The ‘chicken project’

Performing vital work in an under-researched area

Cultural and Scientific Perceptions of Human-Chicken Interactions

Chickens’ diffusion to the west – through India, the Near East, Mediterranean and northern Europe – has been almost completely neglected in academic research. But the outcomes from this significant research project show just how important understanding the subject is.

Professor Mark Maltby, Principal Investigator on the project

In 2013, the Arts and Humanities Research Council awarded a £1.94 million grant to a cross-disciplinary research team comprising academics from six UK universities. Led by BU’s Professor Mark Maltby as Principal Investigator, the impact of the ensuing project, ‘Cultural and Scientific Perceptions of Human-Chicken Interactions’, is visible on a global scale, with findings which have implications for industry and consumers alike.

The achievements the team has recorded across this project and its follow-on work are as multifarious as they are significant. These range from developing resources to support teaching from Key Stages 1–4, to challenging previous interpretations about the under-researched history of the geographical spread of the species. It even became the first research project to boast a ‘comedian in residence’ as part of innovative public engagement activities.

By uniting scholars from different disciplines, members of the public, interest groups and schoolchildren through the study of the chicken, this project provided a chance to unearth vital information about the past, present and future of human society.

4,500

Years that chickens have been spread worldwide through human activity

8m+

Audience reach of TES, the platform where educational outputs from the project will be published

In this case study, we largely focus on public engagement and the development of educational content through this project and its follow-on activity. For more detail about the other research involved across all universities, expand ‘Providing long overdue answers’ and ‘Six universities – a range of research’ below, or visit the cultural and scientific perceptions of human-chicken interactions website.

Providing long overdue answers

Ancient chicken bones identified by BU’s Dr Ellen Hambleton

Chickens (also known as ‘domestic fowl’) are native to South East Asia but, today, they have a worldwide distribution. Their diffusion is almost entirely due to human-assisted transportation over the last 4,500 years – no other livestock species is so widely established – and, as such, their natural history is a reflection of human history.

But research into the species’ diffusion to the west, through India, the Near East, Mediterranean and northern Europe, has been almost completely neglected. Prior to this project, for example, very little genetic work had been undertaken and the timing and circumstances of the spread of chickens were poorly understood.

Given the social significance of this species – whether that’s as a provider of foodstuffs, their growing popularity as domestic pets, their widespread use in cock-fighting or within magic and medicine – a detailed analysis of chickens’ natural and cultural history in the West was long overdue.

It was recognised from the outset that research into human-chicken relationships has the potential to inform on poultry-borne diseases, food security and environmental ethics, issues of particular importance at a time when billions of people rely on mass-produced chickens as a source of sustenance. It was also recognised that people’s familiarity with, and different attitudes towards chickens was something that our research and its results could find resonance with.

In addition to BU, the contributing institutions involved in this project were the University of Leicester, University of Nottingham, University of Oxford, University of Roehampton and University of York, with researchers covering a wide range of disciplines from cultural and scientific archaeology – including zooarchaeology, anthropology, ecology and genetics – to examine the social, cultural and environmental impact of the species.

Their research focused on evidence from selected sites in Britain and continental Europe with anthropological research also extending into Ethiopia, Italy, Brazil, Austria and the Canaries.

On this page we largely focus on public engagement and the development of educational content; you can read a little more about each university’s work by expanding ‘Six universities – a range of research’ below, or pore over each stage of the project on the cultural & scientific perceptions of human-chicken Interactions website.

Six universities – a range of research

Each university focused on particular aspects of the research. At BU, Professor Maltby led the research into the exploitation of chickens in the Roman period. Meanwhile, Research Assistant, Dr Julia Best, led the research into egg production, working in conjunction with colleagues in York to develop analytical techniques in the study of ancient eggshells and medullary bone laid within the shafts of the bones of laying hens.

She also led research in tracing the spread of chickens in Europe via a targeted radiocarbon dating programme, the results of which have challenged previous interpretations of the spread.

Furthermore, Maltby and Best led the production of an extensive database, which stores information about the frequencies and metrical data of chickens from over 1,250 archaeological assemblages across Europe. This will become widely available via the Archaeological Data Service, informing subsequent research efforts.

Two associated PhD projects funded by BU have also been completed into the ecology of jungle fowl and chickens (Dr Jaqueline Pitt) and into the material culture of chicken in Roman Britain and Gaul (Dr Michael Feider).

