Genetic information from the bones of macaws found in abandoned pueblos suggests they were bred and distributed as a commodity. Christopher Intagliata reports.

来自普韦布洛遗址的金刚鹦鹉骨骼遗传信息表明，它们是作为商品养殖和传播的。克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔报道。

撰文播音：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔（Christopher Intagliata）

翻译：张朵儿

审校：许楠

Abandoned pueblos are scattered throughout the southwestern U.S. And at many, archaeologists have uncovered a curious artifact: the skeletons of scarlet macaws. The birds' bright red feathers are known to have been an important status symbol, a signifier of prestige, for people throughout the American tropics and the southwest… both in the ancient world and today.

普韦布洛遗址散落在美国的西南部地区。在许多地方，考古学家发现了一种奇特的制品：猩红色金刚鹦鹉的骨架。无论是古代还是今天，鸟类的鲜红色羽毛都是整个美国热带地区和西南地区人们的重要地位象征，以及威望的象征......

But macaws are a tropical bird, whose range never extended north of today's U.S.-Mexico border. So how did the pueblo people obtain the birds?

但是金刚鹦鹉是一种热带鸟类，而且其活动范围从未到达过现今美墨边境的北部。那么普韦布洛人是如何获得这些鸟类的呢？

To examine the birds' origin, scientists sequenced mitochondrial DNA found within macaw bones from two sites in New Mexico: Chaco Canyon and the Mimbres region. Turns out, nearly three quarters of the birds had identical mitochondrial genome sequences—meaning the ancient birds came from the same maternal line. That suggests they were all the products of a breeding operation, perhaps in modern-day northern Mexico, rather than a random collection of wild-caught birds.

为了追踪其起源，科学家们对新墨西哥州的Chaco 峡谷和Mimbres两个地区发现的金刚鹦鹉骨骼进行了线粒体DNA测序。结果显示，其中近四分之三的鸟类具有相同的线粒体基因组序列——这意味着这些古老的鸟类来自同一个母系，同时也说明了它们都是养殖的产物，也许它们来自现今的墨西哥北部，但肯定不是随机捕捉的野生鸟类。 

"If it was just more random, you know, forgive the word, ‘plucking,’ random macaws from the environment, we would have expected to see a type of diversity that you'd see in the wild."

“如果它只是更加随机，不确切地形容——就像从自然界随机'捕获'的金刚鹦鹉，那么我们将会看到更多野生动物的多样性。”

Richard George, a PhD candidate in anthropology at Penn State.

宾夕法尼亚州人类学博士候选人理查德•乔治如是说。

"When we took our results and compared them to macaws distributed throughout the historic and modern ranges, the results were more analogous to other species of animals that were being bred, like turkeys or dogs or pigs."

“当我们把实验结果与金刚鹦鹉在历史和现代范围内的分布进行比较时，会发现实验结果更接近被养殖的物种，如火鸡，狗或猪。”

The details are in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Richard J. George et al., Archaeogenomic evidence from the southwestern US points to a Pre-Hispanic scarlet macaw breeding colony]

详情见《美国国家科学院院刊》。

The discovery adds an additional layer of complexity to our understanding of Southwestern and Mesoamerican cultures: they had the sophistication to breed and manage the distribution of these exotic birds. And it's an example, too, of how modern sequencing technology can unlock historical and cultural secrets, that sat waiting in these bones for more than 800 years.

这一发现为我们理解西南和中美洲文化增添了更多的复杂性：他们具有养殖和管理这些外来鸟类的能力。这也是现代基因测序技术如何解锁历史和文化秘密的一个案例，即使这些秘密已在骨骼中等待了800多年。