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That’ll Do, Pig - Ep 15
282 Plays6 years ago
On this episode of ArchaeoAnimals, (a very hungry) Alex faces one of her many nemeses: pig teeth! Learn more about pig domestication, the wealth of information you may gather from archaeological pig remains and some exciting archaeological projects featuring pigs. Simona’s fascinating insight into Roman tax law is a bonus ;)
Sources:https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/08/taming-pig-took-some-wild-turnshttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/257607859_Distinguishing_Wild_Boar_from_Domestic_Pigs_in_Prehistory_A_Review_of_Approaches_and_Recent_ResultsKing (1978) A comparative analysis of bone assemblies from Roman sites in Britain. The Institute of Archeology, London. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/08/taming-pig-took-some-wild-turnshttp://www.rubiconheritage.com/2011/06/14/cooking-a-pig-bronze-age-style-part-1/ https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/neolithic-food-miles.htm https://www.naturkundemuseum.uni-halle.de/forschungsprojekte/sus_100/ContactAlex FitzpatrickTwitter: @archaeologyfitzSimona FalangaTwitter: @CrazyBoneLadyMusic"Coconut - (dyalla remix)"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UiKoouqaY
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsor Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
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00:00:26
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to a new episode of Archaeo Animals. And with you, as always, it's me, Sibona Falanga, and my co-host, Alex Fitzpatrick. And today we'll be talking to you about, I guess, the last farm animal that we kept meaning to talk to you about, and we finally got round to it, despite Alex's deep hatred of these four species.
Domestication and Historical Significance of Pigs
00:00:51
Speaker
it's okay i don't i don't hate pigs it's the teeth but we'll get to that in a second but yes we are talking about pigs today
00:01:05
Speaker
Right, so about pigs, what we're going to tell you about today is going to go, as for all domesticated species, tell you a little bit about the history and the domestication of pigs, and perhaps what we can learn about ancient populations using pig remains recovered from archaeological sites. And we'll be talking a little bit about the morphology of pig skeletal remains and
00:01:29
Speaker
maybe try and to compare it like contrast it with white and tester the wild boar. And then we're gonna look at some case studies. So yeah, same old thing that we usually do with these episodes. So yeah, let's start with kind of the history of domestication. So pigs like kind of everything else we've talked about seem to have been domesticated originally in the near east and in China.
00:01:55
Speaker
Right. It is pretty much a copy paste for every single domesticate that we get today. Again, a bit more copy pasting, as is the case for pretty much all of our domesticated species. It's likely that not all of our current domestic animals descend from the one domestication attempt
00:02:17
Speaker
somewhere around the world, but they're probably the result of several domestication attempts that were carried out across the globe over a large amount of time. So in the case of pigs specifically, it has been shown by DNA research that there were at least two domestication attempts, so one in China and a separate one in Anatolia.
Roman Influence on Pig Domestication
00:02:41
Speaker
But some papers have also shown that despite animals domesticated in these regions were brought into Europe, wild boars were also domesticated within Europe itself. So it's a domestication free for all.
00:03:00
Speaker
domestication happening, usually more Eastern than here, but kind of just happening at different times in different places, which I always find really interesting, to be honest. It's not just one thing, it's like a chain of
00:03:16
Speaker
events happening. And that's how we get this one domesticated species. But it's something like really interesting, because of course, she wouldn't think like that, you know, a population would have attempted to domesticate an animal, it would work first time, okay, excellent, we now have pigs. There's more like, you know, several populations trying over a number of
00:03:35
Speaker
generations and centuries and some attempts went well, some may not have gone so well. And so then you get all these different regions worldwide that have attempted the same thing. And it's something really interesting, because it all leads back to sort of human nature, where we sort of all do the same thing. Or like, if you think you've just had a really brilliant idea, chances are someone's already had it before. That makes sense.
00:03:59
Speaker
Yeah, no, definitely. Why did we domesticate the wild boar? I think one of the main things that you get that you can interpret from a site that has pig remains is food. We obviously were using pigs for food. And let's be honest, it's probably easier just to have these pigs domesticated and available than just going out and hunting wild boar, which apparently is a terrifying animal.
