Earliest economic exploitation of chicken outside East Asia: Evidence from the Hellenistic Southern Levant.

ABSTRACT: Chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is today one of the most widespread domesticated species and is a main source of protein in the human diet. However, for thousands of years exploitation of chickens was confined to symbolic and social domains such as cockfighting. The question of when and where chickens were first used for economic purposes remains unresolved. The results of our faunal analysis demonstrate that the Hellenistic (fourth-second centuries B.C.E.) site of Maresha, Israel, is the earliest site known today where economic exploitation of chickens was widely practiced. We base our claim on the exceptionally high frequency of chicken bones at that site, the majority of which belong to adult individuals, and on the observed 2:1 ratio of female to male bones. These results are suppor

SUBMITTER: Perry-Gal L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4538678 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature