August 5th, 1980

Dear Mr Plant,

Please excuse me for not replying to your letter of 4.6.80 much sooner than this but it landed at the bottom of a pile of correspondence and I’ve just managed to reach the bottom level!

Your work on domestic chicken was interesting as I myself have a similar interest, only much less experienced than yours. I’m especially intrigued by the Pekin Bantam and have been thinking of getting a small flock on our block.

One item of real interest in your letter was the presence of claws on the wings. I would be very keen on getting the skeleton of one of those if one happened to die. If you wouldn’t mind and could save one such skeleton next time it occurs, I would be grateful. I could then look at the arrangement of the bones. As Dr. Ostrom suggested it may well represent a “neotenous” condition - that is the holdover of a primitive character. It also might represent a “mistake” in development or actual mutation in that particular individual (see Welty, J.C. 1962. The Life of Birds. W.B. Saunders p. 491) - thus it would be interesting to look at the anatomy of the structure.

Now to answer your questions, although I must admit that I have no expertise whatsoever with domestic animal fossils. Three people who might be able to give you some information of the archaeological record of chickens and their relatives are:

Dr Stanley J. Olsen,
Department of Anthropology,
University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721.

Dr Jeannette Hope,
Australian National University,
Department of Prehistory, Research School of Pacific Studies,
Canberra, ACT 2600.

(She’s mainly interested in marsupials but knows archaeological literature for the SW Pacific and New Guinea).

Dr E.S.Higgs
35 Panton P1,
Cambridge, England.

(He’s done much archaeological work in the middle east with emphasis on domestic animals).

A couple of other leads that you could follow up would be Koch, T., B.H.Skold and L.De Vries (1973). Anatomy of the domestic chicken and other domestic birds. The Iowa State Press, Ames, Iowa; and Hargrave, L.L. (1972). Comparative osteology of the chicken and American goose. Prescott College Studies in Biology, No. 1, Prescott, Arizona.

The place I always start when I begin work on any group of fossil birds is with Pierce Brodkorb’s Catalogue of Fossil Birds - in this case Pt. 2 is appropriate (1964. Bull. Florida State Museum, Bio. Sci., 8(3), p 318-319). This suggests that the genus in which the domestic fowl belongs (Gallus ) first appears in the fossil record in the early Pliocene (about 7 million years ago) in Greece (Gallus aesculapii ) while a second slightly younger species, (Gallus bravardi ) is known from several locales in France. This material, to my knowledge, has not been reviewed recently, so it is somewhat uncertain as to its rightful assignment. Anyhow, it’s a start. From there we must go to the archaeologists.

That is about all I can offer you at the moment. I hope it’s of some help. Let me know what you find out. Could you send me a full reference to Finsterbusch’s article (1929) that you mentioned. All the best.

Sincerely,

Pat Rich