- Thread starter
- #21
To recap: Red Junglefowl do not produce spotted, blotched, freckled nor dark tinted eggs. The wild Junglefowl species that do, we utilized in the early domestication of the chicken. It took thousands of years for the disadvantageous traits of the wild Junglefowl to be bred out while keeping desired traits of the same species. The discussion of the history of domestication of Gallus domesticus are important to understand, in order to gain a better comprehension of how and why dark egg producing breeds emerged during various points in history. Before the significance of introgression can be described properly, it's important to understand how the different junglefowl species are related to one another, as there are direct correlations -primarily the lack of or presence of hybrid fecundity-
We have the Junglefowl family tree with its central trunk and branching.
The Green Junglefowl is the earliest offshoot- a big branch that splits from the base of the trunk itself. The Green Junglefowl has absolutely nothing to do with any dark brown egg producing breed. At some point a few million years later, the Ceylon Junglefowl emerges from the Green Junglefowls branch and from it springs the Grey. A more slender branch splits from that locus and this is occupied by the Indonesian Red JF . Subsequently, a few tens of thousands of years later, a still more slender stem splits from the Indonesian Red JF branch. This is occupied first by the ancestral Mainland Red Junglefowl and much more recently new twigs have emerged-occupied by the three separate geographic races of the Mainland Red Junglefowl: Indian Red (G.g. murghi); Burmese Red (G.g. spadiceus), and the Vietnamese (G.g. jabouillei)
Holocene aged human beings show up on the scene =~15,000-10,000 years ago. Of course humans were there all along, but they were not keeping domestic animals- other than perhaps dogs- they kept no fowl, nor cattle -at least not fully fledged domesticated species- at this point. From archaeological evidence we know that ~ 10,000 years ago, the domestic chicken was well on its way towards domestication in Indonesia. This Aboriginal Stone Age culture in Indonesia, decided to steal and rear its first few clutches of Indonesian Red JF. So here is where the Backyard Chicken phenomenon began Anyway, primitive fighting games became synonymous with Indonesian animistic religious ceremonies. Indonesians traveled and traded with neighboring cultures in Southern India and Burma; Oceania and the South Pacific carrying their religious totem with them- the domestic species of the Indonesian Red JF.
Aboriginal ethnics of Indonesia, Malaysia, Southern India, Burma and Melanesia. These Aboriginal Indonesians had fully domesticated the Indonesian Red Junglefowl somewhere between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago. Beginning ~9,000 to 8,000 years ago, these peoples had begun trading their (semi-domestic) Indonesian Game type Domestic Species with related cultures in Tamil Nadu (Southern India) and Burma. Genetic composites between Indonesian Red and Burmese Red were probably common within the first few stages of domestication (~ 6,000 years ago).
A few centuries later, an invasive, technologically more advanced culturefrom South East Asia ( Malay,Vietnam/Thailand region) conquered Indonesia and Burma.
Aboriginal ethnics of South East Asia would displace the Aboriginal culture of Indonesia and Burma. They arrived in Sumatra and Java nearly 8,000 years ago carrying their own domestic species of Red JF -one descended of the Thailand race of the mainland Red JF species. Subsequently, these ancient Austronesians carried Indonesian Game type Domestic fowl back to their homelands in South East Asia. Recombination of Indonesian and South East Asian genetic stocks would eventually provide the base for the greatest diversity of chicken breeds in the world ( East and Northern Eastern Asia).
At least 1,500 years after the Tamil Nadu Culture in Southern India had developed their own regional domestic fowl, a new technologically advanced culture would emerge in Northwestern India. Just as the Austronesians conquered Aboriginal Indonesian peoples, so too, the Indo-Aryan culture eclipsed preceding Tamil culture. Eventually, this highly successful culture (Indo-Aryan) would migrate from North West India all the way to Egypt, through Mesopotamia, Assyria and the Levant carrying Domestic Cattle and Domestic Fowl. While Indus Valley peoples inherited their first primitive chicken breed- the Tamil Game- from the Tamil Nadu peoples of Southern India- they carried an early prototype of their own novel regional breed-with them on their migration out of India. Grey JF sires bred with the Tamil Game produced the earliest stages of the Asil Game .
