Late introduction of chickens into Africa from Eurasia

[Angela]

Very interesting study. In addition to a mid-first millennium BC date for chickens and rats, the authors recapitulate the dates for the introduction of cattle, which from what I can see matches the dates emerging from genetics as to migrations from Eurasia into SSA.

See:

Mary E. Prendergast et al: [h=1]Reconstructing Asian faunal introductions to eastern Africa from multi-proxy biomolecular and archaeological datasets[/h]
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0182565

"Human-mediated biological exchange has had global social and ecological impacts. In sub-Saharan Africa, several domestic and commensal animals were introduced from Asia in the pre-modern period; however, the timing and nature of these introductions remain contentious. One model supports introduction to the eastern African coast after the mid-first millennium CE, while another posits introduction dating back to 3000 BCE. These distinct scenarios have implications for understanding the emergence of long-distance maritime connectivity, and the ecological and economic impacts of introduced species. Resolution of this longstanding debate requires new efforts, given the lack of well-dated fauna from high-precision excavations, and ambiguous osteomorphological identifications. We analysed faunal remains from 22 eastern African sites spanning a wide geographic and chronological range, and applied biomolecular techniques to confirm identifications of two Asian taxa: domestic chicken (Gallus gallus) and black rat (Rattus rattus). Our approach included ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis aided by BLAST-based bioinformatics, Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) collagen fingerprinting, and direct AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) radiocarbon dating. Our results support a late, mid-first millennium CE introduction of these species. We discuss the implications of our findings for models of biological exchange, and emphasize the applicability of our approach to tropical areas with poor bone preservation."

 

[LeBrok]

I think, expansion of Islam into Africa could be implicated in spread of chicken.

Do we have a similar research for Europe? Was chicken already popular in Roman Empire?

 

[davef]

Buffalo chicken wings dipped in bleau cheese...scrambled eggs.....tenders dipped in honey...cacciatore style...Marsala style with lemon juice and mushrooms and a side of rice...BBQ chicken covered in (yes...as you would expect) barbeque sauce!

Btw if anyone has ever owned a backyard chicken, pm me. I would prefer owning a pet duck, but I'm not sure how common it is to own one as a pet. It would be nice to walk a duck on a leash.

 

[bicicleur 2]

I think, expansion of Islam into Africa could be implicated in spread of chicken.

Do we have a similar research for Europe? Was chicken already popular in Roman Empire?

when was chicken introduced in SW Asia ?
in China they were domesticated > 9 ka
pottery also arrived from China

 

[Angela]

Guys, this is what I could quickly find:
"The history of chickens (Gallus domesticus) is a bit of a puzzle. They were first domesticated from a wild form called red junglefowl (Gallus gallus), a bird that still runs wild in most of southeast Asia, likely hybridized with the gray junglefowl (G. sonneratii). That occurred probably about 8,000 years ago. Recent research suggests there may have been multiple origins in distinct areas of South and Southeast Asia, southern China, Thailand, Burma, and India."

"Genetic studies hint at multiple origins of domestication. The earliest archaeological evidence to date is from China about 5400 BC, in geographically widespread sites such as Cishan (Hebei province, ca 5300 BC), Beixin (Shandong province, ca 5000 BC), and Xian (Shaanxi province, ca 4300 BC). In 2014, a few studies were published supporting the identification of early chicken domestication in northern and central China (Xiang et al.).
However, their results remain controversial.

A 2016 study (Eda et al.) of 280 bird bones reported as chicken from Neolithic and Bronze age sites in northern and central China found that only a handful could securely be identified as actually chicken. Peters and colleagues (2016) looked at environmental proxies in addition to other research and concluded that the habitats conducive to jungle fowl were not present early enough.

​

Researchers suggest that chickens were a rare occurrence in northern and Central China, and thus probably an import from southern China or Southeast Asia where evidence of domestication is stronger. "

"Chickens arrived in the Middle East starting with Iran at 3900 BC, followed by Turkey and Syria (2400-2000 BC) and into Jordan by 1200 BC."

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-domestication-history-of-chickens-170653

"Given the ubiquity of poultry on plates today, it may come as a surprised to learn that the first domesticated chicken was not for eating but for fighting. Humans raised fowl for cockfights starting in Southeast Asia and China as early as 10,000 years ago, but their meat wasn’t enjoyed until later. Now researchers investigating an ancient city in Israel have found what they think is the earliest evidence that chickens were kept for food.
For NPR, Dan Charles reports on the find from Maresha, a city that enjoyed its peak during 400 to 200 BC. There, archeologists including Lee Perry-Gal, a doctoral student in archeology at the University of Haifa, found more than a thousand chicken bones bearing the marks of the knives used to butcher them. Critically, they found twice as many female remains as male ones. The ladies don't fight, so all the signs point to chickens headed for dinner plates. Charles writes that something happened in Maresha to make the people think of chickens as food:

Maybe, in the dry Mediterranean climate, people learned better how to raise large numbers of chickens in captivity. Maybe the chickens evolved, physically, and became more attractive as food.
But Perry-Gal thinks that part of it must have been a shift in the way people thought about food. "This is a matter of culture," she says. "You have to decide that you are eating chicken from now on."
​

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/who-were-first-people-eat-chickens-180956057/


It's odd how we just tend to assume that foods that are available now were always available, but they weren't. An even bigger difference was, I think, made during what they call the "Colombian Exchange". These are the foods we got from the New World:

"Before AD 1500, potatoes were not grown outside of South America. By the 1840s, Irelandwas so dependent on the potato that the proximate cause of the Great Famine was a potato disease.^[6] Potatoes eventually became an important staple of the diet in much of Europe. Many European rulers, including Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia, encouraged the cultivation of the potato.^[7] Maize and manioc, introduced to the Portuguese from South America in the 16th century,^[8] have replaced sorghum and millet as Africa's most important food crops.^[9] 16th-century Spanish colonizers introduced new staple crops to Asia from the Americas, including maize and sweet potatoes, and thereby contributed to population growth in Asia.^[10]Tomatoes, which came to Europe from the New World via Spain, were initially prized in Italymainly for their ornamental value (see below). From the 19th century tomato sauces became typical of Neapolitan cooking and, ultimately, Italian food in general.^[11] Coffee (introduced in the Americas circa 1720) from Africa and the Middle East and sugar cane (introduced from South Asia) from the Spanish West Indies became the main export commodity crops of extensive Latin American plantations. Introduced to India by the Portuguese, chili and potatoes from South America have become an integral part of Indian cuisine.^[12]
Before the Columbian Exchange, there were no oranges in Florida, no bananas in Ecuador, no paprika in Hungary, no potatoes in Ireland, no coffee in Colombia, no pineapples in Hawaii, no rubber trees in Africa, no chili peppers in Thailand, no tomatoes in Italy, and no chocolate in Switzerland."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange

 

[LeBrok]

If chickens were around 2 k bc in Turkey, they could have taken part in BA invasion into Europe.

I think we should stop worrying too much about invasive species. No matter how much we fight against, the world's fauna and flora will find their way around the world with or without human help.

I'm so glad America was discovered, even just for potatoes and tomatoes.