Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a chicken egg eaten about 2400 years ago in northern Swabia. This is the oldest evidence of the consumption of eggs north of the Alps, the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments announced in a press release. Since the shell fragments lay between charred and discarded meat and grain residues, it can be assumed that the egg also served as food at that time, at the time of the Celts. "This find, which at first glance seems so inconspicuous, testifies to a small change in the times as far as human dietary habits are concerned," says Bavaria's Conservator General Mathias Pfeil, assessing the results.
The fragments of the egg shells were found on a construction site in Nördlingen in the Donau-Ries district in 2020. At that time, the excavators discovered the skeleton of a Celtic boy and the pit with food residues. So that no remains would be lost, the experts sevented the soil particularly fine. The millimeter -sized egg splinters could be secured.
Now the state archaeologists, together with a working group from the English University of York, have proven that it is the remains of a chicken egg. Using mass spectrometry, the researchers determined the protein molecules of the food traces. Based on the protein structure, they were able to identify the bird species that once laid the egg: a chicken. With the help of radiocarbon dating, the team also determined the age of the food waste: it dates back to the 4th century BC.
According to the state office, it has so far been suspected that it was only in the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC that people began to keep chickens for laying eggs on a larger scale. Before that, from about the 8th century BC, chickens were also kept as farm animals, as bone finds testify. But in the found contexts from the 3rd century BC and in later findings, there were noticeably more bones of hens than of roosters. Apparently, from that time on, the animals were bred specifically for laying eggs.