Asil photo by Glenn
Apologize for photos if no credit-
Hybrid F1 GreyX Gamehen photo by Barry Feathersite
F1-F5 hybrids do not exhibit yellow skin or yellow legs. Successive introgression from male G. sonneratii early on in the development of the Asil was likely responsible for the trait becoming dominant.
Grey Junglefowl exhibit vivid legs, brilliant yellow, orange or even coral pink. Their skin is yellow. They lack white earlobes & the white down patch at the base of the tail characteristic in Red Junglefowl. The comb develops from a different locus of cells than that of the Red Jf, consequently, their is a tendency for some Grey hybrids to exhibit variations of the rose comb
Hybridization between wild Grey Junglefowl males with domestic Tamil Game females probably met its zenith by~ 5,000 years ago and discontinued shortly thereafter. Once the desired traits of the Grey JF were established in the domestic species, no further hybridization was necessary. Grey JF blood would tend to make the domestc stock exceedingly flighty and poor egg producers. Early generations of the hybrid stock were probably also much more vulnerable to disease than purely domestic flocks.
It should be noted that the inhabitants of the Indus Valley were of a different ethnicity and culture than the Tamil, being more closely related in language and culture to Mesopotamian peoples. Through the introgression of successive generations of male Grey Junglefowl genes into their domestic stock, the Indus Valley cultures successfully altered the domestic species available in the rest of Asia and in doing so, created a new entity with entirely different capacities- novel potential. Whereas earlier forms of the domestic fowl were kept primarily for ceremonial purposes, the Indo-Aryan diasporas making their way through Mesopotamia and ancient Persia began the process of selective breeding for egg production, as well as fighting.
1. The Indo-Aryans (India) had their yellow-legged, yellow-skinned high-crowing lot with their dichromatic crele plumage. These South West Asian domestic fowl would become the founders of Asil, Mediterranean and eventually old European breeds like Lakenvelder and Campine. Grey Junglefowl demes were likely quite dominant in the phenotype of these modern egg production founders and there would have been a bit of phenotypic diversity within those flocks, enabling selective breeding for new colour types.
The Indo-Aryan Composite (Dung Heap Fowl)
2. Aboriginal Indonesian domestic fowl would become the founders of the original fighting games, bantams and old Oceania/South Americans. The Indonesians had their black-legged, black-skinned long-crowing/singing fowl with black iridescent plumage. Indonesian Red demes were likely dominant for the greater period of history that concerns us here. Introgression from Green Junglefowl would result in hyper melanism but consistent gene flow from Indonesian Red JF would theoretically produce domestic black sports.
The Indonesian Black-Bone (Ayam Cemani)
3. South East Asian domestic fowl would become the ancestors of Eastern Asiatic breeds like Langshan, Shamo and Cochin. East Asians were producing white-legged, white-skinned high-volume crowing stock with many novel colour varieties like golden duckwing plumage and feathered shanks.The Chinese were master poultiers and nearly a thousand years ahead of the Indus Valley civilization with the domestication of their own (meat) breeds.
Austronesian Red Composite.
This is an oversimplification of course- but one that should provide enough foundation to construct the rest of the history of domestication- as it relates to our dark brown egg laying breeds.
To Recap: the Maternal ancestors of Mediterranean and European egg production breeds including white and brown egg layers, originated in the Indus Valley of NW India. The Indus Valley Domestic Species was a proto Asil. It was a genetic composite of Indonesian and Burmese Red Junglefowl stock. This proto Asil had experienced some major genetic bottlenecks consequent of intensive selective breeding by the Indus Valley peoples striving for an ideal fighting bird-but not eggs nor meat at that stage.
