[Aztlan] Scarlet Macaw trade at Paquime

[Elaine Schele]

Michael,

Thank you so much for this wonder story. As some of you may know, I
own a blue and gold macaw (this breed is originally from Brazil,
although mine is from Houston, Texas) and so stories about the ancient
captivity, breading and feeding of birds is of interest to me.  For
the most part, David and I feed our bird (she is female) the same
thing that we eat, although she also gets pellets.  Her favorite is
pasta and she loves CORN CHIPS, so I can see how these ancient birds
would also have scarfed down maize.

I would like to make a comment about one of the statements that
Michael Whalen made "...male and female macaws are notoriously
difficult to tell apart, he says, making effective breeding dicey."
In reality, there is a method to tell males and females apart,
although it is not as full-proof as a blood test.  In the females,
there is a larger space between the bones near the anus, where the
eggs come out.  It is narrower in the males.  I believe that this
difference would have been noticed by the breeders at this Paquimé.

I should also mention that macaws shed tons of feathers all year round
and there would be lots to harvest if there were hundreds of birds at
this location.

Elaine Schele
PhD Candidate
University of Texas
http://gispalenque.blogspot.com/
http://volunteermayameetings.blogspot.com/


On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 11:41 AM, michael ruggeri <michaelruggeri at mac.com> wrote:
>
> Listeros,
>
> In a follow up study on the breeding of macaws at Paquime for trade
> purposes from 1200-1450 CE, a new analysis of bones of pre-historic
> macaws at the site appears to show that the people of Paquime raised
> most of the macaw birds themselves and did not import the great
> majority of the birds from the tropics. Feathers were harvested for
> ceremonial garb and for trade with the Southwest. Measurements of
> carbon and oxygen isotopes in scarlet macaws at Paquime indicate the
> birds ate mostly maize which they did not eat in the tropics. The new
> research shows that Paquime residents developed macaw breeding
> technology without the need for a close connection to the rest of
> Mesoamerica. The bones of 322 scarlet macaws, 181 macaws of other
> species and feces of macaws in 56 adobe cages were included in this
> new study. Not only did these birds not have a history of eating
> tropical foods but only one of the birds studied drank water from a
> place other than Paquime.
> There is some question as to whether juvenile birds may have been
> transported in large numbers and then fed maize and water from Paquime
> changing the measurements.
>
> Science News has the report here;
> http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/49308/title/Macaws_bred_far_from_tropics_during_pre-Columbian_times
>
> A tiny URL;
> http://fwd4.me/3I8
>
> Mike Ruggeri
>
> There are more reports on the scarlet macaw trade on my web page below;
>
> Mike Ruggeri's The Casas Grandes World and the Turquoise Road
> http://tinyurl.com/62wp8z
>
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