# Did Native Americans domesticate any animals? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 3, 2004, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387 "2004-07-03T18:10:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/1 "2004-07-03T18:10:39Z")
Horses were not indiginous to the Americas. Buffalo were followed by some of the tribes, but not, to my knowledge, domesticated. Did Native Americans have any domestic animals? ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/2 "2004-07-03T18:24:23Z")
IIRC, dogs are pretty much it in North America In central/south America, there are Lllamas and other cameloids. (insert obligatory reference to “Guns, Germs and Steel”) Brian ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/3 "2004-07-03T18:46:41Z")
:::pulls out his copy of the aforementioned book::: On the small-animal side of things, Diamond lists the following species domesticated in the following regions in the New World: [ul] [li] turkeys, Mesoamerica[/li][li] Muscovy duck, South America[/li][li] wolves/dogs, North America[/li][li] guinea pig, Andes[/li][li] [hutia](http://www.americazoo.com/goto/index/mammals/217.htm), Caribbean (Diamond lists this as “possible”)[/li][/ul] Add the llama to this and I think you’ve got the entire pre-Columbian barnyard. I don’t know, however, whether any of these species were adopted by societies outside of their zone of domestication. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/4 "2004-07-03T22:33:23Z")
Thee were horses in North America. Indeed horses originated in North America and later spread into Europe and Asia. Whether horses were present when the first people arrived in North America is speculative, but it seem probable that there were, and that they were promptly exterminated. There is one more species that need to be added too Mike M’s list: chickens. Chickens are not not native to the Americas but then it seems likely that the domestic dogs are not natives either. They were introduced many thousands of years ago by Polynesians or proto-Polynesians and have been kept in domestic form ever since. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/5 "2004-07-04T04:13:35Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Chickens are not not native to the Americas but then it seems likely that the domestic dogs are not natives either. They were introduced many thousands of years ago by Polynesians or proto-Polynesians and have been kept in domestic form ever since. Polynesians reached the Americas (I assume you don’t count Hawaii)? Got a cite for that? ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/6 "2004-07-04T07:01:34Z")
Also Llamas ---
**Author:** ![Bob55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Bob55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob55)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/7 "2004-07-04T17:07:56Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Polynesians reached the Americas (I assume you don’t count Hawaii)? Got a cite for that? I saw a documentary on how they found Polynesian coins in Arizona. Also I heard that chocolate is native to S. America but is mentioned (or brought back to) in Egypt. But yeah any cites on visitors to America before Columbus and the Vikings would be interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/8 "2004-07-04T17:35:12Z")
> [@Bob55](#): > > I saw a documentary on how they found Polynesian coins in Arizona. Also I heard that chocolate is native to S. America but is mentioned (or brought back to) in Egypt. Now _that_ I’d like to see cites for. I am unaware of any Polynesian society that minted coins and I have never heard of this purported chocolate/Egypt business either. The South Pacific/Americas connection is still speculative as far as I know. I believe is based primarily on the discovery of the Monte Verde site and possibly some other sister cites on the Pacific coast of South America, that may pre-date the earliest proposed Bering land-bridge cross. The idea is that the settlement of the Americas may have been multi-pronged, with at least one group possibly arriving by sea. But I don’t believe there is a real smoking gun for that yet. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/9 "2004-07-05T00:49:15Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > There is one more species that need to be added too Mike M’s list: chickens. Chickens (_Gallus gallus_) were not present in the Americas before they were brought there by Columbus on his second voyage in 1493. Certainly Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, the first naturalist of the Americas, makes no mention of the Indians having any domestic Gallus-type chickens, in his _Natural History of the West Indies_ (1526), and distinguishes the fowl-like birds that were present in the Americas from “Spanish chickens.” ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/10 "2004-07-06T01:11:11Z")
No Colibri, chickens (Gallus gallus) were present in the Americas well before they were brought there by Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, just as sweet potatoes were present in Polyneisa well before Columbus. The best evidence that these pre-Coulmbian chickens were indeed Polyeneaisan fowls has come from genetic evidence, which is in trun the best evidence that Polyneaisans reached South America many thousand s of yeas ago. Since chickens don’t naturally occur in South America and Sweet Potatoes don’t naturally occur in Polynesia there seem to be one obvious solution to the apparent dilemma. You may dispute the intrepretation of the facts Colibri, as you often do, but one perfectly valid interpretation accepted by any number or reputable anthropologists and geneticists is that Polynesian chickens existed in South America for thousands of years prior to Columbus. > [@](#): > > However, there is now evidence that suggests that other ancient migrations occurred across l the Pacific. Following sea currents and trade winds, people gradually