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