2nd March,
1979
Dear
Mr Plant,
As
you are doubtless aware there is an older literature of the History of the
domestic chicken done largely without benefit of materials from archaeological
sites. I agree with you that as archaeology recovers chicken bones from early
sites, the whole subject and the basis for various statements will change.
The
most recent essay of the older (and I think invalid speculative type) was on Pre-Columbian Chickens in America by George F. Carter, in a book
called Man across the Sea, Riley,
C.L. and others (eds.) Univ. of Texas Press, 6-Austin, 1971. More recent work
on the distribution and dating of the chicken was done by a student, Jenny
Cave, at the Department of Anthropology, University of Otago, for her B.A.
Hons thesis. My own involvement with the chicken to date is to note its
finding in various Lapita sites in the Pacific dating to between 1500 and 600
B.C. Enclosed is the relevant page from an article called Lapita in a book
edited by J.D. Jennings Prehistory of
Polynesia, Harvard University Press, to be published late this year. It
lists what I know about Lapita chickens. Under separate cover a working paper
on Lapita is on its way to you by surface mail.
Yours
sincerely,
Roger
Green
Professor in Prehistory