Thread by @DamnResearch

Struggling to find the motivation to do my reading for tomorrow, so I have decided to live tweet it & see how that goes. The chapter is about animal domestication in the Americas...how, where & why did it happen? What animals were involved? Join me to find out...

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Source is "Handbook of South American Archaeology" by H. Silverman & W.H. Isbell.

Chapter: "Animal domestication in South America" by P.W. Stahl.

Imaginitive titles, I know.

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Only a few animals were domesticated in the Americas. We'll be looking at 5 of them: 2 camelids, 2 birds & a rodent (get your guesses in quick). The comparative absence of animal husbandry vs Eurasia is because fewer domesticable animals survived the Ice Age in the Americas! 3/?

First up is the Muscovy duck. A rather large duck species that is capable of perching thanks to its claws. It can be found across most of Central America & as far south as Peru & Argentina.

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We're not sure when or where this duck was domesticated. It's difficult to distinguish btw tame & wild bones! We know it's sometime in 1st millenium CE. Why? They're hardy, omnivorous, fecund & good egg layers. It's possible they were initially used for pest control on crops. 5/?

Next we have the humble guinea-pig, or cuy. Various species are found throughout S America. It's debated which one is the ancestor of the domestic lineage, C.aperea or C.tschudii. Easy to catch, easy to keep & eager to breed. It's not hard to see why they were domesticated! 6/?

Cuy appear in the archaeological record c.9000 BCE in Colombia. Early evidence for penning comes from Puente Cave, Peru in 5470 BCE, although these prob weren't fully domesticated specimens. Full domestication occurred btw 3600 BCE & 700 BCE on archaeological evidence. 7/?

Fascinating fact:

Turkey's were domesticated twice! Once in Mesoamerica, sometime btw 800 BCE & 180 CE, & again in SW United States btw 200 BCE & 500 CE! However, all modern turkeys descend from the Mesoamerican stock!

Wild turkey (r), domestic (l).

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Different source for that tidbit btw:

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Just realised I got my left & right the wrong way round on the turkey tweet! 😬😂🤦‍♂️

Little bit of palaeontology in this final section on camelids. Say hello to Hemiauchenia the ancestor of the llama, alpaca, vicuna & guanaco, which crossed into S America at the end of the Pliocene. Also the progenitor of the extinct genus Paleolama. 10/?

(Roman Uchytel)

Why they were getting into this? There was a battle over taxonomy, as all 4 camelids could interbreed & have fertile offspring, yet were morphologically different enough to be 2 separate genus. Genetics confirmed the latter! Llamas descend from guanacos, alpacas from vicunas. 11/

Whatever the scientific debate over classification, the Quechua have their own complex taxonomy for llama & alpaca, with 1000s of descriptive references, based on everything from fleece quality & markings to reproductive status & age. 12/?

So there's a big problem is identifying which camelids were domesticated when & where, as all their bones are pretty similar. Prior to about 5500 BCE deer/camelid remains were fairly equal by 4000 BCE camelid control is apparent at some sites.

Llama (l), vicuna (r)

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Conclusion:

We only have a rough idea when/where domestication happened for most of these animals. It's often impossible to tell the difference btw wild/tame specimens, which is further complicated by interbreeding.

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