00:04:28
Speaker
I've never seen a wild boar, personally, but for all accounts, it sounds like it's a pain to hunt them. You know, wild boar can get pretty terrifying because where I'm from, it's not technically an invasive species as if it's native to the island. But I think because there's no natural purpose there anymore, they've multiplied to an extent where they move closer and closer to inhabited centers.
00:04:55
Speaker
And while no animal is nasty by nature, they are easily startled and they will charge you. So, of course, domesticating guapo may prove an easier way to get your food. While pigs can also not always be the friendliest pigs can do pretty messy stuff to people and each other as well.
00:05:18
Speaker
Yeah. I've seen images of pigs chewing on. Well, they'll chew on anything from what I understand. So, like I said, we'll get to the teeth. We'll have the whole diatribe as always about the teeth. But yeah, so finding pig remains on a site, obviously, we're looking at food if we're finding things like butchery marks, if we're finding burning, things like that. And there's also different depending on what your dietary choices are.
00:05:48
Speaker
You may find yourself with very specific types of pig remains. Simona, can you talk a little bit more about that? Of course.
00:06:00
Speaker
So again, bringing it back to, guess what? The Romano-British period. You do have higher incidences of the suckling pig. Of course, it's a very young, juvenile pig, which was a delicacy in the Mediterranean at the time. So when the Romans settled in Britain, they brought this custom with them.
00:06:23
Speaker
So for example, like finding very young pig bones, maybe an indicator that site of Romano-British state would have been more Romanized than somewhere that didn't produce juvenile pig bones. Even though again, you should be looking at context because of course, depending on where you find it, it might just be a juvenile pig that has died because reasons.
00:06:49
Speaker
And then again, I think it was as well the robins, correct me if I'm wrong, but you do find neonatal pig remains sort of under the threshold or floor surface of a structure.
00:07:02
Speaker
So it could be food, it could be ritual, it could be an animal that just died because they, let's face it, they do do that. It's always ritual when we don't know, let's be real. I'm slowly but surely coming to grips with the fact that the joke is right, that everything we don't know is ritual. And I'm not just saying that because I'm in the middle of writing up my PhD, and I'm very tired of trying to interpret everything. But speaking of not
00:07:33
Speaker
It's like weird non-normative stuff. One of the things that I find really interesting about pigs, especially in comparison to some other domesticated species we've talked about, is that because of how needy, I guess they are as animals to keep, we can learn a lot about how
00:07:55
Speaker
people in the past were probably taking care of these pigs, just based on the remains we find. So pigs require a lot of space and a lot of resources to raise.
00:08:07
Speaker
So they would need more orchards, woodland areas rather than just open fields that say your sheep and your cattle will need. So in a lot of ways, not only are you learning about the kind of domesticated animals that were on these sites, but you can also kind of get an idea of what the overall environment is of this site. If you're finding all these pig bones, you can probably guess that the area around it was more like woodland.
00:08:36
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And you also get even more of an idea of why the pig was such a popular domesticate, especially later in the Roman period. I wouldn't say that pigs are necessarily easy to keep, but as you've mentioned, they do have an appetite for pretty much everything under the sun.
00:08:54
Speaker
so their upkeep might be in ways easier than with other domesticates and violence do require a lot of space. If you keep them within an orchard or especially in a bit of woodland, you don't necessarily need to
00:09:11
Speaker
work the land for them so that you can have your farm going and then you can just key you up. I've got this woodland that I'm not really using and I can't be bothered to chop down all the trees and sort all of that. So I'm just going to keep pigs in there and then after a year, I've got sausages.
00:09:26
Speaker
So in a way, if your diet is inclined that way, sort of a no-brainer. I also want to point out that I haven't eaten dinner during this recording. So the idea of sausages is absolutely killing me. No, Tristan, do not yell at me for not having dinner. It's been a very long day. We've gone over this so many times.
00:09:48
Speaker
You know, it's been a very long day. So many times. Is it just sausages or is it also bacon? I mean, is it bacon eaten at this time as well? You know, lots of bacon. It's like really crispy, really salty, like, you know, it's flamed. So it's just like, oh, it's just like perfect, like crispiness. Is that kind of what we were eating?
