Previous research argues Gallus gallus (chickens) makes a strong candidate for a chrono-stratigraphic signal of the Anthropocene, but the history of how G. gallus came to mark the Anthropocene remains to be told. At the macro-level, G. gallus tells a story of slavery, sexism, scientific progress, settler colonialism, nation building, socialist welfare programs, capitalist expansionism, and plantation agriculture. At the micro-level, G. gallus tells a story of the suffering of crippling growth rates and confinement as well as the agency of metabolic labor; goal-directed behavior of hunger, thirst and survival; and resistance in the form of efforts at escape and violence of feather pecking. This paper tells a history that recognizes the sensorial worlds and intentionality of G. gallus, and demonstrates how G. gallus is one instantiation of an assemblage of species that were co-opted into a system that partially overlaps with and simultaneously sustains and threatens the technosphere.
BaézaEArnouldCJlaliM, et al. (2012) Influence of increasing slaughter age of chickens on meat quality, welfare, and technical and economic results. Journal of Animal Science90: 2003–2013.
2.
BarnoskyAD (2014) Paleontological evidence for defining the Anthropocene. In: WatersCNZalasiewiczJAWilliamsM, et al. (eds) A Stratigraphical Basis for the Anthropocene. London: The Geological Society, pp.149–166.
3.
Bar-OnYMPhillipsRMiloR (2018) The biomass distribution on Earth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences115: 6506–6511.
4.
BauerMRamirezM (2010) Injustice on Our Plates: Immigrant Women in the U.S. Food Industry. Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center.
5.
BeldoL (2017) Metabolic Labor: Broiler chickens and the exploitation of vitality. Environmental Humanities9: 108–128.
6.
BennettCEThomasRWilliamsM, et al. (2018) The broiler chicken as a signal of a human reconfigured biosphere. Royal Society Open Science5: 180325. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.180325
7.
BennettJ (2010) Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
8.
BergthallerHHornE (2020) Posthumanism and the Anthropocene. In: HerbrechterSCallusIRossiniM, et al. (eds) Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp.1–20.
9.
BoydW (2001) Making meat: Science, technology, and American poultry production. Technology and Culture42: 631–664.
10.
BrunerEGleesonBT (2019) Body cognition and self-domestication in human evolution. Frontiers in Psychology10: 1111.
11.
BugosGE (1992) Intellectual property protection in the American chicken–breeding industry. The Business History Review66: 127–168.
12.
BuijsSKeelingLJTuyttensFAM (2011a) Using motivation to feed as a way to assess the importance of space for broiler chickens. Animal Behaviour81: 145–151.
13.
BuijsSKeelingLJVangestelC, et al. (2011b) Neighbourhood analysis as an indicator of spatial requirements of broiler chickens. Applied Animal Behaviour Science129: 111–120.
14.
CeballosGEhrlichPRBarnoskyAD, et al. (2015) Accelerated modern human-induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances1: e1400253.
15.
ChambersJQuinlanMBEvansA, et al. (2020) Dog-Human coevolution: Cross-cultural analysis of multiple hypotheses. Journal of Ethnobiology40: 414–433.
16.
CieriRLChurchillSEFranciscusRG, et al. (2014) Craniofacial feminization, social tolerance, and the origins of behavioral modernity. Current Anthropology55: 419–443.
17.
CrutzenPStoermerE (2000) The ‘Anthropocene’. Global Change: IGBP Newsletter41: 17–18.
18.
Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2005) A Guide to the Practical Management of Feather Pecking & Cannibalism in Free Range Laying Hens. London: Defra Publications.
19.
DescolaP (2013) Beyond Nature and Culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
20.
DuaraP (2015) The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
21.
DuaraP (2021) The Ernest Gellner Nationalism Lecture: Nationalism and the crises of global modernity. Nations and Nationalism27: 610–622.
22.
FaierLHathawayMJ (2021) Matsutake Worlds. New York: Berghahn Books.
23.
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (2017) FAOStat. Available at: http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QL (accessed 30 November 2023).
24.
GongoraJRawlenceNJMobegiVA, et al. (2008) Indo-European and Asian origins for Chilean and Pacific chickens revealed by mtDNA. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences105: 10308–10313.
25.
GrandinTDeesingMJ (2014) Chapter 12 - Genetics and Animal Welfare. In: GrandinTDeesingMJ (eds) Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals, 2nd edition.San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp.435–472.
26.
HaffP (2019) The technosphere and its physical stratigraphical record. In: ZalasiewiczJAWatersCNWilliamsM, et al. (eds) The Anthropocene as a Geological Time Unit: A Guide to the Scientific Evidence and Current Debate. Cambridge: New York, pp.138–155.
27.
HaffPK (2014) Technology as a geological phenomenon: Implications for human well-being. In: WatersCNZalasiewiczJAWilliamsM, et al. (eds) A Stratigraphical Basis for the Anthropocene. London: The Geological Society, pp.301–309.
28.
HaffPK (2016) Purpose in the Anthropocene: Dynamical Role and physical basis. Anthropocene16: 54–60.
29.
HamiltonS (2018) Supermarket USA: Food and Power in the Cold War Farms Race. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
HarawayDJ (2008) When Species Meet. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
32.
HarawayDJ (2016) Staying With the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
33.
HareB (2017) Survival of the friendliest: Homo sapiens evolved via selection for prosociality. Annual Review of Psychology68: 155–186.
34.
HathawayMJ (2022) What a Mushroom Lives for: Matsutake and the Worlds They Make. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
35.