Later in their history, Successive generations of hybrid introgression from wild Grey JF males resulted in the transformation of the Asil. Crele colouration and yellow legs began to predominate. Combs and vocalization were also effected. These proto-Asil were carried out of the Indus Valley into Mesopotamia and Persia where they experienced more genetic bottlenecks. Eventually, the Indo-Aryan diaspora of Persia, Assyria the Levant and Central Asia were select-breeding primarily for eggs. Due to the lack of genetic diversity of stock, they were also able to breed for colour varieties. At this point in time, in this region of the world, these special strains of domestic fowl were considered very valuable livestock species. A single hen could be worth her weight in copper. Nevertheless, these birds were producing pale beige or white eggs. I realize this is dragging on and on. I'm exhausted too.
In order to explain the process of the creation of a dark brown egg layer, one has to understand how many significant genetic bottlenecks occurred and with what genetic stock- which domestic species. East Asian breeds never developed a dark brown egg and neither did Indonesian breeds- because they lacked the genetic background- so let me finish up the topic of how the first egg production birds arrived in the Mediterranean, who delivered them and how the Spice Trade introduced dark russet egg shells to Europe...
By the time the Indus Valley's Proto-Asil arrived in the Levant and Egypt the domestic species was thoroughly domesticated and genetically homogeneous. A Canaanite people called Hyksos, by the ancient Egyptians, carried the domestic fowl everywhere they went. It probably looked nothing like an Asil at this point either. Judging from the old Mediterranean breeds descended of the same ancestral stock, this Hyksos fowl probably looked something like a Crele coloured Leghorn. The Iberian Peninsula and Egypt's Mediterranean port cities were new centres of distribution for this novel and purely Mediterranean breed of Domestic Fowl. The most important thing to remember here is founder genetics. The egg production breeds -Mediterranean in origin, transported by the Canaanites from Persia and the Egyptian Delta, were very closely bred. They had reduced founders before they left Pakistan and with each successive step further away from home, through Persia and Syria to Egypt, genetic diversity shrank exponentially.
According to the Cambridge World History of Food, there were at least eight late Neolithic and early Bronze Age sites-scattered around Romania, Turkey and Greece-there were contemporaneous or slightly earlier than the Indo-Aryan sites. In other words, while the Indus Valley civilization was just beginning to push into Mesopotamia and Persia with their Asil protoype domestic fowl-the Chinese had already been selling their own thoroughly domesticated utility fowl to ancient urban centres in Romania and Turkey some five thousand years ago... Subsequent dispersal of these East Asian domestic fowl slowed substantially during the Middle Ages with most findings dating to the late first millenium. The majority of the domestic fowl arrived in Western and Northern Europe from overland. These were large meat fowl. The bones of these birds indicate that they were not dissimilar from the Langshan. These North Eastern Asian fowl were adapted for cold weather and close confinement.
The Indus Valley fowl on the other hand, were being refined for egg production. It knew no confinement. It was also localized to specific locales where it was considered a native- and a such a part of traditional culture.
All what's just been described took many thousands of years. The next developmental phase in the domestication phase of chickens took place over a much shorter duration of time. It took nearly four thousand years for the domestic fowl to become completely domesticated -before it was carried out of India. once the chicken arrived in Europe during the Classical Antiquity Period in Europe, the foundation of modern breeds were ready for their final development.
I know- I know- the dark brown egg- It didn't exist yet. That took another major genetic bottleneck during the decline of the Roman Empire and the gradual decline of poultry breeding centres adjacent to European ports.
Skip ahead to the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.
European history is so complex, but war and conquest defined each country and sliced it up a few times for good measure- war and hunger lead to decimated livestock herds and flocks. Being so far from their homelands, European chickens may have been common in some regions but were likely very scarce in others. Surviving flocks were more closely related than ever before. So when the Europeans began exploring the world and colonizing far-flung places like China, Japan, the East Indies and Sri Lanka, the importation of exotic fowl became something of a rage. Each ship had treasures that outshone its competitors, so we can envision the high price paid for unusual looking fowl.