Elsewhere, Roehampton had five PhD students studying varied aspects of the anthropology underlying modern chicken exploitation, while Oxford was the centre for genetic studies and their work has advanced our knowledge of the origins of domestic chickens and the history of different types of chickens.

Colleagues in York focused on lipid residue analysis, establishing for the first time that it is possible to recognise chicken food remains in pottery. Researchers in Nottingham examined nitrogen and carbon stable isotopes and have provided new insights into variations in chicken diets in the past and present. The Co-Investigator, Naomi Sykes, also co-ordinated the project’s ambitious impact programme, some of which is highlighted below. Leicester researchers have studied size changes in chickens through time and have also focused on their health and welfare.

Cross-curricular craft

In addition to the members of the team based at contributing universities, the project boasted its own artist in residence, Ben Frimet, an art teacher at City of London Academy (CoLA). Working with Ben and other CoLA staff, the team developed an entire year of activities for Key Stage 3 students. These ranged from ancient DNA workshops to artistic depictions of the meat industry.

The aim of this part of the project was to show how mutually beneficial it can be when university researchers engage with schools, working with teachers to generate a creative and up-to-date educational programme.

In much the same way that the project was interdisciplinary – weaving together evidence from archaeology, anthropology, art, history and science – the team wanted to explore whether a school could take a similar interdisciplinary approach and teach across the curriculum using a single theme: in this case, the chicken.

In my 25 years in education this has probably been our most successful cross-curricular project; it’s inspired our students and enabled them to do quite amazing things.

From analysing the bones of chickens from the school canteen as part of this work, students discovered a worrying lack of genetic diversity among ‘broiler’ chickens that have been selectively commercially bred over the past 50 years. This breeding – which prepares broilers for slaughter within 35 days of hatching – means the birds’ young bones have become warped by rapid growth and body weight.

This ultimately culminated in the creation of ‘Dinnersaurus Rex’ as students wondered if chickens might ever be bred so large that they’d come to resemble the dinosaurs from which they descend. Crafted by students led by Mr Frimet, the impressive 30-foot papier-mâché Dinnersaurus chicken was the centrepiece of CoLA’s ‘ChickenFest’ event and subsequently went on display at the Natural History Museum in Oxford.

At the conclusion of this pilot year of educational activity, a cohort of students had obtained the highest marks recorded at the school. Mr Frimet was even acknowledged on national television, being presented the ‘Golden Apple Thank You Teacher Award’ on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

Watch footage from the ‘ChickenFest’ event at the City of London Academy

Engaging the public with poultry

Public engagement was among the other core goals of the project, and efforts in this area have seen the research team share insights and experiences with people at a wide variety of events across the UK.

This includes different incarnations of the AHRC Being Human Festival, the UK’s first national festival of the humanities. The ‘Chicken Project’’s first appearance at the festival was held at Vindolanda Roman Fort on Hadrian’s Wall – one of Europe’s most famous Roman archaeological sites, from which substantial numbers of chicken remains have been recovered. The activities included interactive talks, handling sessions, living history, and art and craft activities.

The following year saw the team contributing to three weeks of Being Human events, including a comedy night at the appropriately named Hen and Chickens Theatre bar in Islington, with a line-up that featured ‘comedian in residence’ Steve Cross and television presenter Kate Humble.

Kate Humble performs at the ‘Why did the chicken…’ stand-up event

Elsewhere, the team created an interactive exhibition aimed at children and families, which ran at the Education Resources Centre at Fishbourne Palace Museum in the winter of 2017 and throughout most of 2018 and was viewed by several hundred visitors. It also exhibited at Glastonbury Festival, as well as BU’s own Festival of Learning, which attracted around 300 visitors to the project’s displays and activities in 2016.

Dr Julia Best at Glastonbury with the project display

Follow-on: Causing a Flap

The research conducted in ‘Cultural and Scientific Perceptions of Human-Chicken Interactions’ and a related AHRC-funded programme – ‘Empowering women and increasing chicken production in Ethiopia’, led by the University of Nottingham – demonstrated that human and chicken health and well-being are inextricably linked in areas such as diet, zoonotic disease and environmental sustainability.

