Chickens began being domesticated in China about 8,000 years ago, far earlier than anywhere else in the world, according to a study of fossils in northern China's Hebei Province.

Archeologists said they had unearthed 116 fossils from 23 types of animal - including pig, dog, chicken, tortoise, fish and clam - at -Cishan, a Neolithic village site in the city of Wu'an.

Several bone fragments were identified as belonging to domesticated chickens, according to Qiao Dengyun, head of the Handan Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology.

He said: "The chicken bones found at Cishan are slightly larger than those of wild jungle fowls, but smaller than those of a modern domesticated chicken."

Qiao said the bone fossils date back to 6000 BC, earlier than the previous oldest domesticated chicken found in India that dated back 4,000 years.

Qiao said: "Most of the bones were from cocks, indicating that people killed cocks for their meat and raising hens for their eggs."

The Cishan site, which dates back 10,000 years, was first discovered in the 1970s.

Experts there have found remnants of China's oldest cultivated millet as well as walnut shells, a discovery that challenges the popular belief that walnuts were brought to China from what is now Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and central Asia.

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