Too tired to think
add Dutch colonial period in Ceylon and British colonial period in Ceylon- next and finally describe the dark red egg gene
We have the Junglefowl family tree with its central trunk and branching.
The Green Junglefowl is the earliest offshoot- a big branch that splits from the base of the trunk itself. The Green Junglefowl has absolutely nothing to do with any dark brown egg producing breed. At some point a few million years later, the Ceylon Junglefowl emerges from the Green Junglefowls branch and from it springs the Grey. A more slender branch splits from that locus and this is occupied by the Indonesian Red JF . Subsequently, a few tens of thousands of years later, a still more slender stem splits from the Indonesian Red JF branch. This is occupied first by the ancestral Mainland Red Junglefowl and much more recently new twigs have emerged-occupied by the three separate geographic races of the Mainland Red Junglefowl: Indian Red (G.g. murghi); Burmese Red (G.g. spadiceus), and the Vietnamese (G.g. jabouillei)
Holocene aged human beings show up on the scene =~15,000-10,000 years ago. Of course humans were there all along, but they were not keeping domestic animals- other than perhaps dogs- they kept no fowl, nor cattle -at least not fully fledged domesticated species- at this point. From archaeological evidence we know that ~ 10,000 years ago, the domestic chicken was well on its way towards domestication in Indonesia. This Aboriginal Stone Age culture in Indonesia, decided to steal and rear its first few clutches of Indonesian Red JF. So here is where the Backyard Chicken phenomenon began Anyway, primitive fighting games became synonymous with Indonesian animistic religious ceremonies. Indonesians traveled and traded with neighboring cultures in Southern India and Burma; Oceania and the South Pacific carrying their religious totem with them- the domestic species of the Indonesian Red JF.
Aboriginal ethnics of Indonesia, Malaysia, Southern India, Burma and Melanesia. These Aboriginal Indonesians had fully domesticated the Indonesian Red Junglefowl somewhere between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago. Beginning ~9,000 to 8,000 years ago, these peoples had begun trading their (semi-domestic) Indonesian Game type Domestic Species with related cultures in Tamil Nadu (Southern India) and Burma. Genetic composites between Indonesian Red and Burmese Red were probably common within the first few stages of domestication (~ 6,000 years ago).
A few centuries later, an invasive, technologically more advanced culturefrom South East Asia ( Malay,Vietnam/Thailand region) conquered Indonesia and Burma.
Aboriginal ethnics of South East Asia would displace the Aboriginal culture of Indonesia and Burma. They arrived in Sumatra and Java nearly 8,000 years ago carrying their own domestic species of Red JF -one descended of the Thailand race of the mainland Red JF species. Subsequently, these ancient Austronesians carried Indonesian Game type Domestic fowl back to their homelands in South East Asia. Recombination of Indonesian and South East Asian genetic stocks would eventually provide the base for the greatest diversity of chicken breeds in the world ( East and Northern Eastern Asia).
At least 1,500 years after the Tamil Nadu Culture in Southern India had developed their own regional domestic fowl, a new technologically advanced culture would emerge in Northwestern India. Just as the Austronesians conquered Aboriginal Indonesian peoples, so too, the Indo-Aryan culture eclipsed preceding Tamil culture. Eventually, this highly successful culture (Indo-Aryan) would migrate from North West India all the way to Egypt, through Mesopotamia, Assyria and the Levant carrying Domestic Cattle and Domestic Fowl. While Indus Valley peoples inherited their first primitive chicken breed- the Tamil Game- from the Tamil Nadu peoples of Southern India- they carried an early prototype of their own novel regional breed-with them on their migration out of India. Grey JF sires bred with the Tamil Game produced the earliest stages of the Asil Game .
