Where is the "home" of domestic chickens? Uncovering the 8,000-year history of chicken farming in China!

Chickens are the most widely distributed and most numerous domesticated animals in the world today, providing nearly one-third of the meat consumed by humans and 75% of the eggs. Where were the first people to domesticate chickens, which are indispensable to humans?

The famous biologist Darwin once misquoted the phrase "chicken is a Western thing" in the Ming Dynasty's "Sancai Tuhui", which led to the erroneous view that "chicken was introduced to China from India". In fact, the "West" here refers to the western part of China, that is, "Shu" and "Jing" and other places, not India. Moreover, in the Cishan cultural site in Wu'an City, Hebei Province, archaeologists discovered chicken bones, which shows that my country's history of raising chickens is at least 8,000 years old.

In addition to archaeological discoveries, what other evidence can prove that domestic chickens originated in China?

1. Agricultural wisdom generated by "30 degrees north latitude"

Agriculture is a product of the environment. The origin of agriculture in the world is mainly around 30 degrees north latitude. The environment in this area is just right. Under the natural conditions of climate change and falling temperatures, it is not too cold to survive, but it also threatens the survival mode of Paleolithic humans who mainly relied on gathering and hunting. Times make heroes, and the people living here turned to common sense breeding and planting, giving birth to agriculture and animal husbandry.

China is one of the three major origins of agriculture in the world. Raising and domesticating chickens is also a small part of the picture of ancient humans coping with natural challenges. At the same time, the early origin of Chinese agriculture is consistent with the archaeological discovery of chicken bones 8,000 years ago.

2. The “wild ancestors” of domestic chickens are in China

Red Jungle Fowl

The "wild ancestor" of domestic chickens is the red jungle fowl, which has always been distributed in China. In the early days of agriculture, there were wild red jungle fowl in many places in China. To this day, there are still people raising red jungle fowl in Yunnan, my country. These chickens are a hybrid of domestic chickens. They are smaller and more wild. They do not live in the breeders' homes, but live in trees, and sometimes run into the wild and do not return home.

As the distribution area of ​​the red jungle fowl, China's ancestors had the conditions to domesticate it into modern domestic chickens and there was no need to introduce it from abroad.

These characteristics all indicate that the domestication of chickens is a long historical development process within China itself.

Scientific review: Xu Wangsheng, researcher at China Agricultural Museum, agricultural culture research expert

Editor: Li Xinzhe

Copywriter: Han Chengguo (internship)