When in 500,000 years our distant descendants or extraterrestrials scrutinize the layers of sediments to investigate the Earth’s past, they will find unusual evidence of the abrupt change that upended life half a million years before: the bones of chicken. This conclusion was reached by a group of scientists, who searched for evidence that the expansion of appetites and human activity so radically altered natural systems as to usher in a new era known as Anthropocene, or “epoch of humans”.
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In addition to these bones, there will be other revealing elements of the mid-20th century rupture on the planet: the sudden increase in CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases, radioactive remains of nuclear tests, the omnipresence of plastics and the spread of invasive species.
(Remote workers would grow more than in a pandemic).
But chicken bones could be one of the most reliable evidence, which They also allow you to tell the story from different angles. To begin with, they are the result of human action. “The chicken we eat is unrecognizable compared to its ancestors or its wild counterparts,” explains Carys Bennett, geologist and lead author of a study published in the Royal Society Open Science journal.
“Their size, skeletal shape, bone chemistry and genetics are different,” he clarifies. Its mere existence, in other words, is proof of humanity’s ability to manipulate natural processes. The research therefore conferred on this poultry the status of ‘marker species’ of the Anthropocene.* 100025*
Human
The origins of the modern broiler can be traced back to the jungles of Southeast Asia, where its ancestor, the bird of the red jungle (Gallus gallus), was domesticated for the first time about 8,000 years ago.
(Colombia, Brazil and other countries, willing to work for the Amazon).
*100038 *For a long time, this species was prized for its meat and eggs, but only after World War II did it start breeding into the short-lived, portly creature marketed in supermarkets around the world. world. “Usually evolution takes millions of years to happen, but in this case it only took decades to get a new form of animal,” said Jan Zalasiewicz, emeritus professor of paleobiology at the English University of Leicester.* 100042*
The Working Group on the Anthropocene that he chaired for more than a decade, determined last year that the epoch of the Holocene -which began 11,700 years ago with the end of the last ice age – gave way to the Anthropocene in the mid-20th century.
(Will robots be able to run the world? They say yes).
Now expected that the Group identify a site that in its opinion conclusively demonstrates the impact of human beings.The broiler also supports that definition due to its ubiquity.
Remnants of our species’ favorite protein source can be found anywhere on the planet where humans are found.
* 100058*(Artificial intelligence: real risks it would have for humanity).
The FAO estimates that there are currently some 33 billion chickens worldwide. The biomass of domestic chickens is more than three times that of all wild bird species combined. At least 25 million are slaughtered every day, whether for chicken tikka in Indian Punjab, yakitori in Japan, poulet yassa in Senegal, or McDonald’s nuggets.
“Chickens are a symbol of how our biosphere has changed and is now dominated by human consumption and resource use,” Bennett continued. «The enormous number of discarded chicken bones around the world will leave a clear signal in the future geological record,» he said.
AFP
