In search of Estonia’s earliest chicken

Abstract

It has been hypothesised that the chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) was introduced to the area of what is now modernday Estonia around the PreRoman or Roman Iron Age. However, none of the earliest chicken bones found in the area had been radiocarbon dated and due to a complex contextual background, the question of its first appearance has been left open. With the aim of finding the earliest evidence for the chicken in Estonia, we looked into the zooarchaeological material from twelve archaeological sites, including burial grounds, settlement sites, and hillforts. The earliest evidence had been reported at four of these sites, but during the taxonomic reassessment, no chicken bones were identified. From the remaining eight sites, nine chicken bones were radiocarbon dated by AMS. The sample from a stonecist grave at Rebala (northern Estonia) was dated to 200 calBCE -5 calCE, which means that this individual is the earliest confirmed chicken in Estonia. The other dates range from the PreViking Age to the Modern Period, with some of them illustrating the complicated nature of faunal remains in archaeological contexts. Although this study elucidates the first appearance of the chicken in Estonia and in the Baltic region in general, its origin, ways of exploitation, and the extent of its spreading remain to be studied.

The biocultural origins and dispersal of domestic chickens

“…Chickens arrived in coastal southwest Sweden at the onset of the first millennium CE or slightly earlier, before dispersing during the Migration period (∼400 to 550 CE). The chicken’s first appearance in the eastern Baltic region dates to the late Pre-Roman Iron Age, where these remains may have been associated with a burial ( 77 ). The presence of this bird may represent a trade import, however, since chickens were clearly exploited across the Baltic States and in Finland by the late Iron Age (∼600 to 800 CE) ( Fig.…”