Hanyang University ERICA Researchers Trace Chicken Domestication on the Korean Peninsula

Researchers analyze bone collagen peptides from avian remains found at the Gungok-ri site in South Korea

GYUNGGI-DO, South Korea, April 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Chickens and eggs are among the most common foods on modern Korean tables. Understanding their history can enrich our understanding of Korean food culture, agriculture, and animal domestication. It has been widely assumed that chickens dispersed from China to Japan through Korea; however, the role of the Korean Peninsula has remained largely unknown.

Now, a team of researchers led by Kyungcheol Choy, a Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Hanyang University ERICA, has addressed this knowledge gap. Their findings were made available online on December 27, 2025, and published in Volume 69 of the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports on February 1, 2026.

This work marks the first biomolecular study to identify ancient chickens on the Korean Peninsula using the Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) technique.

Prof. Choy remarks: "In our study, we confirmed not only the presence of chickens but also their management during the Proto-Three Kingdoms period, roughly 2,000 years ago. Furthermore, we applied the stable isotope analysis to bone collagen and confirmed that ancient chickens were managed in Korea during this era."

In this way, the most important contribution of this work is the first application of ZooMS to avian remains in Korean archaeology, which opens several practical applications.

First, it improves species identification in archaeological fieldwork. Bird bones recovered from Korean sites are often heavily fragmented, making it challenging to distinguish domestic chickens from wild pheasants using traditional morphological methods alone. ZooMS can identify a species from as little as 2 mg of bone by analyzing collagen peptides and amino acid sequences.

Second, the combined use of ZooMS, radiocarbon dating, and stable isotope analysis provides a powerful multi-proxy approach. In this study, elevated nitrogen isotope values in chickens revealed that they were being fed and managed by humans. The same approach can be applied to other domestic animals such as pigs, cattle, dogs, and horses, to help understand the development of livestock husbandry.

Third, identifying the historical origins of chickens contributes to discussions about livestock diversity and the conservation of indigenous breeds, and the long-term relationship between agriculture and animal domestication. This provides significant insights for modern food systems and biodiversity research.

"The significance of this study goes well beyond a single archaeological site. It lays the methodological groundwork for rewriting the history of human-animal relationships in East Asia," highlights Prof. Choy.

By extending the proposed approach to other Korean sites over the next 5 to 10 years, researchers will be able to reconstruct when and through which routes domestic chickens entered the peninsula and were transmitted to Japan. Moreover, this research offers a science-based answer to questions about the presence and history of chickens in Korea. These findings can be utilized in museum exhibitions and educational programs.

Ultimately, the present study marks a starting point for establishing biomolecular archaeology within Korean zooarchaeology. The same methodological framework can be applied not only to other domesticated animals, but also to questions about ancient human diet, migration, disease, and even environmental change. In that sense, what begins as a study of a few chicken bones from a single site has the potential to transform the investigation of the human past in this region.

Reference
Title of original paper: Biomolecular evidence of ancient chickens on the Korean Peninsula: ZooMS analysis of avian remains from the Gungok-ri site, South Korea
Journal: Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2025.105561

About Hanyang University ERICA
Website: https://www.hanyang.ac.kr/web/eng/erica-campus1

Contact:
Jin-Mo An
82-31-400-4947
[email protected]

SOURCE Hanyang University