Neolithic feasts and far-travelled pigs

A reconstruction of Durrington Walls.  Illustration courtesy Peter Dunn.

There is an interesting new study which moves along our understanding of all those pig bones derived from BBQs and orgies at Durrington Walls and elsewhere in Wessex.  The bones of 131 pigs are analysed, this time using five different isotopes in the measurements.  As with previous work using just oxygen isotope measurements, it is possible in theory to take bone samples from the sites of assumed mighty feasts, and to match them with a degree of confidence to certain parts of the UK.  The assumption is that the animals would have moved on the hoof -- and the authors argue that since pigs are not all that easy to drive over long distances (the drovers of the late 1700s found that too!) there must have been a powerful reason for people to have travelled very slowly from A to B -- attending a great ceremony might have sufficed, but maybe there were political or religious motives for the journeys as well.  As expected (with MPP as one of the authors) there is much speculation about the significance of "pan-British connectivity".

On examining the results of the measurements,  the key point is that the animals appear to have come from all over the UK, with no strong clustering in any bedrock / environmental region.  Quote:

Overall, the analysis of comparative data provides clear evidence for wide-ranging variation in isotope values in the Late Neolithic sample, indicative of animals and humans converging on the site from numerous different regions, some from a substantial distance away. This contrasts with the evidence from the flint and ceramic assemblages from Durrington Walls, which are overwhelmingly consistent with a local origin. The sarsen stones are likely to derive from the Marlborough Downs, approximately 32 km to the north, providing evidence for intraregional movement of substantial materials, but the inner ring and horseshoe of bluestones, deriving from West Wales, provides the best evidence for long-distance movement (28).

Conclusions:

It is likely that maritime and riverine transport played an important role in these networks. This mode of transporting pigs has been used from prehistory to the present in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea (7, 36). Driving pigs overland would have represented a formidable challenge. Whatever mode of movement was used, a vast investment of effort would have been required. The transport of bluestones to Stonehenge from the Preseli Hills in Wales (28) demonstrates the challenges that communities overcame at these monumental complexes. There has been little research on mobility within Late Neolithic Britain, and the work on the bluestones provides the best evidence for interregional links. Note that some pigs have isotope values consistent with deriving from this location, further supporting the links between the Stonehenge landscape and West Wales. However, equifinality remains an interpretative issue, and it is plausible that these animals could also come from other locations (potentially southern Scotland or southwest England).

Results demonstrate that the Late Neolithic was the first phase of pan-British connectivity, with the scale of population movement across Britain arguably not evidenced in any other phase in prehis- tory. These long-distance networks were sustained by the movement not only of people but also of livestock. The complexes represent lynchpins for these networks, and it is not only the famous mega- lithic centers of Stonehenge and Avebury that were major foci. All four sites show long-distance connectivity, and there is no indi- cation that they served different networks; all drew people and animals from across Britain. After more than a century of debate concerning the origins of people and animals in the Stonehenge landscape, these results provide clear evidence for a great volume and scale of intercommunity mobility in Late Neolithic Britain, demonstrating a level of interaction and social complexity not previously appreciated. 

Note this:

"........the work on the bluestones provides the best evidence for interregional links. Note that some pigs have isotope values consistent with deriving from this location, further supporting the links between the Stonehenge landscape and West Wales." 

Circular reasoning, not for the first time.  Let's just ignore it. By and large, this new paper provides no evidence at all that West Wales was a "preferred location" in some way, with special links to the Stonehenge area.  That must have been a profound disappointment to certain archaeologists and geologists!

Aso, I have one serious reservation about this work. It gives a series of sites (in the Stonehenge and Durrington Walls area and across wider Wessex) artificial significance -- simply because they are the sites they happened to look at. The authors have not shown that the spread of apparent sources for all the pig bones was in any way unusual. They assume everything was moving towards a Wessex centre or focal point for big hog roasts and celebrations — but in the real world there might have been just as much centrifugal movement, away from Wessex and out towards all points north, south, east and west.  It's just that the edges have not been sampled.......

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Here is a report from "Science" magazine:

More than 4000 years ago, people erected monumental circles of stones or wood all over southern England. Stonehenge is the most famous, but many other so-called “henges” were also built between 2800 and 2400 B.C.E. Nearby trash pits full of pig bones suggest they once hosted enormous feasts. But who was coming to these gatherings?

The pigs have now helped solve that mystery. Researchers studied the bones of 131 pigs from four henge sites in southern England, notably Durrington Walls, a wooden henge (pictured) built a mere 3 kilometers from Stonehenge, and Marden Henge, the largest of these monuments yet discovered. When the pigs were alive, their bones absorbed chemicals from their food and water, preserving a unique signature of each pig’s local environment and diet. The researchers measured the isotope ratios of five of these chemicals: strontium, oxygen, sulfur, carbon, and nitrogen.
Nearly no two pigs had the same isotope signature, the team reports today in Science Advances. That suggests they were brought to the henges from many different places rather than being raised locally for feasts. In fact, their isotope signatures match the environments in every corner of England, Scotland, and even Ireland. And that means the people attending the feasts—and contributing their pigs—likely came from as far away as western Wales, northeastern England, and even Scotland. It seems the henges have been tourist hot spots for millennia. 

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R. Madgwick, A. L. Lamb, H. Sloane, A. J. Nederbragt, U. Albarella, M. Parker Pearson, J. A. Evans,  2019.  Multi-isotope analysis reveals that feasts in the Stonehenge environs and across Wessex drew people and animals from throughout Britain.

Sci. Adv. 5(3), pp 1-12.

ABSTRACT
The great henge complexes of southern Britain are iconic monuments of the third millennium BCE, representing great feats of engineering and labor mobilization that hosted feasting events on a previously unparalleled scale. The scale of movement and the catchments that the complexes served, however, have thus far eluded understanding. Presenting the largest five-isotope system archeological dataset (87Sr/86Sr, 34S, 18O, 13C, and 15N) yet fully published, we analyze 131 pigs, the prime feasting animals, from four Late Neolithic (approximately 2800 to 2400 BCE) complexes to explore the networks that the feasts served. Because archeological evidence excludes continental contact, sources are considered only in the context of the British Isles. This analysis reveals wide- ranging origins across Britain, with few pigs raised locally. This finding demonstrates great investment of effort in transporting pigs raised elsewhere over vast distances to supply feasts and evidences the very first phase of pan-British connectivity.

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/3/eaau6078