As Thanksgiving approaches we all try to remember to count our blessings, but we should also give thanks to the animal that sacrificed it all for our holiday meal — the noble turkey. Bald eagles aside, turkeys are one of the most recognizable birds native to North America, and their meaty bulk has earned them a place on tables all around the world. Turkeys have been kept for food, and for other purposes, since well before the Pilgrims touched our shores. They were likely an important food source for Native Americans — who may have done more than just hunt them.
Now, researchers from the Chicago Field Museum say that they have discovered the earliest known evidence of turkey domestication. Working at a dig site in Oaxaca, a state in southwestern Mexico, they uncovered a clutch of turkey eggs 1,500 years old, along with bones and shell fragments. The find ...