crossed the Pacific from island to island, eventually reaching the South American Coast as early as 3,000 BC. The voyage across the Pacific to South America by adventurer-archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl in his polynesian built boat demonstrated this to be possible; Further evidence can be seen primarily in the presence in South America from an early date of agricultural products that are known to have originated in Southeast Asia-- notably chickens and cotton. [http://char.txa.cornell.edu/nonwest/north/northhis.htm](http://char.txa.cornell.edu/nonwest/north/northhis.htm) > [@](#): > > That the Polynesians reached South America and returned is suggested by preserved remains of the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), a South American domesticate, in several prehistoric Polynesian sites. [http://www.arf.berkeley.edu/~oal/background/pacislands.htm](http://www.arf.berkeley.edu/~oal/background/pacislands.htm) > [@](#): > > There are many references concerning the supposed transpacific origin of a long list of cultural traits in different prehispanic american cultures (Dixon, 1933; Emory, 1942; Imbelloni, 1953; Rivet, 1960; Estrada et al, 1962; Meggers, 1975, 1987; Jett, 1983), even the “exchange” of valuable foods: the sweet potato (called “kumara” in both areas), a definetely american cultigen (Yen, 1974). Peter Buck (1938) first said that “kumara” was brought back by polynesian pioneers; the prehispanic chicken in America seems to have come from Polynesia (Carter, 1976). [http://leahi.kcc.hawaii.edu/org/pvs/rapanui/mapuche.html](http://leahi.kcc.hawaii.edu/org/pvs/rapanui/mapuche.html) ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/11 "2004-07-06T02:59:22Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > No Colibri, chickens (Gallus gallus) were present in the Americas well before they were brought there by Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, just as sweet potatoes were present in Polyneisa well before Columbus. The best evidence that these pre-Coulmbian chickens were indeed Polyeneaisan fowls has come from genetic evidence, which is in trun the best evidence that Polyneaisans reached South America many thousand s of yeas ago. > > Since chickens don’t naturally occur in South America and Sweet Potatoes don’t naturally occur in Polynesia there seem to be one obvious solution to the apparent dilemma. Well, actually the sweet potato evidence remains somewhat shaky or at least disputed. Some botanists think natural dispersal is more than a possibility and I have also seen claims that the supposed linguistic evidence is deeply flawed. That said the genetic evidence linking chickens to Polynesia would be very interesting ( I haven’t run across that before ). - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![adirondack\_mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5a626/32.png) [@adirondack\_mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adirondack_mike)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/12 "2004-07-06T03:24:48Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Now _that_ I’d like to see cites for. I am unaware of any Polynesian society that minted coins and I have never heard of this purported chocolate/Egypt business either. > > - Tamerlane Well, they’re not exactly [minted.](http://www.archaeology.org/0403/abstracts/yap.html) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/13 "2004-07-06T04:07:28Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > No Colibri, chickens (Gallus gallus) were present in the Americas well before they were brought there by Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, just as sweet potatoes were present in Polyneisa well before Columbus. The best evidence that these pre-Coulmbian chickens were indeed Polyeneaisan fowls has come from genetic evidence, which is in trun the best evidence that Polyneaisans reached South America many thousand s of yeas ago. Please provide an actual cite for this genetic evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/14 "2004-07-06T04:22:05Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Well, actually the sweet potato evidence remains somewhat shaky or at least disputed. Some botanists think natural dispersal is more than a possibility and I have also seen claims that the supposed linguistic evidence is deeply flawed. [This site](http://cgi.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1984421) presents several theories of how the sweet potato might have reached Polynesia. Of course, a two-way journey by Polynesians is only one of them; it could just as well have arrived there by a one-way journey by South Americans. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/15 "2004-07-06T05:45:15Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > The South Pacific/Americas connection is still speculative as far as I know. I believe is based primarily on the discovery of the Monte Verde site and possibly some other sister cites on the Pacific coast of South America, that may pre-date the earliest proposed Bering land-bridge cross. The idea is that the settlement of the Americas may have been multi-pronged, with at least one group possibly arriving by sea. But I don’t believe there is a real smoking gun for that yet. Not just the Monte Verde site, but most (all?) of the pre-Clovis sites seem to tell the same story. I think it would be a huge stretch, though, to call these pre-Clovis people Polynesians. I’m not saying you are implying that, and I think you are not, but it could be read that way in that you were responding to \*Bob’s \* post which was a response to my question to \*\*Blake \*\* about Polynesians in the Americas. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2004, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-native-americans-domesticate-any-animals/253387/16 "2004-07-07T23:09:08Z")