Asil photo by Glenn
Apologize for photos if no credit-
Hybrid F1 GreyX Gamehen photo by Barry Feathersite
F1-F5 hybrids do not exhibit yellow skin or yellow legs. Successive introgression from male G. sonneratii early on in the development of the Asil was likely responsible for the trait becoming dominant.
Grey Junglefowl exhibit vivid legs, brilliant yellow, orange or even coral pink. Their skin is yellow. They lack white earlobes & the white down patch at the base of the tail characteristic in Red Junglefowl. The comb develops from a different locus of cells than that of the Red Jf, consequently, their is a tendency for some Grey hybrids to exhibit variations of the rose comb
Hybridization between wild Grey Junglefowl males with domestic Tamil Game females probably met its zenith by~ 5,000 years ago and discontinued shortly thereafter. Once the desired traits of the Grey JF were established in the domestic species, no further hybridization was necessary. Grey JF blood would tend to make the domestc stock exceedingly flighty and poor egg producers. Early generations of the hybrid stock were probably also much more vulnerable to disease than purely domestic flocks.
It should be noted that the inhabitants of the Indus Valley were of a different ethnicity and culture than the Tamil, being more closely related in language and culture to Mesopotamian peoples. Through the introgression of successive generations of male Grey Junglefowl genes into their domestic stock, the Indus Valley cultures successfully altered the domestic species available in the rest of Asia and in doing so, created a new entity with entirely different capacities- novel potential. Whereas earlier forms of the domestic fowl were kept primarily for ceremonial purposes, the Indo-Aryan diasporas making their way through Mesopotamia and ancient Persia began the process of selective breeding for egg production, as well as fighting.
1. The Indo-Aryans (India) had their yellow-legged, yellow-skinned high-crowing lot with their dichromatic crele plumage. These South West Asian domestic fowl would become the founders of Asil, Mediterranean and eventually old European breeds like Lakenvelder and Campine. Grey Junglefowl demes were likely quite dominant in the phenotype of these modern egg production founders and there would have been a bit of phenotypic diversity within those flocks, enabling selective breeding for new colour types.
The Indo-Aryan Composite (Dung Heap Fowl)
2. Aboriginal Indonesian domestic fowl would become the founders of the original fighting games, bantams and old Oceania/South Americans. The Indonesians had their black-legged, black-skinned long-crowing/singing fowl with black iridescent plumage. Indonesian Red demes were likely dominant for the greater period of history that concerns us here. Introgression from Green Junglefowl would result in hyper melanism but consistent gene flow from Indonesian Red JF would theoretically produce domestic black sports.
The Indonesian Black-Bone (Ayam Cemani)
3. South East Asian domestic fowl would become the ancestors of Eastern Asiatic breeds like Langshan, Shamo and Cochin. East Asians were producing white-legged, white-skinned high-volume crowing stock with many novel colour varieties like golden duckwing plumage and feathered shanks.The Chinese were master poultiers and nearly a thousand years ahead of the Indus Valley civilization with the domestication of their own (meat) breeds.
Austronesian Red Composite.
This is an oversimplification of course- but one that should provide enough foundation to construct the rest of the history of domestication- as it relates to our dark brown egg laying breeds.
To Recap: the Maternal ancestors of Mediterranean and European egg production breeds including white and brown egg layers, originated in the Indus Valley of NW India. The Indus Valley Domestic Species was a proto Asil. It was a genetic composite of Indonesian and Burmese Red Junglefowl stock. This proto Asil had experienced some major genetic bottlenecks consequent of intensive selective breeding by the Indus Valley peoples striving for an ideal fighting bird-but not eggs nor meat at that stage.
