Free Republic

"Some of these birds did not live a happy life. They were kept to produce feathers and their feathers were plucked out as soon as they grew in."...In total, at least six species of parrots originally recovered from five of the desert's archaeological sites were studied in the research, with the remains variously dating from between 1100 to 1450..."The feathers of tropical birds were one of the most significant symbols of economic, social, and sacred status in the pre-Columbian Americas," the authors write in their study."In the Andes, finely produced clothing and textiles containing multicolored feathers of tropical parrots materialized...

Historically, scarlet macaws lived from South America to eastern coastal Mexico and Guatemala, thousands of miles from the American Southwest. Previously, researchers thought that ancestral Puebloan people might have traveled to these natural breeding areas and brought birds back, but the logistics of transporting adolescent birds are difficult. None of the sites where these early macaw remains were found contained evidence of breeding—eggshells, pens or perches. "We were interested in the prehistoric scarlet macaw population history and the impacts of human direct management," said George. "Especially any evidence for directed breeding or changes in the genetic diversity that could co-occur...

New work on the skeletal remains of scarlet macaws found in an ancient Pueblo settlement indicates that social and political hierarchies may have emerged in the American Southwest earlier than previously thought. Researchers determined that the macaws, whose brilliant red and blue feathers are highly prized in Pueblo culture, were persistently traded hundreds of miles north from Mesoamerica starting in the early 10th century, at least 150 years before the origin of hierarchy is usually attributed. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the acquisition and control of macaws, along with other valued...