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