Later in their history, Successive generations of hybrid introgression from wild Grey JF males resulted in the transformation of the Asil. Crele colouration and yellow legs began to predominate. Combs and vocalization were also effected. These proto-Asil were carried out of the Indus Valley into Mesopotamia and Persia where they experienced more genetic bottlenecks. Eventually, the Indo-Aryan diaspora of Persia, Assyria the Levant and Central Asia were select-breeding primarily for eggs. Due to the lack of genetic diversity of stock, they were also able to breed for colour varieties. At this point in time, in this region of the world, these special strains of domestic fowl were considered very valuable livestock species. A single hen could be worth her weight in copper. Nevertheless, these birds were producing pale beige or white eggs. I realize this is dragging on and on. I'm exhausted too.
In order to explain the process of the creation of a dark brown egg layer, one has to understand how many significant genetic bottlenecks occurred and with what genetic stock- which domestic species. East Asian breeds never developed a dark brown egg and neither did Indonesian breeds- because they lacked the genetic background- so let me finish up the topic of how the first egg production birds arrived in the Mediterranean, who delivered them and how the Spice Trade introduced dark russet egg shells to Europe...
By the time the Indus Valley's Proto-Asil arrived in the Levant and Egypt the domestic species was thoroughly domesticated and genetically homogeneous. A Canaanite people called Hyksos, by the ancient Egyptians, carried the domestic fowl everywhere they went. It probably looked nothing like an Asil at this point either. Judging from the old Mediterranean breeds descended of the same ancestral stock, this Hyksos fowl probably looked something like a Crele coloured Leghorn. The Iberian Peninsula and Egypt's Mediterranean port cities were new centres of distribution for this novel and purely Mediterranean breed of Domestic Fowl. The most important thing to remember here is founder genetics. The egg production breeds -Mediterranean in origin, transported by the Canaanites from Persia and the Egyptian Delta, were very closely bred. They had reduced founders before they left Pakistan and with each successive step further away from home, through Persia and Syria to Egypt, genetic diversity shrank exponentially.
According to the Cambridge World History of Food, there were at least eight late Neolithic and early Bronze Age sites-scattered around Romania, Turkey and Greece-there were contemporaneous or slightly earlier than the Indo-Aryan sites. In other words, while the Indus Valley civilization was just beginning to push into Mesopotamia and Persia with their Asil protoype domestic fowl-the Chinese had already been selling their own thoroughly domesticated utility fowl to ancient urban centres in Romania and Turkey some five thousand years ago... Subsequent dispersal of these East Asian domestic fowl slowed substantially during the Middle Ages with most findings dating to the late first millenium. The majority of the domestic fowl arrived in Western and Northern Europe from overland. These were large meat fowl. The bones of these birds indicate that they were not dissimilar from the Langshan. These North Eastern Asian fowl were adapted for cold weather and close confinement.
The Indus Valley fowl on the other hand, were being refined for egg production. It knew no confinement. It was also localized to specific locales where it was considered a native- and a such a part of traditional culture.
All what's just been described took many thousands of years. The next developmental phase in the domestication phase of chickens took place over a much shorter duration of time. It took nearly four thousand years for the domestic fowl to become completely domesticated -before it was carried out of India. once the chicken arrived in Europe during the Classical Antiquity Period in Europe, the foundation of modern breeds were ready for their final development.
I know- I know- the dark brown egg- It didn't exist yet. That took another major genetic bottleneck during the decline of the Roman Empire and the gradual decline of poultry breeding centres adjacent to European ports.
Skip ahead to the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.
European history is so complex, but war and conquest defined each country and sliced it up a few times for good measure- war and hunger lead to decimated livestock herds and flocks. Being so far from their homelands, European chickens may have been common in some regions but were likely very scarce in others. Surviving flocks were more closely related than ever before. So when the Europeans began exploring the world and colonizing far-flung places like China, Japan, the East Indies and Sri Lanka, the importation of exotic fowl became something of a rage. Each ship had treasures that outshone its competitors, so we can envision the high price paid for unusual looking fowl.
Too tired to think
add Dutch colonial period in Ceylon and British colonial period in Ceylon- next and finally describe the dark red egg gene
Last edited:
