Two new studies by an international team of researchers—one published June 6 in PNAS and the other June 7 in Antiquity—attempt to clarify the relationships chickens had with ancient human civilizations. Rather than a longstanding domestication, researchers now think that the tree-dwelling ancestors of modern chickens, the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus spaedicus), first entered human settlements to capitalize on early rice cultivation in southeast Asia, and that they only did so roughly 3,500 years ago—much earlier than previously thought. But rather than becoming a source of food, these early birds became cultural icons, only finding their way to the dinner plate much later.
“Eating chickens is so common that people think we have never not eaten them,” Naomi Sykes, an anthropologist at the University of Exeter who was involved in both studies, tells The Guardian. “Our evidence shows that our past relationship with chickens was far more complex, and that ...
