Page 20 - Archaeology - October 2017

FROM THE TRENCHES

FAST FOOD

Connect
n interdisciplinary study has
with the past
determined that modern chick-
FEEL THE THRILLFEEL THE THRILLFEEL THE THRILLEEL THE THRILL
FEEL THE THRILL A ens only developed several of
F
their most prized domestic traits within
of discovery working along the last 1,000 years. A British team
side our archaeologists made up of archaeologists, geneticists,
on our new dig site, a statisticians, and historians made the
Chaco outlier. discovery by sequencing ancient DNA
from chicken bone samples collected at
archaeological sites across Europe, whose
CHANGE YOUR dates range from Roman times through
PERSPECTIVE the postmedieval period, and creating
as you explore and learn a model that pinpoints when specific
with our distinguished chicken genes began to change. Though
scholars on a Cultural humans first domesticated jungle fowl in
Explorations travel Asia around 6,000 years ago, it was only
seminar. in the High Middle Ages that chickens
began to consistently display both a lack
CST 2059347-50 of aggression and the capacity to lay eggs
Visit crowcanyon.org and choose your program. more regularly. According to Liisa Loog
of the University of Oxford, a lead author
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of the study, one individual genetic vari-
ant may be responsible. “This particular
mutation we’re looking at has been shown
in modern chickens to both make them
Here’s to you for friendlier and enable them to lay eggs ear-
loving what you do. lier on in the breeding season,” she says.
Humans, of course, favored these
cooperative chickens and, unwittingly,
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exerted selective pressure that perpetu-
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ated their genes. To understand why
for being a member of AIA.
chickens evolved so rapidly, Loog and her
At Nationwide, we’re passionate colleagues point to the spread of Christi-
about making a difference, too. It’s
anity throughout Europe a thousand years
just one way we prove that we’re
ago, when dogmatic prohibitions on the
more than a business. Another
consumption of four-legged animals and
way is helping our members save
fasting rituals may have increased the
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demand for poultry. “Every time we see
a transformation like this we just assume
that it must have taken a very long time to
happen,” says Loog. Instead, it seems that
Learn more about our partnership and special discounts. a widespread and rapid shift in the dietary
behavior of large populations acceler-
ated the kind of evolutionary change in
nationwide.com/AIA chickens that is often imagined to occur
Local Agent over millennia. Loog explains, “It kind
1-886-688-9144 of shows you don’t really need to know
much about genetics to make genetically
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–MArlEy Brown
18 ARCHAEOLOGY • September/October 2017