The Potential for Using Long Bone Measurements to Determine Breed of Gallus gallus domesticus and its Implications for the Archaeological Record

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Poultry remains are often found in archaeological excavations and while the species can usually be identified, there has been little research on breed identification or purpose (egg production vs. meat production). This research aims to determine if differences exist between the long bone measurements of modern chicken breeds which can be useful for the archaeological record. We collected specimens of modern breeds (Silkie n=9; Ameraucana n=8; and OEG n=6), skeletonized them, and took measurements of the femur, tibiotarsus, and tarsometatarsus according to published guidelines. Preliminary results show the femur greatest length (GL) could distinguish among breeds (ANOVA F=4.409 df=2 p-value=.0251). Tukey’s pairwise comparison indicated that femur GL could distinguish between OEG and Ameraucana (p-value=0.03) and between OEG and Silkie (p-value=0.05). There is no difference between Ameraucana and Silkie. A principal component analysis on 12 linear measurements and 7 ratios shows that the 1st PC (68% of the variance) separates between the Ameraucana and OEG/Silkie group, and the 2nd PCA (31% of the variance) separates between OEG and the Silkie/Ameraucana group. While results are tentative, they suggest the potential of using the long bone size and shape to differentiate between poultry breeds.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39692.0