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Early evidence for chickens at Iron Age Kirikongo (c. AD 100–1450), Burkina Faso

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Stephen A. Dueppen
Stephen A. Dueppen*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, 308 Condon Hall, 1321 Kincaid Street, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA (Email: [email protected])
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Extract

An excavated sequence from Burkina Faso shows that the Asian jungle fowl Gallus gallus, also known as the chicken, had made its way into West Africa by the mid first millennium AD. Using high precision recovery from a well-stratified site, the author shows how the increasing use of chickens could be chronicled and distinguished from indigenous fowl by both bones and eggshell. Their arrival was highly significant, bringing much more than an additional source of food: it put a sacrificial creature, essential for numerous social and economic transactions, in reach of everyone.

Keywords

AfricaBurkina FasoIron Agefirst millennium ADlivestockchickenguinea fowlfrancolin
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 327 , March 2011 , pp. 142 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

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