The idea that chickens have always been food can be trashed. New research reveals that our ancestors revered chickens for centuries.

In addition, new research also shows that chickens were domesticated much later than previously believed. This can be read in two new research articles, one of which has appeared in the magazine antique and the other in the sheet PNAS can be read.

Chicken is food

Our view of chickens is not very complicated. We usually see them as a source of food: chickens provide eggs and meat. And they were believed to have been doing so for a long time; previous studies have suggested that chickens were domesticated in China, India or Southeast Asia as far back as 10,000 years ago and from there conquered the world, possibly appearing in Europe as early as 7,000 years ago.

Chicken is special

But the new studies have turned our view of the domestic chicken upside down. Not only do chickens appear to have been domesticated much later; In the first centuries after their domestication, chickens also appear to have played a radically different role than it does today. “Eating chickens is so common that people think we’ll never eat them” not ate,” said study researcher Naomi Sykes. “Our evidence shows that our past relationship with chickens was much more complex and that chickens have been honored and revered for centuries.”

The research

The researchers reached that conclusion after re-examining the remains of chickens excavated at more than 600 different sites in 89 different countries. They not only studied the remains themselves, but also looked at the site where the chickens had been excavated and what we know about the society or community in which these chickens were kept.

domestication

The first conclusion the researchers draw is that the chicken was domesticated much later than thought. The oldest remains of a chicken that we can say with certainty that it was domesticated to date, appear to date from the period between 1650 and 1250 BC. The remains were found in Thailand. It hints that the chicken was first domesticated in Southeast Asia. And the researchers also think they know why that happened here; it could be traced back to the rise of highland rice (rice that is grown on dry land and not on flooded rice fields). The cultivation of this rice took place in the natural habitat of the Bankiva hen (the ancestor of the domestic chicken). And the rice plantations, according to the researchers, would have been a huge attraction for the fowl, causing them to abandon their trees and venture closer to humans. That closer relationship with humans would eventually have led to the domestication of the Bankiva chicken.

Late in Europe

But that happened later than expected; not about 10,000 years ago, but only about 3,500 years ago, the domestication of chickens would have been in full swing. It is startling, says researcher Ophélie Lebrasseur. “The fact that chickens are so ubiquitous and popular today and have been domesticated so relatively recently is surprising.”

But with that late domestication, the date on which the chicken from Southeast Asia reached other parts of the world – such as Europe – is obviously moving forward. And not just a little bit; the researchers dated the remains of 23 domestic chickens recovered from Eurasia and northwestern Africa, which are believed to be just about the earliest domestic chicken remains in the said continents. However, most of the remains turned out to be much less old than previously thought. And based on their research, the scientists are even forced to conclude that the chicken didn’t arrive in Europe until around 800 BC. The chicken is said to have first set foot in the Mediterranean area. “With their generally flexible, but essentially grain-based diet, the sea routes played a particularly important role in the distribution of chickens from Asia to Oceania, Africa and Europe,” said study researcher Joris Peters. It would then have taken nearly 1,000 years for the chicken to spread from the Mediterranean region to the colder climates of Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia and Iceland.

Into the grave

At least as startling, however, is the fact that chickens seem to have played a very different role in the past than they do today. For example, the researchers state that Europeans revered chickens during the Iron Age and did not directly consider them a source of food. They point out that several of the earliest chickens in Europe were buried single-handedly and without the slightest trace of slaughter. In addition, however, many early chickens have been found that were laid to rest in the company of humans. Men were often buried with roosters, while women were buried with hens. What is also striking is that the chickens are already old. And chickens have even been found with healed injuries. “What may hint at human care,” the researchers write in the magazine antique† “It suggests that these animals were originally regarded as exotics and were not seen as a source of ‘food’ until several centuries later.” For example, there are indications that between the time the first chicken set foot in Britain and the time it was accepted to eat chickens, some 700 to 800 years passed. The same goes for Italy.

Ultimately, the expansion of the Roman Empire would have seen the chicken in more and more places as a source of food rather than a respectable exotic. And we know from our own experience how that eventually got out of hand; There are now more than 70 billion chickens on Earth, the lion’s share of which are broiler chickens that are often slaughtered after 42 days and then consumed by humans.