18th December 1983

Dear Mr Plant,

I am writing in reply to your letter to Eric Higgs dated 12th August 1980. As you may know he is now dead and Dr Geoff Bailey of the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, has passed on your letter to me.

I believe you are right in thinking that very little research has been done on the origins of the domestic chicken. I have just completed an M. Phil. dissertation at the University of Cambridge - The Transition to Agricultural Societies in Early China - which embodied the evidence from Cishan, a sixth millennium B.C. North China site which was excavated a couple of years ago. At this site remains of chickens were found and the Chinese archaeozoologist, Professor Zhou Ben Xiong, considers the chickens were domestic. I have translated Professor Zhou’s reports and made an analysis of his findings and this is due to be published in the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association Bulletin (Australia National University) next summer. In his report Professor Zhou postulates that the red junglefowl Gallus gallus L. was domesticated in China. Chicken bones are found in neolithic assemblages in China from the sixth millennium onwards. They appear in India at about 2,000 BC at Mohenjodaro, in the Indus Valley, and in Egypt at about 1,500 BC. In the first millennium BC the domestic chicken spread to Mesopotamia and Asia Minor and at about 500 BC it reached Europe. In particular Zhou refers to Zeuner, F.E. (1963) A History of Domesticated Animals.

I have not come across the work of Finsterbusch (1929), which you mention, or that of Coltherd, Wood Gush, Bate or Lowe and I would be most grateful for complete references to their work which sounds most interesting.

In his report Professor Zhou does not comment on the morphological differences between modern Chinese domestic chickens and those in the West, and I agree with you that it seems unlikely that they should have had a common ancestor. I would be most interested to hear your thoughts on the subject and I hope this letter reaches you after such a long interval.

Yours sincerely,