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Chickens came only with the cultivation of cereals

15/6/2022

Translation: machine translated

Analysis suggests that chickens were domesticated relatively recently. Presumably, the animal was attracted by grain growing in the fields of sedentary farmers.

The chicken became a farm animal much later than thought. This is the conclusion reached by a team led by Joris Peters of LMU Munich after analyzing more than 600 chicken bones and other evidence. As the team reports in "PNAS," the first clear domestic chickens appeared only about 3650 to 3250 years ago at the Ban Non Wat site in central Thailand. The analysis contradicts assignments of older finds to domesticated domestic chickens. In addition, according to the study, there is a connection with the early cultivation of rice and millet. It is possible that the cereals attracted the chickens' ancestors to the vicinity of humans and thus set the domestication process in motion, the group writes in the publication.

The group's finding suggests that the domestic chicken is a latecomer compared to other domesticated species. The main other farm animals of Eurasia, such as cattle, pigs and goats, appeared in domesticated forms between 6000 and 10,000 years ago, and dogs have even lived with humans for about 15,000 years. In contrast, the findings of Peters' team suggest that domesticated chickens date back to a late coincidence of cereal cultivation in Southeast Asia and the Bankiva chicken, which appears to be particularly suitable as a livestock. The close association between chickens and cereals probably persisted thereafter. The working group suspects that the chicken spread worldwide together with cereal cultivation.

Spectrum of Science

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Originalartikel auf Spektrum.de
Titelbild: Hühner in Massentierhaltung © ligora / Getty Images / iStock (Ausschnitt)

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