A new study revealed that humans did not initially consider chickens as a source of food, but considered them strange creatures, and they were honored and even worshiped by some.
According to the “live science” website, the study issued by the British University of Cambridge indicated that the first domesticated chickens were not the huge, fast-growing birds like today.
Mysterious and exciting creatures
They were about a third the size of modern chickens, and they may have attracted humans at first due to their unique colors and distinctive noises, thinking they were mysterious and exciting creatures rather than potential meals.
According to the study, about 500 years passed between the time chickens first arrived in Europe and the time they began to be widely used for food.
“The chicken, at first, was an amazing thing,” said study co-author Greger Larson, director of the Paleobiology and Bioarchaeology Research Network at the University of Oxford in England.
“Just as people today are quick to own what celebrities have, thousands of years ago everyone wanted to own a chicken.”
He pointed out that before beginning the domestication of chickens, humans recognized their wild ancestors, a red jungle bird known as “Gallus gallus”, which lived in Southeast Asia, especially in the dense bamboo forests where it ate fruits and seeds.
The relationship between humans and chickens
But the story about the transformation of these jungle birds into one of the most popular foods on earth has mysterious origins.
He added that it is possible that the “relationship” between humans and chickens is only about 3,500 years old.
And he added, “By 1500 BC, people in Southeast Asia began cultivating rice and weeds, a process that required clearing forest areas to replace them with grain fields.”
He reported that this attracted the red bushbird, and perhaps people found these colorful birds very likable and very easy to raise.”
Larson indicated that the custom of raising chickens (not eating them) moved from Central and South Asia to the Middle East via the Silk Road and reached Europe around 500 BC.
The reason is eggs
“Interestingly,” he continued, “many chicken skeletons found in Europe between 50 BC and AD 100 were associated with burials: men were often buried with roosters, women with hens.” Poultry is so valuable for people to be buried with.”
As for the transformation of the chicken from a strange and revered bird into a source of food, according to Larson, it likely happened with the rise of the Roman Empire in Europe, where eating eggs as a snack became popular.
Larison believes that the presence of chickens in abundance in the vicinity of humans throughout this period prompted them to “re-evaluate their relationship with it and think more practically towards it.”