Scientists Find Evidence of 1,000-Year-Old Parrot-Breeding Operation in the American Southwest
By Ryan F. Mandelbaum on 23 Aug 2018 at 4:00PM
DNA evidence appears to have revealed an ancient parrot-breeding operation in the southwestern United States, a new study reports.
A team of researchers from several US universities analysed ancient scarlet macaw DNA to try to understand how so many scarlet macaw skeletons ended up outside their native range of Central and South America. After reconstructing genomes from bird bones, it appeared that some group of humans had bred the macaws.
“Our results suggest that people at an undiscovered Pre-Hispanic settlement dating between 900 and 1200 CE managed a macaw breeding colony outside their endemic range and distributed these symbolically important birds through the [Southwestern United States],†the authors wrote in the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/08/scientists-find-evidence-of-1000-year-old-parrot-breeding-operation-in-the-american-southwest/
