The Contextual Analysis of Animal Interments and Ritual Practice in Southwestern North America

Paleodiet of domestic turkey, Shields Pueblo (5MT3807), Colorado: isotopic analysis and its implications for care of a household domesticate

“…While turkeys were not present in large quantities during the early periods (Pueblo I and II), their domestication is demonstrated through the presence of non-osteological remains (such as eggshell, gizzard stones, accumulations of turkey droppings, and pens or enclosures) as well as osteological remains (Munro, 1994: 94). During the first three hundred years of domestication, turkeys were used primarily for ritual purposes (as turkey interments in kivas or in human burials and their feathers for medicine bundles and prayer sticks) and for domestic utilitarian use of feathers for blanket manufacture, cordage, and arrow fletching (Akins, 1985;Hill, 2000;Lange, 1950;McKusick, 1980McKusick, , 1986McKusick, , 2001. At about A.D. 900, domestic turkey shifted from ritual use to an increasingly important meat resource, and thus increases in frequency in archaeological assemblages (Akins, 1985;Munro, 1994).…”

The Establishment and Defeat of Hierarchy: Inalienable Possessions and the History of Collective Prestige Structures in the Pueblo Southwest

“…Altar furniture, especially flat, carved wooden artifacts from caches and sealed rooms, have been recovered from a number of contexts throughout the Southwest (Hays-Gilpin and Hill 2000;Vivian et al 1978). Most of the wooden objects identified as altar furniture have been recovered from caves or rooms devoid of other architectural evidence for ritual use.…”

Hunting intensification and the Hohokam “collapse”

“…As was mentioned above, aquatic birds were included in this category, rather than in the category of aquatic or semi-aquatic prey, because the tactics used to hunt them were similar to those used to hunt other birds. Raptor species were not included in this category because of the likelihood that such animals were mostly or wholly collected for ritual, rather than economic, reasons (Hill, 2000).…”