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Sunday, November 22, 2009

Photo: Polynesians -- And Their Chickens -- Arrived in Americas Before Columbus


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South Americans were enjoying chicken dinners a hundred years before Columbus arrived, thanks to Polynesians who brought them to the continent by the early 1400s, a new study says.

Scientists used DNA and dating techniques on ancient chicken bones to determine the chickens were of Polynesian, not European, descent.

Photograph by Joel Sartore/NGS