Chickens are pretty ubiquitous, both as animals and as meat. But they seem like they'd be pretty poor at surviving in the wild (even before humans began selectively breeding for large breast meat), and had to have come from somewhere.
So, where did they come from? What did they come from? When and where were they first domesticated? And how did they spread throughout the world to become a (tasty) primary protein source?
The wild ancestor of chickens, varieties of junglefowl, are native to south and southeast Asia where they were domesticated. The genetic evidence indicates that Gallus gallus (red junglefowl) is the primary source of genetic material in domesticated chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus), but that other jungle fowl species probably contributed genetic material to the domestication. The genetic evidence also is pointing at possible multiple domestication events, perhaps in the Indus valley of modern Pakistan/India and in far southern China. Dating seems to put earliest domestic chicken around 4-5 thousand years ago in both places, though perhaps earlier in China than in India.
hi! this would be worth x-posting to our sister sub r/AskAnthropology
