October 14, 1984

Dear Mr Plant,

Origin and Evolution has arrived. Herewith a note or two on it. On the Dutch and their carriage of chickens. I still think of that as a possible, but not a probable. The Malay Naked Neck chicken with its enormous bones, is found all over South and Central America and Mexico. It does not seem a likely distribution resulting from a Dutch introduction in Southern Chile.

On the location of Picuris Pueblo. It is one of the northernmost Pueblos - in Northern New Mexico - a state in the United States. The people of Picuris clearly had the chicken before the time that they moved onto their new site, the present Picuris Pueblo.

I regret that you consider my paper on the chicken invalid speculation. We shall see. The chicken bones present at Picuris at 1400 AD, it seems to me, clearly proves the case of the pre-Colombian presence of chickens in America. When you add the linguistic evidence, religious usages, etc, the conclusion of multiple introductions before 1500 seems indicated. We would have more evidence, I think, if the idea of the post 1500 introduction of the chicken were not so strongly held. I hope that your work spurs the kind of attention to the chicken bones that they deserve.

I will not argue the Dutch case with you. It is purely speculative that they brought chickens. They may well have, but there is seemingly no evidence that they did. That chickens of the appropriate type are present, is no proof at all given the clear evidence of Asiatic contact with American pre-Columbian times. The Malay Naked Necks are not limited to Chile, or its environs, but they are wide spread, clear up into Mexico.

The Finsterbusch quote is clear off the mark. The fowl that he enumerates are not limited to the area that the Dutch pirates occupied but are found clear up into Mexico. His facts are faulty, and so his reasoning is incorrect.

I have recently reviewed Paul Shao’s work on comparing Chinese and American Indian art, with asides on Indonesia, Malaya and India. The evidence is overwhelming, beginning at least as early as Shang and Chou times, the Chinese were colonizing America, coming by sea. If I used the same line of reasoning that you do for the Dutch (opportunity equals introduction) then Mexico, Central America and South America should have Asiatic Chickens from at least 1500 BC onwards.

It seems highly probable that chicken bones have frequently been recovered in American archaeology. Many have been discarded as intrusive. Others simply thrown away. Others simply never identified. My hope is that your work will lead to more attention being paid to these invaluable bits of evidence.

Sincerely yours,