Mihos Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Fumihito, A., T. Miyake, S. Sumi, M. Takada, S.
> Ohno and N. Kondo. 1994. One Subspecies of the Red
> Junglefowl (Gallus gallus gallus) Suffices As the
> Matriarchic Ancestor of all Domestic Breeds. Proc.
> Natl. Acad. Sci., 91: 12505-12509.
> Langdon, R. 1989. When the Blue-Egg Chickens Come
> Home to Roost. Journal of Pacific History, 24:
> 164-192.

This is OLD news re chicken domestication, and has no bearing on preColumbian chicken claims. (I’ve got the Fumihito paper, it says NOTHING about Polynesian or South American chickens, NOTHING about blue eggs, etc. Eh, another interesting paper is “Monophyletic origin and unique dispersal patterns of domestic fowls” by the same author.).

BTW, I'm sure you were aware that there are reports of some European chicken breeds laying blue/green eggs? There is a 1526 description of just such a species in Spain, and I’ve seen reports that some of the eastern european breeds (Hungarian Transylvanian/Carpathian region in particular, that to some extent difused over into Germany) layed colored eggs, including blue.

> The domestic fowl that arrived post Conquistador
> are of Meditteranean gene type.

Cites?

Remember that the Spanish commonly carried chickens on board their ships as provisions.... and that a ship picking up supplies in SE Asia would naturally thus pick up SE Asian chickens.

Look up the "Manila Galleon" & netsearch EARLY Spanish exploration and trade routes in the Pacific.

Asian chicken genes are VERY common in Latin America..... having been introduced here by the Spanish & Portuguese.

> The Lapita culture's domestic fowl are derived of
> Gallus gallus spadiceus of Burma/Vietnam/Cochin
> China.

Eh, this would be guesswork, as the Lapita died out thousands of years ago and chicken bone morphology wouldn't allow any such distinction to be made.

> THe domestic fowl of Rapanui and some other
> islands like Pitcairn and Marquesis are
> genetically distinctive.

PLEASE be logical here.

Rapanui had chickens... as did other Polynesian islands.... obtained in Melanesia & SE Asia back when their proto-Polynesian ancestors resided there. Chickens were part of the standard “canoe colonizing package” of domesticates.

Pitcairn HAD no resident chickens, anything the original Polynesian settlers might have introduced died with them when that colony failed (centuries BEFORE European contact). The (in)famous Bounty mutineers brought chickens with them from Tahiti.... along with actual Tahitians.... when they resettled the island. Other breeds have subsequently been added to the mix.

Marquesan chickens are... again.... just the normal, SE Asian derived Polynesian chicken.

> Their RFLP type is
> endemic to Indonesia and derived of Gallus bankiva
> the Javanese
> red jf. All other domestic fowl are believed to be
> derived of the sister species Gallus spadiceus The
> Burmese Red JF.

Not according to the Fumihito paper you cited above…..

…. it indicates domestication was PRIMARILY or even entirely from Gallus gallus gallus, with possibly marginal contribution from other subspecies.

> What is more, the Rapanui and Quechua fowl have
> the nuclear DNA of Gallus varius.

Cites?

The paper YOU cite says that the Auracana chicken has the common type V mtDNA of Gallus gallus gallus…..

And I was unable to locate ANY decent subspecies level studies of nuclear DNA among Gallus ssp. So I’d be VERY interested in tracking down such “cutting edge” research…….

> They are of
> hybrid ancestry and because of their unique
> genetics are not truly chickens.

"Male Bovine excrement" (to get the proper exclamation past the censor software).

If it can cross with a chicken & produce fully fertile offspring, it's a chicken. They ARE "truly chickens".

Heh, did you realize that “wheat” comprises several totally different species (not all of which can cross with each other)? That “pumpkins” & “squash” refer to 5-7 different species (the number depending on whether you count regional partial domesticates or not), and that each (“can’t cross with another species”) species contains BOTH “pumpkins” and “squash”?.

Compared to that, having partial maternal ancestry from a species that “some” authorities consider a separate subspecies of Gallus while other authorities feel it should be lumped in with the rest as a single species, is NOTHING! Heh, they’ve located some domestic sunflower varieties with wild sunflower mtDNA….. would you argue that these a

> These domestic fowl were in Easter ISland when the
> first Europeans arrived.

Yep.... introduced BY Rapanui's Polynesian population when they settled the island.

And brought from SE Asia, accompanying Polynesians on their spread throughout the Pacific.

But there is no way to prove that the CURRENT Rapa Nui chickens are significantly descended from that original stocking….

> And there were domestic fowl in South America when
> the first Europeans arrived as well.

Other than Turkeys, nope. Cites?

> In fact, these unique domestic fowl are similar to
> the Rapanui fowl in that they lay blue or green
> eggs.

Yawn.... you might try researching Rapa Nui history. The island was virtually depopulated by Peruvian/Chilean slavers in the mid 19th century. At one point, this became such a scandal that surviving Rapa Nui slaves were rounded up and sent back to Rapa Nui... introducing a smallpox epidemic that decimated it's population even further. There has been continued contact and trade between Rapa Nui and Chile for the last 150 years, so that in consequence there is no way to determine with any certainty the origin of the current chicken populataion on the island.

Hell, there were poorly recorded visits by Europeans (with previous ports of call in South America) during the 17th and 18th centuries.... who knows what THEY might have added to the local chicken genepool?

> None of the wild red jf produce these
> pigments nor do their domestic progeny.
> Blue green eggs were unknown in Asia or Europe
> before Magellan described them and brought them to
> Europe.

Eh, as noted, I’ve found references to them in eastern Europe (Hungarian/Transylvanian/Carpathian region in particular), where they were thought to be derived from 9th century Asian imports. And blue egg chickens were described in Spain as early as 1526, evidentally with no mention of these being an import from the Americas.

Kenuchelover.