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Livestock

Turkey

Also Known As Domestic turkey
Poultry

The large American poultry bird, domesticated by peoples of Mesoamerica well before European contact and carried back across the Atlantic after 1492, where it became a major farmed meat bird in Europe and, above all, the centerpiece of the North American Thanksgiving and Christmas table. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Disputed
Domesticated When (Circa)
circa 800 BC to 100 AD, debated 1
Estimates for pre-Columbian domestication in Mesoamerica range from roughly 800 BC to 100 AD depending on the site and method.
Era (category)
Iron Age 1
w-freetextvocab-ae-0926: category derived from this entity's own free-text era/class property; the source property's own status (debated) carries whatever is unresolved about the underlying date or classification, this derived category fact makes no further claim beyond bucketing that same text.
Scientific Name
Meleagris gallopavo domesticus 1
Domestication Region
Mesoamerica (central Mexico) 1
Primary Uses
Meat; historically feathers, and ceremonial use in some Indigenous American traditions 1
Turkey
Connections

Associated With

Columbian Exchange, Concepts

Carried from the Americas to Europe as part of the Columbian Exchange, then bred there and reintroduced to North America by colonists.

Source Turkey, bird (Wikipedia)

In Discipline

Animal Husbandry, Disciplines
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Turkey, bird (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Lead section
    The North American wild turkey is the ancestor of the domestic turkey, which was domesticated approximately 2,000 years ago by indigenous peoples.
  • Taxonomy section
    Turkeys are classed in the family Phasianidae (pheasants, partridges, francolins, junglefowl, grouse, and relatives thereof) in the taxonomic order Galliformes.
  • Domestication section
    Turkeys were likely first domesticated in Pre-Columbian Mexico, where they held a cultural and symbolic importance.
  • Uses section
    Turkey forms a central part of modern Thanksgiving celebrations in the United States of America, and is often eaten at similar holiday occasions, such as Christmas.
  • Associated With: Columbian Exchange
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