February
27th, 1980
Dear
Mr Plant,
Thank
you for the long letter on chickens. I wish that I could give you a lot of
information, but I can’t. I did the chicken paper and pretty well let the
subject slide.
Carl
Johannessen, Geography, University of Oregon, has pursued the question of
ceremonial uses of the chicken in America and that of Asia. He finds that
immany ceremonies, the whole thing is duplicated. This reinforces the notion
that the chicken was introduced, a number of times, into America long before
Columbus.
Chicken
bones are surely hard to come by in archaeology, and even harder to get
identified. And this ridiculous since the chickens specialists can identify
them right down to varieties.
In
America chicken bones dating back to about 1400 were found some years ago but
the finder has lacked the courage to publish them.
I
don’t think that we can do anything much with the separate species argument
until some good scholar takes the whole thing in hand, collects the wild
species, and the tame, and really compares them histologically and
osteologically. I think that they will prove to be two or three different
species involved. I base this on the plant
word. Domestication often started with one species, but as the idea and, or
the plant spread, it was hybridized with local wild species and the result was
a swarm of hybrids of markedly different aspect and decidedly different
parentage.
It
is amusing to have you comment on the unimportance of the chicken, in the
archaeological mind. One can find articles on various tribes in the Handbook
of the South American Indians, where chickens will be mentioned, but they
are not indexed, only turkeys etc.
It
is becoming increasingly clear that America was reached many times from east
and west. We now have alphabetic inscriptions all over the Americas, mostly
Mediterranean, but some Asiatic. For this see H.B.Fell America
B.C. just out... Saga America.
Whether or not they brought chickens or not it’s harder to say.
Heyerdahl’s
stone hens are real enough, but dating them is seemingly not possible. The
Blue Egg trait is most mysterious. Why only in America? A local mutation? I
would expect it in Asia but I have never heard of a trace of it. It is more
likely in brown eggs or in brown eggs? White - all colors. Brown is the result
of a red-blue mix. Suppress the red and have blue? Blue eggs occur as far
North as Central America - far more wide spread than I had thought.
There
is a large book in Dutch on the chicken - apparently about the last to show
any interest in the varieties and their origins: De
Hoenderrassen, R.Houwink Stoomdr.Floralia, Assen, 1909. I have it in xerox,
and have long intended to translate it, but I find too many other things to
do.
For
a very good summary of the present state of our knowledge of transoceanic
contacts with America see Pre Columbian
Oceanic Transfers by Stephen Jett in Ancient
Native Americans, Jesse D.Jennings editor, W.H.Freeman Co, San Francisco.
Sincerely
yours,