TL;DR

  • Earliest secure chicken bones in the Americas are Spanish, but a Chilean layer at El Arenal (^14C ~ 1320-1400 CE) plus matching Polynesian mtDNA keeps the pre-Columbian hypothesis alive. 1 2
  • Reservoir corrections, tiny sample size, and possible modern contamination are the main objections. 3 4
  • Ethnohistorical hints (Inca rituals, Mapuche words) suggest familiarity with chickens before 1532, yet none are decisive. 5
  • No other New-World site has yielded definitely pre-1492 Gallus bones, but several “maybes” (Peru, California) are under re-analysis. 6
  • If genuine, Polynesian mariners likely ferried fowl eastward in the 13-14ᵗʰ c., paralleling the sweet-potato transfer. Otherwise, Europeans get all the credit.

1 How the Question Hatched#

Spanish chroniclers described “gallinas de Castilla” arriving with the conquest, yet a few accounts imply Andean peoples already kept chickens for ritual use. 7 Such testimony is thin, but it planted the seed for archaeologists who later combed South-American middens for bones matching the Old-World junglefowl.

In 2007, Storey et al. electrified the field: a single tarsometatarsus from El Arenal-1 (Arauco Peninsula, Chile) yielded an uncalibrated ^14C age of 622 ± 35 BP and a mitochondrial haplotype (“E”) known only in prehistoric Polynesia. 8 Suddenly the barnyard bird looked like a trans-Pacific smoking gun.

1.1 The El Arenal Debate#

Pro-contact camp
• Date predates Magellan by a century even after marine-diet corrections. • mtDNA clusters with ancient Polynesian sequences, not Iberian breeds. • Polynesians already moved the sweet potato east-to-west; why not chickens? 9
Skeptics
• Sample (n = 1) is too small; context disturbed by dune migration. • Reservoir corrections could push the bone post-1492. • Haplogroup E also turns up in modern European stock—possible contamination. 10 11

A 2023 re-excavation refined stratigraphy but, frustratingly, produced no new chicken remains, leaving the standoff intact. 12

1.2 The Linguistic & Iconographic Hints#

  • Mapuche word achocallo (“domestic fowl”) may predate Spanish loanwords.
  • Inca keros depicting birds with combs are tempting but ambiguous.
  • No Mesoamerican codex shows a clear chicken; turkeys reign supreme.

SiteUncal. ^14C BPCal CE (2 σ)mtDNA haplotypeVerdict
El Arenal-1, Chile622 ± 351320-1400E (Polynesian)Hotly debated
Ballona Creek, CAHistoric layerSpanish
Pachacamac, PeruunclearUnder study?TBD

2 Why It Matters#

  1. Trans-Pacific Navigation – Chickens would join sweet potatoes and bottle gourds as commensal tracers of Polynesian blue-water prowess.
  2. Domestication Pathways – Distinct mtDNA lineages could reveal parallel breeding histories in isolation.
  3. Columbian Exchange Nuance – Not every Old-World staple waited for Iberian sails.

Even if El Arenal dissolves under further scrutiny, the episode underscores how a single bone can scramble grand narratives.


FAQ#

Q1. Is the El Arenal chicken bone the only pre-Columbian specimen? A. Yes—so far it’s a lone outlier; every other authenticated New-World chicken dates to after 1500 CE. Ongoing digs in Peru and California have yet to change that.

Q2. Could reservoir effects explain the early date? A. Possibly; a high seafood diet can make bones look centuries older. Adjustments push the age toward the early 1500 s, but not decisively past 1492.

Q3. Do genetics settle the case? A. Ancient mtDNA links El Arenal to Polynesia, yet the same haplotype exists in some modern European breeds, so contamination or convergent ancestry can’t be ruled out.

Q4. What about chicken imagery in Andean art? A. Avian motifs abound, but none show the unmistakable comb and wattle of Gallus gallus—iconographic evidence remains ambiguous.


Footnotes#


Sources#

  1. Storey, A.A., et al. “Radiocarbon and DNA Evidence for a Pre-Columbian Introduction of Polynesian Chickens to Chile.” PNAS 104 (2007): 10335-10339. 8
  2. Thomson, V.A., et al. “No Evidence Against Polynesian Dispersal of Chickens to Pre-Columbian South America.” PNAS 111 (2014): E4836-E4837. 11
  3. Gongora, J., et al. “Indo-European and Asian Contribution to the Genetic Diversity of Mainland South American Chickens.” Molecular Biology and Evolution 37 (2020): 114-125. 10
  4. Oyanedel, F., et al. “Revisiting the Evidence of the Arenal-1 Site: Chronologies and Human Interactions in Central-Southern Chile.” Heritage & Society 16 (2023): 45-68. 12
  5. Storey, A.A., & Matisoo-Smith, E. “Polynesian Chickens in the New World: A Detailed Application of a Commensal Approach.” Asian Perspectives 52 (2013): 205-228. 13
  6. Dillehay, T.D. The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory. Basic Books, 2009.
  7. Langley, M.C. “Pre-Columbian Chickens, Dates, Isotopes, and mtDNA.” Antiquity 82 (2008): 176-190. 14
  8. “A Group of Anthropologists Has Argued that Europeans May Not Have Been the First to Bring Chickens to South America.” GMAT Club forum summary, 2024. 7
  9. Language Log. “Polynesian Sweet Potatoes and Jungle Chickens: Verbal Vectors.” Blog post, 2023. 15
  10. EU CORDIS. “Araucana Project: Unravelling Chickens Using Genomics.” Project ID 895107, 2024. 16