Dear Colleagues
I am pleased to bring to your attention a major new research initiative.

Cultural and Scientific Perceptions of Human-Chicken Interactions

This 3-year trans-disciplinary project starting in January 2014 has been funded by the UK-based Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to address the following questions:
1) When, how and why did domestication and the early husbandry of chicken take place?
2) How rapidly did chickens spread into different parts of Europe and how was this diffusion linked to population movements, trade or cultural changes?
3) When did poultry and egg production emerge and how intensively were chickens exploited for these products in different regions and periods?
4) When and where did modern chicken breeds develop?
5) How have chickens changed society and culture in antiquity and in modern times?
6) Can evidence from the past be used to transform modern practices of chicken management?

The chicken is native to Southeast Asia but over the last 8,000 years it has been transported around the world - no other livestock species is so widely established. However, there has not been a broad and comprehensive review about the rapidity of the westward spread of chickens and its cultural and environmental impacts. No ancient (and little modern) DNA work has been published for European chickens, nor have there been any isotopic studies focussed specifically upon their diets or whether they were bred locally or traded. Given the social and cultural significance of this species (whether as a provider of meat, eggs or feathers, its widespread use in cockfighting or its association with ritual, magic and medicine), a detailed analysis of the natural and cultural history of chickens in Europe is long overdue and this has genuine potential to provide cultural data of the highest quality and relevance for a range of disciplines and audiences. To elucidate the circumstances and meaning of the westward spread of chickens into Europe and their subsequent exploitation (from the late prehistoric period to the present), a team of archaeologists, anthropologists, geneticists, and zooarchaeologists, has been formed. The zooarchaeologists will create the largest on-line database dedicated to a single order of animals and will capture information concerning element representation, sex, age, size, and pathology from sites across Europe. We hope to collaborate with many of you during the course of the project and many thanks to all of you who have already expressed willingness to provide data.

The project will be supported by an interactive research network (Chicken Coop) and we are in partnership with Practical Poultry Magazine, whose members, along with other chicken keepers ,will be providing us with valuable information. We will also be carrying out an ambitious outreach programme that will include taking our research into schools, and creating formal and informal exhibitions culminating in 2017 – the Chinese Year of the Rooster!

The leaders of this project are:
Mark Maltby (Bournemouth University); Naomi Sykes (University of Nottingham; Greger Larson (Univesity of Durham); Richard Thomas (University of Leicester; Oliver Craig, Terry O’Connor and Matthew Collins (University of York) and Garry Marvin (Roehampton University).

To support us, the AHRC is providing funding for five Post-Doctoral Research Assistant (PDRA) positions and two PhD studentships. Seven additional PhD studentships are being funded by four of the universities involved.  One of the Researcher positions (PDRA in Modern & Ancient Chicken Genetics) has already been advertised by the University of Durham. Details can be found on https://ig5.i-grasp.com/fe/tpl_durham01.asp?newms=jj&id=83476

We will circulate information about the nine PhD studentships and two other PDRA vacancies very shortly, so keep an eye out for these announcements. Please contact me if you would like to know more about the project in general. For queries about specific posts and studentships, please contact the supervisors indicated in the adverts when they appear. I would be grateful if you could circulate this information around your institutions and draw it to the attention of potential applicants.

Kind regards
Mark

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