Cultural and Scientific Perceptions of Human-Chicken Interactions

The chicken is native to Southeast Asia but over the last 8,000 years it has been transported by people around the world - no other livestock species is so widely established. The chicken's eastward spread from Asia to the Americas has been the subject of many studies; however, its diffusion to the West has received much less attention. There have been a few small-scale surveys documenting the spread of chickens across Europe but there has been no comprehensive review about the rapidity of the spread and its cultural and environmental impacts. No ancient (and little modern) DNA work has been published for European chickens, nor have there been any isotopic studies focussed specifically upon their diets or whether they were bred locally or traded. Given the social and cultural significance of this species (whether as a provider of meat, eggs or feathers, its widespread use in cockfighting or its association with ritual, magic and medicine), a detailed analysis of the natural and cultural history of chickens in Europe is long overdue and this has genuine potential to provide cultural data of the highest quality and relevance for a range of disciplines and audiences.

To realise this potential and elucidate the circumstances and meaning of the westward spread of the chicken from the late prehistoric period to modern times our trans-disciplinary team - composed of experts of international renown in European archaeology, anthropology, genetics, zooarchaeology, and other branches of archaeological science - will integrate the evidence from their specialist studies to answer the following questions:

1) When, how and why did domestication and the early husbandry of chicken take place in Europe?

2) How rapidly did chickens spread into different parts of Europe and how was this diffusion linked to population movements, trade or cultural changes?

3) When did poultry and egg production emerge and how intensively were chickens exploited for these products in different regions and periods?

4) When and where did modern chicken breeds develop?

5) How have chickens changed society and culture in antiquity and in modern times?

6) Can evidence from the past be used to transform modern practices of chicken management?

Research will be carried out at the Universities of Bournemouth, Nottingham, Roehampton, Durham, Leicester and York to investigate these questions. This work will be supported by an interactive research network "The Chicken Coop" (www.chickenco-op.net) that has already been established. In addition to the Chicken Coop members, we will work with colleagues from many parts of the UK and continental Europe, who will supply information and samples for analysis. Our research will directly involve groups drawn from beyond the academic community (including schoolchildren, chicken breeders and artists), with whom we will collaborate to produce physical and virtual art exhibitions. These will complement a series of museum exhibitions 'The Chicken Trail' that, together, will tell the story of the chicken's domestication and spread across Europe.

The research will generate a large number of papers for academic journals and provide other publications and outputs aimed at a wider audience. The project aims to use the study of chickens to demonstrate how studies in the arts, humanities and sciences can be fused together for the benefit of both academic and non-academic communities. Chickens play a major role in modern European societies. This project will greatly increase our knowledge of the history of this exotic species and allow those who keep chickens to appreciate how this knowledge can be used to the benefit of the management of chickens in the present and future.

All team members, from PI to PhD students, will contribute to the Impact programme, ensuring that they not only gain skills and experience in communicating research but also appreciate how the arts and sciences can be fused creatively for social benefit.
Our pilot project highlighted four groups with whom we wish to engage; they will not only benefit from the project but will be actively involved in it:

1) General public. Chickens are as much a part of Europe's cultural heritage as the more visible monuments of Stonehenge or the Coliseum but, because they are abundant and widespread, their cultural significance is overlooked. Yet it is their very familiarity that makes chickens an engaging cultural and educational resource. To communicate their importance we will commission a documentary to explain the project's findings in an accessible format. This will be made available on-line with clips incorporated into our exhibitions at institutions including the Natural History Museum (Tring), Museum of London and Fishbourne Roman Palace. These exhibitions will be connected with the art exhibition (above) to establish 'The Chicken Trail' that, together, will explain the natural/cultural history of the chicken. A tourist guide to The Chicken Trail will be available for free download via the Coop website and those of our collaborating institutions. The Chicken Trail will be launched in January 2017 to coincide with the Chinese 'Year of the Rooster'.

2) Schoolchildren. From the start, we will work with educational artist, Ben Frimet, to deliver cross-curricular activities to schools/academies nationwide. Using chickens as the focus, pupils will be taught (art) history, archaeology, environmental ethics and scientific techniques. The project's results will be used as the focus for the pupil's creative writing (re-imagining the life-history of their animals) and artwork. Artistic outputs will be uploaded to the Coop website and will form the foundation of physical art exhibitions installed within the institutions involved in the project but also in public spaces (e.g. butchers' shops and laundrettes) within inner-city London: Frimet has successfully pioneered similar exhibitions.

3) Chicken Breeders/Keepers. Today, chickens are a serious economic, environmental and ethical concern. The impact of their management is hotly debated: at the large-scale, intensive farming has been widely critiqued (e.g. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's 'Chicken Out' campaign) whereas small-scale domestic husbandry has been equally lambasted for spreading disease (The Guardian 23/05/12). Our project will provide both a philosophical review and deep-time empirical evidence to inform on these current debates. Throughout the project we will communicate our results to the world of poultry breeders via our partnership with Practical Poultry (membership 17,000) and through publication in their dedicated magazine. We will work directly with members, briefing them on the significance of chickens and providing information on the origin and genetic diversity of rare breed populations - issues key to the development of effective management strategies. Members will be asked to provide samples for analysis and encouraged to volunteer for anthropological interviews so that they might engage directly in our research.

4) Academic community. We have established Chicken Coop, an international and trans-disciplinary research hub to foster dialogue, increase knowledge transfer and facilitate collaboration between academics worldwide. All of the individuals specified on the website, and many more besides, will benefit directly from this project. It will also be a platform where discussions about chickens can be shared with the other groups. The on-line database will form a vital research platform for scholars globally.