Article 21 of 118

Subject:      chicken in America: prehispanic arrival from Asia?
From:         yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky)
Date:         1996/12/12
Newsgroups:   sci.archaeology.mesoamerican,sci.archaeology,sci.agriculture


Greetings to all.

I've posted the following in these ngs a few days ago:

******** 
I've been reading a very interesting article by George Carter in MAN
ACROSS THE SEA about the domestication of chickens world-wide. The big
debate at that time, in the 60s, was whether or not the chickens existed
in prehispanic America. Carter marshals VERY IMPRESSIVE EVIDENCE that the
chicken was indeed known and WIDELY SPREAD pre-Columbus. IF this is true
-- this will be a clear indication of trans-pacific contacts! They even
found some chicken bones in pre-Columbian context (p. 180). I would really
like to know if carbon tests were done on these finds, or if other
evidence about pre-Columbus chickens was found since. There's A VERY GOOD
CHANCE that if this hypothesis is true it will be confirmed unequivocally
by archaeological and DNA evidence in the future, if it hasn't been
confirmed already.

By the way, is anyone claiming that chickens just flew across the ocean?
That would be a good one for Monty Python! 

So where is the research to prove or to disprove this thesis? I don't know
where it is, if it exists.  
********

Thomas replied:

********
Well, thank you, finally some useful information again. I totally
agree with you, chickens didn't fly across. If it can be proven that

a) chicken were not indigenous to the Americas
b) that they were not brought across with the human migration (say
10000 BC)
c) that they existed before columbus (c14 dates)

then you may indeed have a strong case. How about some more
information on this, under a new subject line?
********

[The following is part 1 of my reply. More to come.]

Yes, Thomas, perhaps it's time to provide more info. The case of the
chicken is extremely curious. First of all, we can dispense with the point
(a) Thomas raises. It is quite clear and agreed among specialists that
chickens were/are native to South and South-East Asia (Malasia, and
nearby areas). There are 4 types of wild jungle fowl of the genus _Gallus_
in these areas. 

The point (b) is equally easy to dispense with. Animal domestication
in general is roughly synchronous with the beginnings of
agriculture. I hope Thomas is not going to claim that the tribes
that came overland to America were agriculturalists (before 10,000).
The earliest evidence for chicken domestication in the Old World is
around 3,000 to 2,000 bce in India. After 2,000 bce chickens reached
Iran, Egypt, and China.

Now that we are done with preliminaries, the big question comes,
Were they present in the Americas before Columbus? It is amazing
that this rather simple matter is unknown at present (there is no
consensus among scholars). George F. Carter has done as much as he
could to clarify this matter in his PRE-COLUMBIAN CHICKENS IN
AMERICA, in MAN ACROSS THE SEA, Carroll L. Riley, et al, eds., U of
Texas Press, 1971. To the best of my knowledge, this matter has not
been addressed by any serious studies since then. [Later note: these
further studies were found eventually -- Yuri.] Does anyone care?
Are scholars of American pre-history informed about this conundrum?

Why _should_ they be informed? Well, this is potentially a MAJOR
"smoking gun" for the diffusion from Asia. Carter obviously believes
that the chickens were in America well before Columbus. Not only
that, they were in fact ALL OVER the Americas before Columbus,
according to him. If this is indeed so, definitive archaeological
evidence in support of his hypothesis should be _rather easy_ to
find (if someone was looking for it -- but is anyone looking?).

Perhaps at this point it is appropriate to quote here from a
well-respected recent source, SEED TO CIVILIZATION, Charles B. Heiser,
Jr., Harvard UP, 1990.

        After 2000 bc, chickens reached Iran, Egypt, and China; they
        became known in Europe more than a thousand years later. The
        chicken has generally been considered a post-Columbian
        introduction to the Americas, but the geographer George F.
        Carter maintains, on the basis of early literature and
        linguistic evidence, that it was fairly widespread there when
        the Spanish arrived; he has concluded that it reached the
        Americas from across the Pacific. Archaeological evidence
        confirming the early presence of chickens in the Americas
        has yet to be found, however. (p. 57)

This seems to indicate that scholarship apparently stood still on this
important matter all these years. Also, as will become apparent later in
this essay, Carter did not reach his conclusion _only_ on the basis of
linguistic and literary evidence. He gives plenty of zoological evidence,
for example. And now, on to Carter's study.

It is interesting how careful Carter is in his article about claims.
He makes no claims at all, according to him.

      ... no claim is made other than that it [this study] advances
      the evidence a step or two. (p. 180)

I think Carter is probably understating his case. He is being super
careful. I, for one, am totally convinced by the case he makes. It is
inconceivable to me, after I read his article, that chickens were brought
to America by the Spanish as most historians of agriculture seem to
believe. 

So on what is Carter basing his analysis? First, consider this quote,

      Acosta, in 1590, pointed this out clearly: "... I must say
      that I was astonished at the fowls which without doubt were
      kept there even before the coming of the Spaniards, this being
      clearly proved by the fact that the natives have names of
      their own for them, calling a hen _gualpa_ and an egg _ronto_"
      (from Castello, 1924: 116) (p. 202)

We will return to this important early eyewitness later.

I think the strongest argument Carter gives is a very wide
distribution at a very early time.

      The chicken was present over most of South America within
      forty years of the first European contact and seemingly well
      established in southeast Brazil as early as 1519. (p. 180)

The above is incontrovertible evidence that is accepted by all
scholars of the subject. To claim that such wide diffusion could
happen so quickly in the New World after contact with the
Europeans strongly contradicts the evidence about the diffusion of
chicken in the Old World that Carter marshals very carefully in the
article. In the Old World, the diffusion of chickens around the
continents and nations was _extremely slow_. For example,

      From a base date of about 3000 bc in India, we find a 1500
      year lag in the introduction of the chicken to the
      Mesopotamian and Nile areas. (p. 187)

And it took another 1000 years or so for the chicken to make it into
Europe.

Carter says about the Old World parallels,

      The record, poor as it is, is more suggestive of slow
      acceptance by individuals and cultures than of rapid diffusion
      and acceptance. Acceptance rather than contact seems to be the
      key to the slowness of spread. (p. 191)

In other words, just because the chicken was available to a tribe or
a nation from their neighbours, it did not mean that they will
immediately accept its domestication. This is clear from the Old
World evidence, and yet the believers in the rapid European
introduction to the Americas would claim something entirely
fantastic: that the chicken "flew" all over America in a couple of
decades, and instantly became a staple among tribes scattered all
over the continent!

Not only that. Carter spends much time documenting various religious and
cultic uses of the chicken by American tribes. Yes, there were many. Even
the feathers of the chickens were highly prised in headdresses. The names
of Inca rulers may share the linguistic root with chicken. Any scholar of
antiquity will know how slow are religious beliefs and customs to change
among peoples. These things simply don't happen in a generation or two. 

[Parts 2 and 3 to follow soon]

Best regards,

Yuri.

            =O=    Yuri Kuchinsky in Toronto    =O=
  --- a webpage like any other...  http://www.io.org/~yuku ---

It matters [whether Monte Alban ceramics reflect Chinese art forms]
because questions of human inventiveness and the nature of human
freedom are involved, and these are pivotal for the understanding of
humans everywhere.  D. Frazer, THEORETICAL ISSUES IN THE TRANS-
PACIFIC CONTROVERSY, Social Research, 32 (1965) p. 453, as quoted by
J. Needham.