The earliest domestication of chickens

NEWS FROM HAIFA UNIVERSITY: Sorry colonel, Israel had real original recipe chicken. Forget Kentucky. Ancient Israeli town of Maresha was where people first started preparing poultry for food, archaeologists say (David Shamah, Times of Israel).

A team of researchers excavating the site of Maresha in the southern Judean plain say they found evidence that chicken and eggs, were consumed in the region well before other antiquity sites.

“It’s accurate to say that Israel is where the chicken business was invented,” doctoral student Lee Perry-Gal told The Times of Israel. “Jewish chicken soup, Kentucky Fried Chicken – it all has its roots in the Hellenistic city of Maresha in central Israel.”

“At some point in between 200 and 400 BCE, the residents of Maresha began raising and eating chicken, as well as eggs, which we also have no evidence was eaten before this period,” said Perry-Gal, referring to an archaeological site near the Beit Guvrin caves in central Israel. “That changed, and chicken became a part of the culinary culture of Israel – and eventually the rest of the Western world.”

Actually, my understanding is that Maresha, although now in the territory of the State of Israel, was an Idumean town in antiquity. Past posts on Maresha are here, here, here, here and here and links.