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

Abstract

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.

Cattle in the West African savanna: evidence from 1st millennium CE Kirikongo, Burkina Faso

“…Given current data, it is in any case likely the Jenné-jeno small cattle were obtained from contemporary societies to the south. Evidence for cattle adoption coincides with current evidence that chickens were likely present at Kirikongo since the early 1st millennium CE, but adopted at Jenné-jeno in Phase III (Dueppen, 2011;MacDonald, 1995). The adoption of savanna cattle, and possibly chickens, can therefore be used as supporting evidence for the proposed growing interconnectivity during the 1st millennium CE between Voltaic communities and larger, commercially oriented towns to their north.…”

“…However, archaeological research at Kirikongo (ca. 100e1700 CE), an ancestral Bwa village, suggests that cattle-keeping was rejected as part of an egalitarian revolution in the 12th century CE, since 1st millennium CE inequalities had involved a co-option of cattle wealth (Dueppen, 2008(Dueppen, , 2011, in press-a, in press-b). Despite the dynamic historical relations and diverse cattle-husbandry practices found today throughout the Voltaic region, archaeological research has not yet identified the types of cattle nor the local and regional innovations that resulted in their historic distributions.…”

Reinvestigation of Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar, reveals Later Stone Age coastal habitation, early Holocene abandonment and Iron Age reoccupation

“…From the photographs in Sinclair et al (2006) it is not possible to assess whether the heavy-duty coral limestone lithics from the lower deposits of Trench 6 are genuine artefacts; clearer photographs in Knutsson (2007) and Chami (2009) do not have any visible diagnostic traits of flaked lithics. The identification of the chicken bones, critical to the Neolithic hypothesis and the question of early maritime trade, has been questioned on the grounds that the specimens thus far illustrated are undiagnostic (Dueppen 2011). Likewise, the three 'Neolithic' ceramic sherds illustrated by Chami (2009: 73) are typologically ambiguous because some decorative features are shared between Neolithic and TT/TIW ceramic traditions.…”

“…The Kuumbi Cave findings built upon work at Machaga Cave (Chami 2001), where claims were also made for beads indicative of Indian Ocean contact, as well as finds of chicken, cat and Rift Valley-affiliated Neolithic pottery (Chami and Kwekason 2003). These findings, particularly the identification of a coastal Neolithic and the early spread of chicken, have, however, been questioned (Sinclair 2007;Dueppen 2011;see also Sutton 2002), necessitating new data from Kuumbi Cave. A re-examination of Kuumbi Cave was accordingly undertaken by the Sealinks Project in 2012, as part of wider investigations of eastern Africa's coastal prehistory and early trade connections (Helm et al 2012;Boivin et al 2013Boivin et al , 2014Shipton et al 2013;Crowther et al 2014Crowther et al , 2015).…”

Early Evidence for Domestic Chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) in the Horn of Africa

“…Chickens have been recovered from levels dating to c. 500–1200 CE at both coastal and inland sites such as Unguja Ukuu, Akameru and Cyinkomane and from sites in the Lamu Archipelago (Van Neer, ; Horton & Mudida, ). Significantly, earlier dates for chickens at Machaga Cave, c. 3000–2000 BCE (Chami, , ) are contested (Dueppen, ; Boivin et al, ; Mwacharo et al, ). Chickens date to similar periods in Central and Southern Africa (Table and Figure ; MacDonald, ; Boivin et al, ; Juma, ).…”