Chickens were introduced to Britain, mainland Europe, and Northern Africa later than previously thought, and were primarily regarded as exotica not food, new research suggests.
The study, led by Cardiff University and published in the journal Antiquity is one of two papers published today which together, transform our understanding of how humans' relationship with the popular poultry has evolved over time. The international research team also includes academics at the universities of Bournemouth, Exeter, Munich, Oxford, Toulouse, and universities and institutes in Germany, France and Argentina.
Archaeologists employed radiocarbon dating on bones from 23 of the earliest claimed chickens from Europe and north-west Africa. This is the first time a programme of direct dating has been systematically applied to chickens. Chickens were tested from 16 sites, including a settlement site found by the A303 near Stonehenge, Howe on Orkney, and Orvieto in Italy.
Over three-quarters of the animals died much later than previous studies had suggested. With many of these early birds disproved, the new evidence indicates that chickens did not arrive in Europe until the first millennium BC, probably around 800 BC. Earlier hypotheses, which based their findings on contextual clues, such as where these bones had been located and what other artefacts they were found with, estimated the first chickens were roaming Europe from the Neolithic period, several thousand years earlier.
