PETER D. MOORE
Department of Biology
Kings College
London, U.K.
" Few birds have been of greater economic importance to humanity than the chicken, yet there is still disagreement about its origin and the geographic pattern of its domestication and spread. New evidence suggests that it was first domesticated in southeast Asia and taken into China about 8,000 years ago, whence it spread to India and Europe.
B. West, B.-X. Zhou, "Did chickens go north? New evidence for domestication," Journal of Archaeological Science, 15 (5), 515-33, September 1988.
" Fire is a relatively rare event in tropical evergreen rain forests, despite the high quantities of flammable material. Experiments have shown that combustion is possible only if the relative humidity drops below 65%—an event that is likely to occur only once a year in a closed canopy rain forest.
C. UhI, J.B. Kauffman, D.L. Cummings, "Fire in the Venezuelan Amazon, Part ...