HavensteinGBFerketPRQureshiMA (2003) Growth, livability, and feed conversion of 1957 versus 2001 broilers when fed representative 1957 and 2001 broiler diets. Poultry Science82: 1500–1508.
36.
IUCN (2016) The IUCN red list of threatened species, Version 2016-3. Available at: www.iucnredlist.org.
JavedSRahmaniA (2000) Flocking and habitat use pattern of the red junglefowlGallus gallus in Dudwa National Park, India. Tropical Ecology41: 11–16.
39.
JonesLA (2002) Mama Learned Us to Work: Farm Women in the New South. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
40.
KatajamaaRLarssonLHLundbergP, et al. (2018) Activity, social and sexual behaviour in red junglefowl selected for divergent levels of fear of humans. PLoS One13: e0204303.
41.
KohnE (2013) How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
42.
LatourB (2014) Agency at the time of the Anthropocene. New Literary History45: 1–18.
43.
LawlerA (2014) Why Did the Chicken Cross the World? The Epic Saga of the Bird That Powers Civilization. New York: Atria Books.
44.
LiebersCJSchwarzerAErhardM, et al. (2019) The influence of environmental enrichment and stocking density on the plumage and health conditions of laying hen pullets. Poultry Science98: 2474–2488.
45.
MargulisL (1990) Kingdom animalia: The zoological malaise from a microbial perspective. American Zoologist30: 861–875.
46.
McGeownDDanburyTCWaterman-PearsonAE, et al. (1999) Effect of carprofen on lameness in broiler chickens. Veterinary Record144: 668–671.
47.
MelsCNiebuhrKFutschikA, et al. (2022) Predictors for plumage damage and bloody lesions indicative of feather pecking in pullets reared in aviaries. Applied Animal Behaviour Science250: 105607.
48.
MillerJHColebrookCCohenT (2016) Twilight of the Anthropocene Idols. London: Open Humanities Press.
49.
MitchellPC (1911) On longevity and relative viability in mammals and birds; with a note on the theory of longevity. In: Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, pp.425–548Wiley Online Library.
50.
MuirWMWongGKZhangY, et al. (2008) Genome-wide assessment of worldwide chicken SNP genetic diversity indicates significant absence of rare alleles in commercial breeds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences105: 17312–17317.
51.
NagasawaMMitsuiSEnS, et al. (2015) Social evolution. oxytocin-gaze positive loop and the coevolution of human-dog bonds. Science348: 333–336.
52.
OECD/FAO (2021) OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2021-2030. Paris: OECD Publishing.
53.
OgdenL (2011) Swamplife: People, Gators, and Mangroves Entangled in the everglades. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
54.
PatelRMooreJW (2017) A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
55.
PetersJLebrasseurODengH, et al. (2016) Holocene cultural history of red Jungle Fowl (Gallus gallus) and its domestic descendant in East Asia. Quaternary Science Reviews142: 102–119.
56.
PetersJLebrasseurOIrving-PeaseEK, et al. (2022) The biocultural origins and dispersal of domestic chickens. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences119: e2121978119.
57.
PughJChandlerD (2021) Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds. London: University of Westminster Press.
58.
RavivLJacobsonSLPlotnikJM, et al. (2023) Elephants as an animal model for self-domestication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences120: e2208607120.
59.
RoseDB (2011) Wild Dog Dreaming: Love and Extinction. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.
60.
SchleidtWShalterM (2003) Co-evolution of humans and canids. Evolution and Cognition9: 57–72.
61.
ScottJC (2017) Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
62.
ShraderHL (1952) The Chicken-of-Tomorrow Program; its influence on ‘meat-type’ poultry production. Poultry Science31: 3–10.
63.
SingerPMasonJ (2006) The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter. Emmaus, PA: Rodale.
64.
StoreyAAQuirozDBeavanN, et al. (2013) Polynesian chickens in the New World: A detailed application of a commensal approach. Archaeology in Oceania48: 101–119.
65.
StoreyAARamírezJMQuirozD, et al. (2007) Radiocarbon and DNA evidence for a pre-Columbian introduction of Polynesian chickens to Chile. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences104: 10335–10339.
66.
Teilhard de ChardinP (1966) The Vision of the Past. New York: Harper & Row.
67.
TicklePGPaxtonHRankinJW, et al. (2014) Anatomical and biomechanical traits of broiler chickens across ontogeny. Part I. Anatomy of the musculoskeletal respiratory apparatus and changes in organ size. PeerJ2: e432.
68.
TsingAL (2015) The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
69.
Williams-ForsonPA (2006) Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.
70.
YusoffK (2018) A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
71.
ZalasiewiczJWatersCNSummerhayesCP, et al. (2017) The Working Group on the Anthropocene: Summary of evidence and interim recommendations. Anthropocene19: 55–60.
72.
ZalasiewiczJWilliamsMWatersCN, et al. (2016) Scale and diversity of the physical technosphere: A geological perspective. The Anthropocene Review4: 9–22.
73.
ZederMAEmshwillerESmithBD, et al. (2006) Documenting domestication: The intersection of genetics and archaeology. Trends in Genetics: TIG22: 139–155.
74.
ZeppMLoutonHErhardM, et al. (2018) The influence of stocking density and enrichment on the occurrence of feather pecking and aggressive pecking behavior in laying hen chicks. Journal of Veterinary Behavior24: 9–18.
75.
ZuidhofMJSchneiderBLCarneyVL, et al. (2014) Growth, efficiency, and yield of commercial broilers from 1957, 1978, and 2005. Poultry Science93: 2970–2982.