The results have implications for industry and consumers alike, and were succeeded by the AHRC-funded follow-on project, ‘Causing a Flap: using chicken-based research to transform education, poultry production and human well-being’. Working alongside colleagues from the University of Exeter, this brought these findings to workshops and exhibitions to develop arts and humanities research-informed policy on chicken sustainability, working with various outside bodies.

Specifically, ‘Causing a Flap’ looked to:

Increase understanding of the link between human and chicken diet, health and environmental sustainability
Enhance cross-curriculum educational practice through a common medium, the chicken, in the UK and Africa
Highlight the role of human-chicken interactions in transforming the lives of vulnerable people.

Within this work, our ‘Cross-curricular Coop’ team has created a package of online and physical resources designed to support teaching to mainstream UK Key Stages 1–4 pupils, home-school, distance learners and primary school Ethiopian students. Alongside researchers, this team comprised 21 educators from across the UK education spectrum, as well as a teacher and an Official from the Ministry of Education from Ethiopia, co-opted into our ‘Coop’ for knowledge transfer.

In order to tailor these teaching resources and ensure that they are relevant to their target audience, the team collaborated closely with UK and Ethiopian educators during the development stage via one-to-one meetings and a dedicated workshop to trial, critique and then advance these resources.

This has created a stimulating programme of learning which will be easily accessed via a free and well-regarded teaching platform in the UK, TES, with a user base of over eight million users. Pre-printed packs and physical resources were selected as the media for Ethiopian teachers due to limited classroom space/internet access.

Leaving a significant legacy in the academic community as well as in the education of schoolchildren, this project has demonstrated what can be achieved through inter-disciplinary work across multiple institutions. And, with further outputs yet to be published and a documentary film nearing completion, its story will continue to develop in the coming years.

Publications

Maltby, M., Allen, M., Best, J., Fothergill, B.T. and Demarchi. B. (2018) Counting Roman chickens: multidisciplinary approaches to human-chicken interactions in Roman Britain. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 19, 1003-1015.

Best, J., Lebrasseur, O., Larson, G.,Sykes. N., Peters, J., Boev, Z., Trentacoste, A., Seigle, M., Miller, H., Hamilton-Dyer, S., Hamilton, J., Cunliffe, B., Mepham, L., Allen D., Armit, I., Buster, L., Pitt, J., Higham, T. and Maltby, M. In Prep. Radiocarbon dating early chicken bones from Europe: refining a chronology of introduction. Aim: Antiquity.

Pitt, J., Gillingham, P., Maltby. M. and Stewart. J. (2016) New perspectives on the ecology of early domestic fowl: an interdisciplinary approach. Journal of Archaeological Science 74: 1-10.

Fothergill, B. T., Best, J., Foster, A. and Demarchi. B. (2017) Hens, health and husbandry: integrated approaches to past poultry-keeping in England. Open Quaternary, 3 (5), 1–25, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/oq.34

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Core team

Professor Mark Maltby (PI) Dept. of Archaeology, Anthropology and Forensic Science, Bournemouth University
Prof. Matthew Collins (Eggshell analysis) Dept of Archaeology, University of York
Professor Oliver Craig (Lipid analysis) Dept. of Archaeology, University of York
Ben Frimet (Artist)
Professor Greger Larson (Genetics) Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford University
Prof. Garry Marvin (Anthropology) University of Roehampton
Prof. Terry O'Connor (Zooarchaeology) Department of Archaeology, University of York
Professor Naomi Sykes (Co-director, isotopes and cultural impact) Dept. of Archaeology, University of Exeter
Dr Richard Thomas (Palaeopathology and osteometrics) School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester

Postdoctoral research assistants

PhDs

Giovanna Capponi, The Role of the Chicken in Candomblé religion (Italy) (Roehampton).
Michael Feider, Chickens and Archaeological Material Culture (Bournemouth)
Alison Foster, The Identification of Chicken ‘Breeds’ in the Archaeological Record (Leicester)
Elena Lazutkaite, The Discursive Representation of Chickens (Nottingham)
Jacqueline Pitt, The Ecology of Chickens Past and Present (Bournemouth)
Melanie Ramasawmy, Women and Chicken Husbandry in Ethiopia (Roehampton)
Eva Zoubek, Amateur Chicken-Keeping in Modern Britain (Roehampton)
Ricardo Rodrigo Ontillera Sanchez, Chicken Cultures and Male Identities in the Canary Islands(Roehampton)