00:10:09
Speaker
Tristan, I'm going to set your house on fire first of all, but I think Zamona can answer that better than I can. I'm not sure whether there's actual sort of archaeological evidence for bacon as such, but salt preservation was of course very popular at the time, like in ancient times as well, so it wouldn't be outside the realms of possibility that if they made a particular cut
00:10:34
Speaker
of pork and then they preserved it with salt and spices, you would end up with something that's very akin to bacon. So sort of, but not quite, I guess. I want bacon so bad. That's all right. I'm gonna take away all the hunger you may have with some boring facts about the Roman taxation system and how that pertains to the rise in the number of domesticated pigs from archaeological sites.
00:11:01
Speaker
Oh my god, that's my favourite. Because there's some research that's been carried out by King in 1978, and he was looking at the proportion of pig remains found in archaeological sites in the Romano-British period. And now an increase in the amount of pig remains has been
00:11:22
Speaker
sort of determined as of the late Romano-British period. And some of the hypotheses that have been thrown there are some changes that have taken place in the Roman taxation system. So for instance, you do get
00:11:38
Speaker
So the first one taking place in the 3rd century, where the way the land was taxed has changed, which in return may have led to farmers using more of their land. So if they had some unkept woodland or anything that belonged to them,
00:11:56
Speaker
they would have brought more pigs in to keep in the woodland, so to get as much of the land productive as possible, or just leaving them in the woodland or converting it into an orchard. And then in the fourth century, you do get another change in the taxation system. To be specific, it's in the Capitatio, which was a Roman poll tax, which from that point onwards, started to include livestock.
00:12:23
Speaker
So of course, you were charged extra tax per bit of livestock that you owned.
Archaeological Perspectives on Pig Domestication
00:12:29
Speaker
So all of a sudden, it became much more profitable in the small sort of British farmers eyes to keep, say cattle and pigs, because you would get a lot more meat out of them than say, a sheep or other type of livestock. But in the eyes of the taxman, that would only count as one.
00:12:49
Speaker
So yeah, these are some of the hypotheses that have been made about why you do see more pig in the later Romano-British period. And of course, an obvious one will be that over as centuries went by, sort of localities were getting more and more Romanized. As pigs were in a delicacy in the Roman period, it would have been more and more common to
00:13:15
Speaker
find them in settlements and thus in the archaeological sites that we uncover. And how quick was this change? Like, are we talking like decades or are we talking like, you know, half a century? How quick was the kind of reaction? And can we actually even gauge that kind of speed from the sites? Well, like the change in the tax law. Yeah, the change in the tax law and then the change in what I would assume is then the assemblages we'd find on sites.
00:13:45
Speaker
I'm honestly not sure because what I've read about it wasn't as detailed. So I'm not sure whether that's something that has been looked into. That could then be like a PhD topic. Yeah, for Alex, perhaps. I don't think she wants another one.
00:14:02
Speaker
Why would you do this to me? But I will say that it might be something that you could see if you looked at genetic markers. But to be completely honest, as someone who just read a bunch of articles on genetic markers today, it all sounds like magic to me. Of course, one thing that we forgot to mention about sort of like
00:14:26
Speaker
what can pig remains tell you about archaeological site in terms of the sustenance approaches that the sort of population in question would have had, is of course the age that the pig would have been butchered. Because of course, back sort of in the past, and it's still the case today, pigs are not kept until they're fully adults, they are actually butchered at the sub adult stage.
00:14:54
Speaker
which of course is getting younger and younger as the centuries are going by, because as pigs have reached this subadult stage, I mean they will grow a little bit after this, but not enough to make it economically valuable for people to keep feeding them, because sort of the meat, the return in terms of higher meat content will be quite minimal.
00:15:17
Speaker
So I think in terms of in archaeological terms, I think we're looking around or under the one year of age, but you see how over the centuries that's gone. So that slaughtering age has gone down. And I think now, depending on the breed, we are looking at about six months for butchering pigs, because now we've developed breeds that accumulate a lot of meat and a lot of fat in a much shorter amount of time.
00:15:46
Speaker
Wow, really? Like just six months? That seems wild. I guess it depends on the breeds as well. So like, I think six months will be the case for a lot of the commercial breeds. And then you have some of the heritage breeds that you will need to keep sort of closer to one year of age to gain enough meat content to sort of make it economically valuable to viable to slaughter.
