Health and Husbandry of Scarlet Macaws Among Ancient Communities in the Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico: Taking a Biological Perspective on the Acquisition, Maintenance, and Use of Scarlet Macaws

For hundreds of years, several major cultural groups in the pre-Hispanic North American Southwest and Northwest Mexico (SW/NW) practiced husbandry of at least two species of macaw: the military macaw (Ara militaris), native to northern Mexico, and the scarlet macaw (Ara macao cyanoptera), whose natural range is in tropical lowland Mesoamerica (Forshaw 2006; Monge et al. 2015; Weidenfeld 1994.). The remains of these exotic birds have been found at several major sites across this region. Archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence suggests they were used for political and ceremonial prestige and possibly for dedicatory practices (Gilman, this volume; Lyons and Crown, this