27th
February, 1979
Dear
Mister Plant,
Many
thanks for your letter of the 2nd February and your kind comments about the
recent issue of Australian Natural
History.
I
regret I am not able to give you much information about the origin of the
chicken or its history in the Pacific area. An issue of Australian
Natural History published January/March 1976, Volume 19, No. 1, has an
article by Walter Boles titled From the
Jungle to the Farm. This offers e very small review of what little
information there is on the origin of the domestic chicken,
Mr
Lampert visited Buka Island briefly in 1966 to do archaeological excavations
and I was there throughout 1967, and although some bird bones were recovered
none of these can be identified as coming from chickens. At Watom Island, New
Britain, a bone from a member of the Fowl family has been found on an
archaeological site, possibly 3,500 years old, though it could easily be much
younger. To the best of my knowledge the chicken is not present in
archaeological sites elsewhere in the Southwest Pacific earlier than a few
hundred years ago. This should not be taken to indicate the late introduction
of the chicken.
I
am sorry that the information is so scanty and unsatisfactory. I feel your
suggested eastward spread from India is perfectly reasonable, though as you
say the lack of evidence is a fairly serious problem. I suspect it will be
many years before we have a large body of evidence from the East Asian or
Pacific region to allow us to discuss the origin of the chicken and its
distribution in more sensible terms.
Yours
sincerely,
J.R.Specht,
Curator of Anthropology