00:16:09
Speaker
And I guess then you would also see that in the ages of the pig remains on these sites. And I think that just kind of loops back into just how much you can actually learn.
00:16:25
Speaker
about a site just based on one species. And I think that's been a recurring theme in all these domesticated animal episodes we've been doing. And I think it's also just a really important lesson to learn about this archaeology in general is that, you know,
00:16:42
Speaker
It seems like it's very like, oh, you have pigs. That's the only thing you know. But clearly, you can learn so much about the surrounding environments and the kind of methods that people in the past would be applying to keeping and raising and eventually slaughtering these animals, which I think is really cool. And apparently, even Simona could figure out about the taxation system from Rome.
00:17:11
Speaker
Which, yeah, sure. And with a reminder on why zoo archaeology is indeed a very, very relevant discipline within archaeology, we bid you farewell until the next segment.
00:17:25
Speaker
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Pig Bone and Tooth Identification
00:18:45
Speaker
All right, and we are back with archaeo animals. And now we're going to get to the part of the episode where I get to complain, because we are talking about the morphology of the pigs. But before we just kind of go to me complaining about teeth, we should probably talk about, you know, the rest of the pig. So
00:19:07
Speaker
Samona, how would you characterize pig bones in general when it comes to telling the difference between pig bones versus any other kind of mammal? I guess one of the main pointers to look at that came across mine in terms of domesticates
00:19:25
Speaker
would be the metapodials, because of course, you'll have both cattle and sheep that only have the one and horse that only have the one sort of one set of like one metacarpal per side and one metatarsal per side, while the pigs would have multiple because they have multiple toes. I forget exactly how many they have, is it four or five metapodials?
00:19:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's something like that. Also, I just realized that I've never thought about pigs having multiple toes, and I don't know if that's kind of upsetting or not. I've never really referred to like Metaportals as just toes, you know? Don't toe shame the pigs. Wait, how does that work? Is that like doing like the whole like Star Trek Spock sign or like, because I know they have trotters and I thought they only have two. So is it like all clumped together or how does that work?
00:20:17
Speaker
I think they've got the two main ones, but I think they've got at least another one or two on either side. So before I think I believe it's four toes in total. Nope. Yeah. So am I going to have to Google how many toes do pigs have? I should know this. I thought it was in like the pre the preparation for the podcast.
00:20:43
Speaker
Merle Do you think do you sit and think about it? Okay, there you go. Sarah I couldn't get to sleep last night. So I was thinking about how many toes pigs have. And it is indeed four. So yeah, they'll have the two main sort of part of the trotter that we do tend to normally associate with pigs, but they will also have two smaller toes on either side. So it is four, which will make for four metapodials compared to other domesticates in terms of livestock that will only have the one
00:21:12
Speaker
And I think, I mean, this is a very broad statement to make. But of course, this is the kind of statements I make on this podcast. I always kind of associate pig bones, specifically the, you know, the long bones to be for the most part shorter, a little bit more robust than other mammal bones.
00:21:35
Speaker
I just I don't know. That's just how I always think about it in my head. I think a lot of archaeologists probably agree with this, but you kind of end up having these little shortcuts in your brain, because when you work with so many different animal bones, and that's always the kind of like rule of thumb I have for pigs. So the way like some of the bones are almost twisted, if that makes sense.
00:21:57
Speaker
the shape is a bit more twisted. No. Yeah, no, definitely. No, actually, I 100% agree with that, because I'm just thinking about, again, some of the long bones. And yeah, it's like, it is very kind of twisted and not like a, you know, joker twisted, because he's very twisted. And that's topical, I just realised. Like, as the best indicator, so to identify, yes, we do have a pig here, are Alex's favourites, the teeth themselves.
00:22:27
Speaker
shall I talk about teeth?" Let me do my thing first, and then we can go into the more educational part where Simona explains it better. But here's the thing, and I've talked about this before on the podcast, pig teeth are
00:22:43
Speaker
a blessing and a curse, because on one hand, they're very, very particular. I feel like especially compared to other domesticates, other species that you're very, that you'll commonly find on archaeological sites, and they're really easy to pinpoint and tell the difference. And the downside is it's because they are so disgusting to look at.
