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New Historical Evidence Suggests Most Pilgrims Sailed Back Home To Celebrate First Thanksgiving (The Onionlink): BOSTON—In what seems to suggest acute homesickness among the colonists, historians at Boston University said on Wednesday that newly uncovered documents indicate that most pilgrims sailed back to Europe in the fall of 1623 to celebrate the first Thanksgiving at home.
“What we see from personal diaries and ships’ logs is that the majority of these settlers, rather than stay put and observe the holiday in Plymouth, decided to brave the three-month journey back across the Atlantic to be with family and friends,” said professor Willa Sinclair, adding that the few pilgrims who remained in the New World either couldn’t afford the trip or refused to go if their father was bringing his new girlfriend.
“They were willing to endure the crowded, often horribly delayed ships for a taste of their mother’s home cooking complete with all the traditional Thanksgiving fixings.” Sinclair went on to say that from the second Thanksgiving onwards, however, many Pilgrims decided to just go out for dinner and be done with it.
Mod: I'm glad we finally got that one straightened out.
Where do turkeys come from? Central America (Quartr.uslink): Turkeys evolved from earlier birds. The ancestors of the turkey evolved about 100 million years ago, from the dinosaurs that were alive at that time. By about 11 million years ago, turkeys had evolved to be different from pheasants. Turkeys are related to chickens, but wild chickens lived mainly in East Asia, while wild turkeys lived in North America and Central America.
Like chickens, turkeys are mainly running birds that can only fly a little bit. Turkeys started out small, like pheasants, but at some point they migrated south to Central America, where there were no animals that hunted turkeys. It was so safe and peaceful that turkeys could grow bigger and bigger.
Around 800 BC, Olmec farmers in what is now southern Mexico domesticated turkeys, which they called “huexolotl”. Soon Olmec people were eating a lot of turkey meat and turkey eggs. Olmec people also used turkey feathers to make beautiful feather capes and feather necklaces. Soon the Olmecs’ neighbors, like the Maya, also began to breed turkeys and eat them.
Then maybe around 200 BC, Pueblo farmers in what is now Arizona and New Mexico independently domesticated a slightly different kind of turkey. Again, the Pueblo people used turkeys mainly to make capes and blankets from their feathers. They also used turkey bones as musical instruments and tools. Further east, the Mississippians also ate turkeys, but they hunted wild turkeys with bows and arrows instead of raising turkeys on farms. (Some archaeologists think they might have raised turkeys too.)
By 1100 AD, the Pueblo people began to also use turkeys as an important source of meat and eggs, like their Aztec neighbors to the south in Mexico.
Around 1500 AD, the first Spanish invaders came to the Aztec empire in Mexico and found turkeys there. They brought some turkeys back to Spain, and from Spain some turkeys came to other parts of Europe, where people thought of turkeys as an expensive luxury food for rich people. That’s why we eat turkeys on special occasions like Thanksgiving and Christmas (even though turkeys aren’t really expensive anymore).
When English invaders first came to eastern North America in the 1500s AD and saw turkeys, they thought turkeys were the same as a related bird that did come from the country Turkey, so they called these birds turkeys. Even when the English settlers finally realized that American turkeys were a different type of bird, the name stuck.
Mod: Have a great Thanksgiving, no matter what the origin of your dinner.
sierramadretattler.blogspot.com
Mod: I'm glad we finally got that one straightened out.
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Like chickens, turkeys are mainly running birds that can only fly a little bit. Turkeys started out small, like pheasants, but at some point they migrated south to Central America, where there were no animals that hunted turkeys. It was so safe and peaceful that turkeys could grow bigger and bigger.
Around 800 BC, Olmec farmers in what is now southern Mexico domesticated turkeys, which they called “huexolotl”. Soon Olmec people were eating a lot of turkey meat and turkey eggs. Olmec people also used turkey feathers to make beautiful feather capes and feather necklaces. Soon the Olmecs’ neighbors, like the Maya, also began to breed turkeys and eat them.
Then maybe around 200 BC, Pueblo farmers in what is now Arizona and New Mexico independently domesticated a slightly different kind of turkey. Again, the Pueblo people used turkeys mainly to make capes and blankets from their feathers. They also used turkey bones as musical instruments and tools. Further east, the Mississippians also ate turkeys, but they hunted wild turkeys with bows and arrows instead of raising turkeys on farms. (Some archaeologists think they might have raised turkeys too.)
By 1100 AD, the Pueblo people began to also use turkeys as an important source of meat and eggs, like their Aztec neighbors to the south in Mexico.
Around 1500 AD, the first Spanish invaders came to the Aztec empire in Mexico and found turkeys there. They brought some turkeys back to Spain, and from Spain some turkeys came to other parts of Europe, where people thought of turkeys as an expensive luxury food for rich people. That’s why we eat turkeys on special occasions like Thanksgiving and Christmas (even though turkeys aren’t really expensive anymore).
When English invaders first came to eastern North America in the 1500s AD and saw turkeys, they thought turkeys were the same as a related bird that did come from the country Turkey, so they called these birds turkeys. Even when the English settlers finally realized that American turkeys were a different type of bird, the name stuck.
Mod: Have a great Thanksgiving, no matter what the origin of your dinner.
sierramadretattler.blogspot.com