Dr Pat Rich
Department of Earth Sciences
Monash University - Clayton - Victoria

28-6-1985

Dear Pat,

Thank you for your letter of 26th June. Good to hear from you again also thanks for the address. Fine business. He is the bloke I want to get to.

However yesterday I had my first break through to mainland China, receiving a reply from Dr Han Defen (who you recommended). He is a friend of Professor Zhou Ban Xiang who did a paper on the excavations at Cishan North China where he did the excavating. It’s a very important paper, as the material (chicken bones etc) were dated around 5000 BC. I have the analysis of this work by Sally Rodwell (Cambridge).

However Dr Han Defen is sending me out a copy of Zhou’s paper as well as copies of photographs of earthenware models of chickens also found in the area (dated around 3000 BC I think). These discoveries open up new fields and will be very helpful in my study.

Hou,.... Lian Hai is at the same Institute as Han Defen so I should be able to make contact OK. By the way Dr Han Defen asked me to pass his best regards to you.

Hope you are keeping well and by the way is it your husband that recovered the fossil etc down there. I noted it in one of the magazines.

Enclosed is a copy of the Chicken Bone  book. Have just about finished the manuscript for the next book Gallus species  which will include a supplement to the bone book. All the best now.

Sincerely yours,