00:23:08
Speaker
specifically molars from a pig. They kind of look like human teeth. But if you like put it in a microwave, and then they like exploded like a popcorn kernel, that's how I always like to think about it. They're horrible. They make me feel nauseous when I look at them. And also, they are
00:23:28
Speaker
very, very similar to human teeth. And I speak from experience because I'm not going to name names of who may or may not have gone through this bag. But I was looking at what was supposed to be human bones. And it turns out someone had mixed up a couple of pig teeth and pig jawbone bits in it.
00:23:47
Speaker
Just saying, not putting anyone on blast, but yeah. So to be fair, like if you're a zoo archaeologist, not your thing, and listen to you, it's an easy enough mistake to make. If you're not trained in animal remains, you will see something that looks a bit like a popcorn and think a human happens. I feel like you can better explain though, Teeth, because I will just start complaining more about how awful they are.
00:24:16
Speaker
Okay, so pigs, I've got a tooth type that is called they have brachyodont teeth, which are very typical of omnivores. And so the best way to recognize them aside from yeah, them looking like popcorn, is that they're the molars, especially a quite wide and low crown, which also like makes them look very similar to human teeth, except the sort of the
00:24:45
Speaker
occlusal view is a lot more popped, for lack of a better word, sort of what makes them look like popcorn, they're convex.
00:24:54
Speaker
in your clues of you. And then they'll just have their incisors, which are not human-like. And then they also have canines, which are found in both males and females. But usually a good way, not sure if I'm wrong, bring it 100% correctly, but a good way to tell sort of male and female aside is, aside from the size itself of the canines, is that the male ones keep growing throughout their lifetime and thus are open at the root.
00:25:24
Speaker
while the females will have them closed because sort of like they will erupt as they are and sort of stay that size for the rest of their lives. Yeah, basically. And you do make a good point too. It's it's really only the molars look similar to humans and all the other teeth are very faunal, I guess, if that's a good way to describe them. But thank God you're on this podcast so that you can explain the things that I don't want to talk about because I hate them so much.
00:25:52
Speaker
Yeah, but while we're talking about pig teeth, the recovery of teeth is also a useful way to differentiate between a domestic pig and a wild boar.
00:26:06
Speaker
guess one of the most reliable ways to tell the difference between the two species is the measurement of the third molar. Biometrics, baby. The other thing I was reading so much about today. But yeah, just as a bit of a
00:26:24
Speaker
A quick reminder, if you don't remember, because I think we might have just talked about it in a previous episode, maybe my first episode, but biometrics are basically just kind of a way to take measurements of different parts of a skeleton of an animal. And by comparing it to other kind of set measurements we have, you can
00:26:46
Speaker
kind of sort of tell, you know, the difference between, say, a domestic pig and a wild pig.
Pigs in Internet Culture and Modern Research
00:26:53
Speaker
So we have a lot of metrical ways to do that. As Simona just said, we have the measurements of the M3, the third molar. And there's also a couple other metrics that we can use, you know, the humerus, the estragulus, scapulas, or anything else that I'm missing.
00:27:12
Speaker
I'm honestly not sure. I think those who mentioned now are the ones that are believed to be the most reliable at present. But then of course what if you get a pig-warp or hybrid? Well then you just put the bones down and go away and don't figure it out. At least that's something I would do. And then I just realised I just
00:27:35
Speaker
rattle off a bunch of different things and then didn't explain what they are. So the metrics of long bones and things like that, so like the humerus, which I think we all know, but the estragulus, if you don't know, is a bone that is part of the foot. And it's one of, I think it's one of Simona's favorite bones, if I'm not mistaken. They look like little toy cars.
00:28:02
Speaker
They're pretty cute. They are extremely, extremely cute. And I think the other one I mentioned was a scapula, which is your shoulder bone. So that's just metrics. It's something that I find very complicated. It's, again, a lot of measuring.
00:28:18
Speaker
And I think the validity of a lot of it is still kind of up in the air. It's a pretty good way to get. But Alex, you get to revel in the joy of having three people measure the same bone and get three different measurements. No, I don't want that.
00:28:34
Speaker
And also has to do a numbers and I hate numbers. But yeah, so biometrics is, it's helpful, definitely helpful. I think it's still kind of up in the air of how valid it is, which is why we have nonmetrical approaches to discovering the difference between wild and domestic pigs.
