Exploring the history of turkey management and domestication - A transatlantic perspective

This volume describes the origin of the turkey (Meleagris spp.), its domestication and management through time and across the world. After a first chapter dedicated to the evolutionary history, the biology and the distribution of the genus Meleagris, the volume is divided into two parts. The first part explores the early cultural history of the turkey in North and Central America across eight chapters dedicated to the Great American Southwest, Northern Mexico, Mesoamerica, Central America and Eastern North America. It is caped by a last, trans-regional chapter, on the use of isotopes to understand turkey management and domestication in the Americas. The second part describes the global journey of the common turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), starting with its adoption in multiple European countries. Eight chapters explore the early depictions, testimonies and archaeozoological evidence in France, England, Italy, the Southern Lowcountries (modern Belgium and Netherlands), Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Estonia, with a chapter dedicated to the presence of the turkeys in cookbooks from France, Italy, England, Spain and Portugal. The worldwide dispersal of domestic turkeys, their re-introduction to America through the colonial economy and further travel across the Pacific Ocean are addressed in two chapters to reach a better understanding of turkey husbandry and cultural symbol in the 21st century.