March
10, 1995
Dear
Bill,
I
will make an immediate return with more later. Here is some data from a German
source. In case you do not read German here is a translation of the summary
1
- 1276 bird bones from the Roman
deposit at Magdalensburg
2
- The greatest number, 78.4% are Gallus gallus. The hens were all in all somewhat smaller, the cocks
somewhat similar in size to other Roman finds. The chickens were on the
average larger than those in La Tène (Iron Age, a very interesting comment
for this would be ca 1500 BC) time and in the Middle Ages. The hens were
smaller than recent egg layers (breed not specified, but assumed to be White
Leghorns by GFC). The cocks do not fit into this. The strong sexual dimorphism
is very pronounced, differing from the other Roman finds. One must be dealing
with Capons.
Abbreviations:
A
Anzahl - number
Ba
comparative material, Natural History Museum, Basel,
Bd
greatest distal breadth
Bp
greatest proximal breadth
Dp
greatest cross section
Gl
Greatest length
I
index least breadth of diaphysis times 100 over greatest length.
M
comparative material from collection Tieranatomischen Instituts München
On
the DNA work. First I do not understand it. Second, it seems self
contradictory. Third they do not specify what breeds. Fourth they are treating
the 19th century meat birds of Europe as Western birds, but they
are specifically Chinese birds. If I can find it I will include my discussion
of this. Cant And it at the moment. Will send when I do. The find the White
Leghorns of east and west give contradictory results—and they don’t
discuss this. It seems a good case of lab men with absolutely no cultural
historical sense.
On
Barbara West. She lost her job. I got in touch with her momentarily by writing
via the museum and asking them to forward it. The chicken book languishes for
the anthropologists attack it so severely that publishers wont touch it. We
will get it out one way or the other and you will be on the top of the gift
list.
McKusick
is the best bone specialist and I will try to get the Ban Chiang bones sent to
her. Momentarily we are trying to get C14 dates on archaeological chicken
bones absolutely demanded by the archaeologists. They do not trust their own
excavations.
I
will read your papers with great interest. Yes I have read Cock
Fighting.
On
names. Moa never appear in America. Pigafetta with Magellan gives: mona
and in the adjacent islands, moa.
Then he gives ayam for the Malay
region. The names haven’t changed a syllable in over 500 years.
Atahualpa,
the last Inca, was named Chicken-chicken. Ata
from Ecuador, and Hualpa from
Peru. A most honorific title.
More
later.
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