00:28:55
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess one thing that you could be looking at is the age at death, because as we've discussed previously, pigs would get butchered sort of around the same age group where you'd be getting the most meat content per minimal effort, while, while bored, sort of, well, it depends on what you're doing, sometimes as a younger individual, sometimes it's slightly older, you won't get as much of a consistency in terms of age group
00:29:23
Speaker
compared to what you'd get with domestic pigs. Or then you can look at geographical contexts as well, because there's parts of the world where wild boar is a native, but pigs, domesticated pigs were brought in. So chances are, if you find sort of sewage remains on your archaeological site,
00:29:43
Speaker
it's more than likely that they came from a domesticated specimen rather than a wild boar. There's also other things, there's a type of analysis that you could be looking into. So the linear enamel hyperplasia being one of them, which is used on humans as well, because if you experience extreme levels of stress as you're growing, so as your teeth sort of
00:30:05
Speaker
your adult dentition is forming, when they eventually erupt, they will present a series of lines, especially on the incisors. And it can actually be pretty specific with them, because they form a certain developmental stages of the tooth that again, as I said, they form a very specific
00:30:26
Speaker
sort of age stages, you'll be able to pinpoint when the insult to the organism actually happened. So then you could be using that with pigs. But then again, it won't necessarily mean that if an animal has experienced extreme stress or growing up,
00:30:43
Speaker
it meant that it was a wild animal that perhaps didn't get enough to eat because it could well have been also a domesticated animal that perhaps wasn't being raised according to the greatest standards of welfare. So there's a bit of hit and miss there. And just a silly question, because I love asking those, if you brushed a pig's teeth, would you be able to kind of like mess up with the aging of it? Would that work? Brush the teeth?
00:31:10
Speaker
Okay, but more seriously, if a pig had access to certain diets, would that possibly affect it? Or are pigs so able to eat anything, it kind of averages out? I guess it depends, because if the pig was fed on a diet that was almost exclusively based off starchy food and sugary foods,
00:31:35
Speaker
it will get some form of tooth decay. So brushing its teeth will prevent all of that. I'm not sure necessarily do much in terms of stocking the wear that you see on the teeth because I guess what you're looking at sort of when you're aging an animal or a person for that matter, based on the dentition is how much the tooth has been worn.
00:31:56
Speaker
But then of course, like there's only so far that method can take you because diet also has an impact on how quickly your teeth wear down. So of course, like even if we talk about humans today, our teeth wear down a lot slower, at least in the West.
00:32:11
Speaker
they wear down a lot slower than they would have done in the past because we eat a lot of processed food, which incidentally also comes with a lot of tooth decay. So someone like if you compared someone aged 30 now and age 30 in the British Iron Age, their teeth would have worn down a lot quicker.
00:32:33
Speaker
So I guess, yeah, brushing the teeth would help prevent tooth decay, but not necessarily stop the wearing of your teeth. You heard it here first, folks. Brushing your teeth does absolutely nothing. And then, you know, just calling out my dentist now, stop saying that I need to keep going and getting fillings in. My teeth hurt and I can't afford it.
00:32:56
Speaker
Anyway, if you don't brush your teeth, you get tooth decay, which may develop into an abscess. And that's very painful. Don't do that, kids. Why would you say that to me? Anyway, probably the more the most, I guess, defining way to look at the differences between wild domestic pigs is ultimately genetic markers, which is something that's kind of, you know,
00:33:22
Speaker
more recent in terms of archaeological science progress, using stuff like ancient DNA, which we've talked about on this podcast before, you can kind of look and see, you know, the different genes that would flag up and
00:33:37
Speaker
depending on what genes you're looking at, you will be looking at, you know, a domesticated pig or a wild boar. And again, it sounds like complete magic to me. But, you know, it's really helpful. And it's especially good when you're looking at populations of say 30 to 50 feral hogs. See, I did it. I did the meme. No one can tell me otherwise. I did it. I did all that for the stupid meme.
00:34:09
Speaker
We have to mention it, come on. It's the episode on it. We have never mentioned the meme on this podcast and we never will. Oh yeah, sure. That's the truth. I'm not sure I'm familiar with that.
