Iron Age chickens died of old age because they were seen as sacred and not food, study reveals
Commonly used methods for aging mammal remains do not work on chickens. Experts led from the University of Exeter came up with a new technique instead. It relies of measuring the bony spur that appears on the legs of adult cockerels. The team applied this to 1,366 fowl leg bones from across the history of Britain. Chickens lives for up to four years in the Iron Age, Roman and Saxon times . According to the experts, fowl were likely kept for sacrifice and cockfighting.
Source: dailymail.co.uk