The chicken became a farm animal much later than it was thought. This is the conclusion reached by a team led by Joris Peters from the LMU Munich after an analysis of more than 600 chicken bones and other evidence. As the working group reports in "PNAS", the first clear domestic chickens appeared only about 3650 to 3250 years ago at the site of Ban Non Wat in central Thailand. The analysis contradicts attributions 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 grain attracted the ancestors of chickens to people nearby and thus set in motion the domestication process, the group writes in the publication.
The result of the working group suggests that the househill is a straggler compared to other domesticated species. The most important other farm animals such as beef, pig and goat appeared in domesticated forms 6000 to 10,000 years ago, and dogs have even lived with people for around 15,000 years. On the other hand, the results of the team around Peters indicate that domesticated chickens are due to a late meeting of grain cultivation in Southeast Asia and the apparently particularly suitable Bankyhuhn. The close connection between chicken and grain remained afterwards. The working group suspects that the chicken spread together with the grain cultivation worldwide.