00:34:25
Speaker
Okay, so basically I'll do a run down really 30 second run down. So basically somebody on Twitter asked, right? Oh, it was so weird. It was so weird. It's this question about like, why would you need an assault rifle? And there are questions like, well, how would I deal with 30 to 50 feral hogs that would come into the garden in three to five minutes to attack my children? It was just so weirdly specific and odd. It became a meme.
00:34:52
Speaker
Yeah. And I just realized we will need that explanation because I'm sure people who will listen to this podcast in a month or two from now will not remember what that meme is. Oh, things go so quickly. Oh, yeah. I mean, we also suffer like I suffer from being very online. So Sam. Yeah. Simona is blessed.
00:35:15
Speaker
Yeah, so the opposite of facts. I'm sort of sometimes I feel like I live in the cave where all the squirrels of Britain live, which is why you've never seen one. Oh, sick bird. Wow. Anyway, maybe we should take a break and we'll explain a bunch of other online beams to Simona in the meantime, and not talk about how I've never seen a squirrel in the UK. So yeah, see you after this break.
00:35:42
Speaker
You may have heard my pitch from membership. It's a great idea and really helps out. However, you can also support us by picking up a fun t-shirt, sticker, or something from a large selection of items from our tea public store. Head over to arcpodnet.com slash shop for a link. That's arcpodnet.com slash shop to pick up some fun swag and support the show.
00:36:02
Speaker
And we're back with archaeo-animals. We are talking about pigs this episode, and we are now at the part of the episode that I actually really like, which is the case studies where we get to talk about... What about the other parts? I mean, you know, they're mostly you talking about Roman stuff and explaining things better than I can. And then this one... Excuse me, what is your problem with the Roman taxation system?
00:36:30
Speaker
I have a problem with the Romans. Yeah, that's, yeah. And to be fair, I also have a problem with the Roman taxation system, mostly in that it seems very dry and boring. What the Romans have ever done for us. Oh God, just keep going, just keep going. Of course, Simone is going to stand up for the Romans.
00:36:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's Simona's attempt at a meme.
00:37:10
Speaker
Wow, things are getting real in this podcast. So let me ease us back into what we were talking about, and we can talk about yet another huge project that's going on. It's also really exciting. So there's the, I don't know, do you pronounce it SUS100 project, or is it just S-U-S100 project?
00:37:33
Speaker
do you know Simona? I would go with sus based because I think that probably stands for the genus of pigs, so sus krafa. Oh, yeah. God.
00:37:45
Speaker
Anyway, so the SUS100 project is one of those really big overarching projects that is looking at the selective breeding and the kind of genetic and morphological variations. Over 100 generations of pig, which is incredibly ambitious. But most of it is being done looking at a collection of pig remains that
00:38:13
Speaker
have been kept and basically they're using DNA as well to kind of compare these pig breeds with wild boar populations and through that they're going to kind of try and see what are the human-directed
00:38:33
Speaker
selection pressures on these specific pig breeds. I think it's really interesting in a way because I think one of the main aims of the research in seeing how quickly the genetic markers change over a number of generations of imposing some selective breeding pressures onto the animals. So then what they're using for this project and they're focusing on German
00:38:57
Speaker
pig breeds. I feel like there's two in particular, which I will butcher in a minute if you pile on the pun. So it's the Deutsches Edelschwein and the Deutsches Landschwein that they're particularly looking at and then they are comparing it to a sample of Wabur remains.
00:39:16
Speaker
But just something is really interesting because it also involves a combination of morphological traits and DNA studies, just to see how quickly species adapt to exertion, like selection pressure has been exerted from humans.
00:39:33
Speaker
So, yeah, I guess that kind of this project should be answering the question that you had earlier, Tristan, in terms of how fast these kind of processes happen in terms of like how these genes end up changing over time. And it's.
00:39:50
Speaker
In process, the project is currently ongoing right now. So hopefully we'll see some really interesting results from them soon. And they're also on Twitter. So you should go check them out on Twitter. We'll have all of the links to the project, as with all the other products we're talking about in the show notes.
