Archaeological and biometric perspectives on the development of chicken landraces in the Horn of Africa

Helina S Woldekiros,Richard Thomas,Ophelie Lebrasseur,Holly Miller,James Roberts,A Catherine D'Andrea,Alison Foster,Naomi Sykes

doi:10.1002/oa.2773

Abstract

AbstractDomestic chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus L., 1758) were integrated into agricultural systems in the Horn of Africa as early as the pre‐Aksumite period (c. 2,500 years ago), after they were introduced from Asia through land and maritime trade and exchange. In this paper, we explore the development of chicken landraces in this region by examining continuity and change in chicken body size. Specifically, we compare the measurements of chicken bones dating from 800 BCE to 400 BCE from the pre‐Aksumite site of Mezber in northern Ethiopia, with those of modern chickens (of known age and sex) from northern Ethiopia and a population of known age and sex cross‐bred red junglefowl (Gallus gallus L., 1758), curated at the Natural History Museum at Tring (UK). Considered together, these datasets provide insight into African poultry development and offer the first metrical baselines of chickens with known history in the region. Thus, this study has the potential to underpin future studies of domestic fowl morphology in Africa.

Highlights

Since their domestication in Southeast Asia c. 3,500 years ago (Peters, in prep.), chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus L., 1758) have become the most widespread livestock on the planet (Lawler, 2016)
Modern material Modern local Ethiopian chickens were collected from Mesert village in Enderta district (Tigrai region, northern Ethiopia) (Fig. 1)
Ethnoarchaeological research in Mesert has revealed the significance of cultural decisions and farming practices in the selection of local chickens in the Tigrai region of Ethiopia

Summary

Introduction

Since their domestication in Southeast Asia c. 3,500 years ago (Peters, in prep.), chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus L., 1758) have become the most widespread livestock on the planet (Lawler, 2016). We have a good understanding of the broad origins of African chickens, less is known about the development of landraces in Africa or the way in which they were combined to create new and sustainable agricultural systems. These lacunae are mainly due to preservation biases (e.g. small samples of fragmented bones in the archaeological record) and the close morphological similarity of chickens and local galliforms Apart from MacDonald’s (1992) study of the osteomorphological separation of 5 galliforms (Francolinus sp., Numida, Guttera, Agelastes sp., and Gallus gallus domesticus) in the West African savanna, no modern baseline of known age/sex specimens exists with which to compare chicken bones from African archaeological sites

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Conclusion