Chicken domestication traced back 10,000 years in northern China

Northern China may have served as an early center of chicken domestication, possibly dating as far back as 10,000 years, researchers from China and Germany said on Monday.

In the past, many scientists, including Charles Darwin, have suggested that chicken domestication originated about 4,000 years ago in the Indus Valley of South Asia.

However, more recent research suggests that chickens were domesticated multiple times in different parts of Asia, including regions in South Asia, Southwest China and Southeast Asia.