers for ritual uses and for making blankets.  We are attempting to estimate how many turkeys would have been required to furnish the 10,000 or more feathers used for each blanket.  As populations grew and the deer supply declined in AD 1100-1300, much larger numbers of turkeys were raised as an alternative meat source.  We present a model of the additional maize-growing area required to feed young turkeys until they were large enough to harvest.

Bill Lipe joined the WSU faculty in 1976, after employment at Binghamton University and the Museum of Northern Arizona.  His work in Southwestern archaeology began in the late 1950s.  In 2010, he received the American Anthropological Association’s Alfred Kidder award for achievement in American archaeology and from 1995-97 was president of the Society for American Archaeology.

Shannon Tushingham joined the WSU faculty in 2013 and serves as Assistant Professor and Director of the Museum of Anthropology.  Her research focuses on several topics in human-environment relationships and the archaeology of hunter-gatherer-fishers in western North America.

All are welcome to attend!

 

 

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