Communities arriving at the Early Neolithic site of Asiab with wild boar for a communal feast. Credit: Kathryn Killackey
About 11,000 years ago, Early Neolithic humans came together for a great feast in what is today the Zagros Mountains of Iran.
Evidence of this prehistoric dinner party survives in the form of 19 wild boar (Sus scrofa) skulls which were unearthed at the archaeological site of Asiab. The remains show marks of butchery and were neatly packed and sealed inside a pit in a round building. Their meat may have provided food for as many as 350–1200 adults.
New analysis of tooth enamel from 5 of the skulls has now revealed that at least some of the boars were not from the area where the gathering took place.
Archaeologists suggest hunters went to great effort to kill the wild boars in their local region and transport them over thousands of kilometres of difficult, mountainous terrain to be eaten at the ceremonial feast.
“These people were clearly the ultimate dinner party guests,” says says Dr Petra Vaiglova of the Australian National University (ANU), first author of the study in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
Vaiglova and her collaborators analysed levels of barium and isotopes of oxygen and strontium present in the boars’ molars. Isotopes of an element have the same number of protons but differ in the number of neutrons.
“Rainfall and bedrock have distinct isotopic values in different geographical locations. These isotopic values get incorporated into animal tissues through drinking water and food,” she explains.
“Teeth deposit visible layers of enamel and dentine during growth that we can count under the microscope.
Samples of ancient boar teeth unearthed at the archaeological site of Asiab in the Zagros Mountains.
Credit: Nic Vevers/ANU
“Measuring the isotopic values of tooth enamel allowed us to assess whether all the animals came from the same part of the region or whether they originated from more dispersed locations. Because the values we measured across the 5 teeth showed a high amount of variability, it is unlikely that all the animals originated from the same location.
“It is possible that some of them originated roughly 70km away from the site where the feast took place.”
The authors note that home ranges of above about 20 square kilometres are very rare for these animals and “it is therefore unlikely that the wild boars moved on their own over large distances and ended up close to Asiab”.
They estimate it would have taken humans at least 2 days to carry the animal carcasses to the site.
Vaiglova says communities living in the Zagros Mountains at this time were hunting lots of different animal species.
“Boars are especially aggressive and so displaying them as hunting trophies or presenting them at a feast carries with it a certain element of significance. Bringing these animals from distant locations would have undoubtedly helped celebrate the importance of the social event that took place at Asiab,” she says.
“What is special about the feast at Asiab is not only its early date and that it brought together people from across the wider region, but also the fact that people who participated in this feast invested substantial amounts of effort to ensure that their contributions involved an element of geographic symbolism. This feast also took place at a time that pre-dates agriculture and farming practices.
“This was clearly a very meaningful event and the fact that people put in so much effort to transport the boars over such challenging terrain provides us with a glimpse of how old the tradition of bringing geographically meaningful gifts to social events really is.”