Since it looks like **Blake** isn’t coming back with an actual cite on the genetic evidence he mentioned, I suppose I should summarize the evidence I am aware of for the proposition that chickens were present in the Americas before Columbus. Some researchers have advanced this idea. However, as far as I can tell, the evidence for it is scanty, and that which does exist is questionable. It is certainly not something generally accepted by mainstream authorities. For example, the account in the _Handbook of the Birds of the World_ on the spread of the domestic chicken doesn’t even mention the idea. One of the chief proponents of this idea has been the geographer George F. Carter, in particular in the article “Pre-Columbian Chickens in America” (in: Man Across the Sea: Problems of Pre-Columbian Contacts, 1971, edited by Carroll L. Riley, et al). While I have not been able to get a copy of the article itself, it would appear from various discussions on the web that Carter’s main points were (1) many native groups in the Americas already had chickens when first contacted by Europeans; (2) local breeds of chickens in the Americas are more similar to those of Asia than those of Europe; (3) cultural practices related to chickens indicate they had been present a long time, and some show links to Asia; and (4) linguistic evidence pointing to an Asian connection. Balanced against this mostly circumstantial evidence must be the apparent absence of pre-Columbian chicken remains from archeological sites in the Americas, when there is abundant evidence for other species that were used for food or for ritual. (A couple of websites mentioned supposed chicken bones from pre-Columbian sites in Chile and Mexico. However, since they cite no primary references, I can’t evaluate whether this evidence is valid - the bones may not have been correctly identified, or may not actually belong to pre-Columbian layers due to site disturbance, etc. In any case, chicken bones are definitely not widespread in pre-contact sites. This is pretty difficult to explain if they were a common domestic animal.) Regarding Carter’s points: 1. Presence of chickens pre-contact. There is no question that Columbus brought chickens to the West Indies in 1493. Given Oviedo’s account, chickens were evidently not present in the West Indies, Panama, or the Caribbean coast of South America (the areas Oviedo was familiar with) before this date (a fact which I believe is acknowledged by Carter). The other accounts that Carter cites would date anywhere from 20 to 100 years or more after the date of the introduction by Columbus. First, there is a question as to whether all the accounts Carter mentions actually refer to chickens, and not some native fowl-like bird. Many of the early explorers were not too reliable on questions of this sort. Second, even if these accounts are correct, given the time between introduction and first contact, it is quite possible chickens could have been distributed by trade between adjacent groups in advance of the actual arrival of explorers. Carter believes they could not have spread so quickly. However, given the dearth of archeological remains I believe this explanation is much the more likely one. 2. Asiatic breeds in the Americas. The Spanish were traveling regularly between Mexico and their colony in the Philippines (as well as other sites in Asia) from about 1540 on. There was plenty of opportunity for them to have brought back Asian stock. These tropical breeds could well have been more suited to the Spanish colonies than temperate European stock and hence have spread more widely. 3. Cultural evidence. The instances I have seen mentioned don’t seem terribly convincing to me. Rituals formerly attached to native birds could have become transferred to chickens after they were introduced. Regarding supposed parallels with Asian practices, such similarities are not necessarily evidence of contact. 4. Linguistic evidence. Carter was not a linguist, and again the examples cited don’t seem compelling to me. Like many diffusionists, he grasps at any fancied resemblance between words used by groups scattered over vast areas. For example, he cites similarities to words used in America to those in Japan, which can hardly be used to support introduction by Polynesians! > [@Blake](#): > > You may dispute the intrepretation of the facts Colibri, as you often do, but one perfectly valid interpretation accepted by any number or reputable anthropologists and geneticists is that Polynesian chickens existed in South America for thousands of years prior to Columbus. Actually, from what I have seen I would say that “any number” is actually “very few.” (And I’ll ask you again to please cite some primary references if you have any, rather than vague statements on not-very-authoritative websites.) And given that eastern Polynesia (including the Marquesas) was not settled until c. 150 B.C., and Easter Island not until 400-500 A.D., Polynesians (with or without chickens) could hardly have reached the Americas “thousands of years” before Columbus. **Blake** , I have no problem with you bringing up the theory that chickens were present in the Americas before Columbus as a possibility. Given their sailing ability, I acknowledge that a few Polynesians could have made it to the Americas, and it is possible that they might have brought chickens with them (although I personally don’t think the evidence supports this). What I do take issue with is your stating the theory _as if it were a generally established fact_, instead of being decidedly a fringe idea. Here are a couple of links to a newsgroup discussion on the subject in which a poster named Yuri Kuchinsky presents Carter’s evidence, which is subsequently mostly demolished by the other posters: [http://www.globalserve.net/~yuku/dif/wch1212.htm](http://www.globalserve.net/~yuku/dif/wch1212.htm) discussion continued here: [http://www.andes.missouri.edu/Personal/DMartinez/Diffusion/threads.html#00014](http://www.andes.missouri.edu/Personal/DMartinez/Diffusion/threads.html#00014)