How Rice Tempted Chickens to Live With Humans
The story of chicken domestication began in a small farming community in Thailand 3500 years ago
Any chicken and rice meal is comfort food for me. Innovative chefs worldwide have created delicious dishes using chicken and rice, such as biryani, jambalaya, pilaf, and paella. But have you wondered why chicken pairs well with rice?
There might be an evolutionary explanation. Rice fueled the domestication of chickens by enticing the red junglefowl, the chicken’s ancestor, to live with humans.
In 2022, researchers led by Joris Peters, an anthropologist at LMU Munich, discovered that rice farming was the catalyst behind the taming of the red junglefowl. By evaluating data from 89 countries and 600 archaeological sites, they determined that the first chickens were domesticated in Central Thailand between 1650 and 1250 BC. The study also found that the expansion of rice farming coincided with the spread of the chicken worldwide.
If you look at Peters's proposed dates for chicken domestication, you may wonder why the birds joined our farms so late. Pigs, cows, goats, sheep, and horses were all domesticated long ago. Relatively, chickens are newcomers. Agriculture began after the last Ice Age( around 9500 BC), and chickens should have…
