Reevaluation of early Holocene chicken domestication in northern China

The chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is the most widespread domestic animal in the world. However, the timings and locations of their domestication have remained debatable for over a century. China, and particularly northern China, has been claimed as one of the early centers for the domestication of chickens, because many chicken remains have been discovered at a number of archaeological sites. However, the identification of archaeological domestic chicken bones from early Holocene sites in China remains contentious. In this study, we analyzed 1831 bird bones, which included 429 bones previously recorded as “domestic chicken” from 18 Neolithic and early Bronze Age sites in central and northern China. Although morphological species identification criteria for the bones of 55 modern Chinese Phasianidae species, including the domestic chicken and wild red junglefowls, have not yet been fully established, upon reanalysis none of the “domestic chicken” bones were derived from chickens. In addition, bones determined to be candidate chicken bones were found at only 2 of the 18 sites, suggesting that chickens were neither widely kept nor distributed in central and northern China during the early and middle Holocene period. Further studies that combine analyses of morphology, ancient DNA, and radiocarbon dating are required to fully reveal the origin and history of the domestic chicken in northern China.