Stone Age humans hatched and raised cassowary chicks in New Guinea

Up to 18,000 years ago, humans in New Guinea were hatching cassowary chicks and may have raised them to adulthood, a new study has found. This suggests that chickens may not in fact have been the first domesticated birds.

Cassowaries are big, flightless birds native to Australia, the Aru Islands in Indonesia, and New Guinea.

“This is not some small fowl, it is a huge, ornery, flightless