Early Holocene chicken domestication in northern China
Open accessAbstract
Significance: Ancient DNA analysis is a powerful tool to reveal the geographical origins of domesticated species. Here we obtained ancient mtDNA sequences from the earliest archaeological chicken bones from northern China as early as 10,000 y ago. Combined analyses of our ancient sequences with a large dataset of published modern and ancient chicken mtDNA sequences suggest that northern China was likely one of several regions of chicken domestication and provide further insights into the process of human-mediated spread of chickens across the globe. Our results not only suggest that the oldest archaeological chicken bones recovered so far are indeed from ancestors of domestic chickens, but also provide further evidence for one of the earliest, mixed agricultural complexes in the world.
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The temporal origin and spread of chickens substantially postdates many of those suggested by previous studies.
“Overall, our analyses indicate a temporal origin and spread of chickens that substantially postdates many of those suggested by previous studies (6, 8).”
From The biocultural origins and dispersal of domestic chickens (2022) · cites this paper as [8]
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- Authors
- Xiang, H., Gao, J., Yu, B., Zhou, H., Cai, D., Zhang, Y., Chen, X., Wang, X., Hofreiter, M., & Zhao, X.
- Affiliations
- China Agricultural University (CN)
- Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relic, Shijiazhuang 050031, China;
- Xushui County Office for Preservation of Ancient Monuments, Xushui 072550, China;
- Jilin University (CN)
- University of Potsdam (DE)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2014-11-24
- Volume
- 111
- Issue
- 49
- Pages
- 17564-17569
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC4267363
- OpenAlex
- W2062910525
- Cited by
- 214
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 34 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 13
- FWCI
- 11.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- publish.UP (University of Potsdam) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- China Agricultural University
- Jilin University
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Animal Science and Zoology › Livestock and Poultry Management
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Forensic and Genetic Research
- Keywords
- chicken domestication, Gallus, Gallus gallus, Gallus sonneratii, ancient mitochondrial DNA, Early Holocene, northern China
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Animal Husbandry, Archaeology, Bayes Theorem, Bone and Bones, Chickens, China, DNA, Mitochondrial, Biological Evolution, Gene Pool, Geography, Haplotypes, Models, Genetic, Molecular Sequence Data, Phylogeny, Species Specificity, History, Ancient
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