1-7-1986

Dear Mr Plant,

A friend recently sent me a copy of your pamphlet on chicken bone recoveries, and I am interested to find out it you have completed any other parts of your series on poultry, as the amount of research you have put into what I have seen would be worth the cost alone!

I am very interested in domestication not just of poultry, but of all domesticated plants and animals. Although I am a zoologist, this is just an interest (my field is mainly marine and freshwater studies), as you point out, in Australia we are a long way from where all the research is being done!

I’d be very interested to hear if you have any new information on Araucanas, or any information you didn’t include in your pamphlet.

I’d also like to comment on my own interpretation of the information you put so much effort into accumulating.

You have stated that the blue egg is a simple mutation resulting from the mixture of Asian and American birds. Although this isn’t my main area of study, I find this unlikely.

The mutation is probably a single event of some kind, and therefore doesn’t need a hybridisation between two isolated population of domestic fowl to create it. It is more likely to have been present in either the American or Asian fowls you believe to have been mixed.

I’ll come back to this point later, as I’d also like to comment on the general consensus (in archaeology) as to how poultry arrived in South America.

All reputable references to poultry in South America make the blanket statement that no pre-Columbian chicken bones are known and conclude that these birds were first brought to South America by the Spanish.

There are some possible pre-Columbian poultry remains, but not reputable archaeologist seems to want to examine and date them accurately, and the reason for this is interesting in itself.

It is probable that humans arrived many thousand of years ago in the Americas, Via Bering Strait. There are a number of people who believe the first humans in the Americas may have arrived on the order of a hundred thousand years ago, but there is absolutely no evidence for this.

However Bering Strait was last exposed on the order of 10,000 years ago. If the last natives of America arrived in this time, and if they brought poultry with them, the domestic fowls were domesticated 10,000 or more years ago, which is far earlier than any  other animal is known to have been domesticated .

I think this is why everyone is avoiding paying much attention to possible pre-Columbian chicken remains, if they were pre-Columbian, the discoverer would be embodied in far more controversy than simply proving chickens didn’t arrive with the Spanish would suggest!

Of course, there is some possibly of them having been brought in by sea at a later stage, but such affords at proving maritime contacts as the Ra expedition haven’t been very impressive.

Personally I would say that if chickens were domesticated in Asia much further back than is presently believed, and a small group were taken across by humans in the last interglacial period (when Bering Strait was dry), this would be the ideal circumstance for a mutation such as blue egg-shells to appear. Only a very small population would have been carried, which allows rapid genetic drift to occur (where mutations, unusual genetic efforts spread quickly because there is only a small population for them to spread through).

In addition, if these birds were carried to America (being bred on the way, of course) ten or more thousand years ago, there would likely be some unusual mutations, not all of them obvious.

I don’t doubt that Asian birds were brought to Chile at much later dates than the original fowls, and bred with them, but I don’t believe that is likely to be the source of the blue egg mutation.

One interesting comment to add to this article by Sauer (which I am trying to chase up) refers to blue egg laying, black boned chickens in both South America and Asia. If I can get hold of it, I’ll send you a photocopy of the relevant bits. However, I have not otherwise heard of any blue-egg layers except in South America.

You have mentioned a theory which has never been researched, which is that the blue colour is a result of losing the red from brown coloration.

However, the blue colour is a separate mutation altogether, brown and tinted eggs have the colour on the surface only, it is deposited after the egg is formed. The blue colour however is a part of entire egg shell, it is a mutation of the shell-forming parts of the oviduct, and not just added after. I might also add that no combination of red and blue gives anything like brown!

I hope you find my comments of interest, and I am eager to hear if you have published any further parts of your planned series.

Regards.