Chicken is the most common type of poultry

Poultry

Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of producing eggs, meat, and/or feathers. These most typically are members of the superorder Galloanserae , especially the order Galliformes and the family Anatidae , commonly known as "waterfowl"...

 in the world, and is prepared as food

Food

Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...

 in a wide variety of ways, varying by region and culture.
The modern chicken

Chicken

The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

 is a descendant of Red Junglefowl

Red Junglefowl

The Red Junglefowl is a tropical member of the Pheasant family. They are thought to be ancestors of the domestic chicken with some hybridisation with the Grey Junglefowl...

 hybrids along with the Grey Junglefowl

Grey Junglefowl

The Grey Junglefowl , also known as Sonnerat's Junglefowl, is a wild relative of domestic fowl that is endemic to India. This species is found mainly in peninsular India and where it overlaps with the distribution of the Red Junglefowl, it is known to form hybrids...

 first raised thousands of years ago in the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent

Indian subcontinent

The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...

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Chicken as a meat has been depicted in Babylon

Babylon

Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...

ian carvings from around 600 BC. Chicken was one of the most common meats available in the Middle Ages

Medieval cuisine

Medieval cuisine includes the foods, eating habits, and cooking methods of various European cultures during the Middle Ages, a period roughly dating from the 5th to the 16th century...

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