Which came first, chicken or egg? Scientists finally unravel mystery

The age-old riddle "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" has finally been solved, Science Focus reported.

Scientists reveal that eggs came first. Eggs have been around for more than a billion years, whereas the fossils of chickens have only been found for around 10,000 years.

Chickens came about when, at some point in history, two species of birds, similar to the bird, came together, mated, and laid eggs that hatched into a chicken.

Chickens are the descendants of the red jungle fowl of Southeast Asia and evolved from them around 50 million years ago. Experts believe chickens were hybridised when red jungle fowl and grey jungle fowl came together.

According to a research article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, humans living in Southeast Asia first started domesticating these birds somewhere between 1650 BC and 1250 BC.

Chicken domestication has been found to have happened multiple times in parts of China and Oceania.

Gizmodo reported that a team of archaeologists recently found fragments of egg shells from 12 different sites scattered along the Silk Route, suggesting that chicken was a prized possession.

The earliest evidence of "loss of seasonal egg laying" was also discovered. These findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.