Archaeological Discoveries on Pig Consumption
00:40:12
Speaker
Simona, do you want to talk about the next project? Another sort of big project that heavily features big remains is the Stonehenge Riverside Project, which, or this particular part, focuses on the exhalation of Durrington Walls that, for those of you who are not aware, is believed to be whether people that built Stonehenge were residing during the construction of the monument
00:40:36
Speaker
And one interesting feature about the site is that we have an astonishing number of pig remains as these have been gone through by Sarah Viner Daniels and Umberto Al Barrella from the University of Sheffield. They've identified so like 90% of the assemblage was actually made up of pig remains.
00:40:56
Speaker
which is particularly astonishing for that time period. But not only that, what was really interesting about it is that you could see the different ways in which not only pig but also other livestock were being cooked.
00:41:12
Speaker
because in a lot of the pig remains, you'd see sort of more extensive burning at either end of the bone, which would imply that they'd been roasted over a fire sort of with the extremities not having much meat on them, getting most of the heat and thus sort of getting that taphonomic change in colour and consistency. Evidence of boiled pig remains were also found through ceramic analysis.
00:41:36
Speaker
then Oliver Craig and Lisa Marie Shelita of the University of York were actually looking at the residues on the ceramics and they found I think about like 23% of the sample they've been looking through presented at pork fat in them. So we have some roasting, we have some boiling,
00:41:57
Speaker
I think what they've been looking at as well in terms of zookeological analysis was the teeth, because some of the teeth of the pigs that have been recovered showed tooth decay. So one thing that left people wondering is whether the animals were actually fattened with very starchy and sugary food, especially to get them fattened up for slaughter.
00:42:22
Speaker
So that's really interesting. Yeah, and also it's just interesting to see, you know, kind of consider the other parts of Stonehenge, which is a very, I guess, controversial topic among archaeologists. Some people like to say that it's, you know,
00:42:39
Speaker
a great icon. Others like to say it's a little overrated. I might say it's overrated, just saying. But it's interesting to kind of think of the other facets of Stonehenge, and one of them being what did the people who built it actually ate? And actually, a question I just thought of, Simona, is, you know, what do you think about the differences in the way pigs were
00:43:03
Speaker
probably prepared for consumption, not necessarily mean, but I don't know, I just, I never really thought about, you know, is there a kind of meaning or is it just, you know, a variety of pig dishes being eaten at what could be a feast?
00:43:21
Speaker
I guess it could be a variety of dishes. But then again, you would cook different cuts of meat in different ways. Also, another thing that could be so especially if you've slaughtered an animal a little bit too late, and the meat turns out being a bit on the stiff side, you might want to actually boil it for longer as opposed to the roast sticks. Otherwise, that's going to make for a pretty dry dinner.
00:43:46
Speaker
So could be anything really there could be some sort of meaning to it or just simply like people having a nice grand buffet of different dishes. Yeah, no, exactly. I think it's this was the reason why I thought of this I think is more that I've never like specifically looked at a site as a zoo archaeologist to look at like feasting. It's always been kind of more of what the heck are they actually doing with any of these animals at all. But yeah, no, it seems like
00:44:16
Speaker
people, the builders at Stonehenge were eating really well. And I am dying inside talking about this, because again, I have not eaten dinner yet. Another thing that I've just thought, thought of, in terms of like, sort of pig fat being found sort of in the rescue of cooking pots, then of course, all the fatty bits or the off cuts, you might want to boil make stock out of it, just try and get every last bit of the meat out of it.
00:44:43
Speaker
Oh, yeah, of course. Exactly. No, that's probably. Yeah, no, that's probably a better explanation than anything I was thinking of. But it's interesting to see kind of like all of those different uses of pay represented in just one site.
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting because as we've discussed, you see more and more pig remains sort of in the Romano-British period. So seeing such a high incidence of pigs sort of so relatively early, it's interesting. Speaking of cooking and eating pig, our last case study is actually specifically on Bronze Age pig cooking. So this is
00:45:28
Speaker
is from the Rubicon Heritage Excavation at Tinerland? How do you say that? I'm not a native speaker. You tell me. I'm not. I immigrated here. Anyway, I know this is the worst podcast ever. Tristan, how do you say that word? Tinerland?
00:45:52
Speaker
Wait, where is this? Where is Tinryland? Do you guys like, I've never heard of that. Is it in the UK? I believe so. Let's have a look. Listeners, we're going to discover where Tinryland is. It's probably Tinryland. Oh, no, it's Irish. It's not, it's Ireland.
00:46:14
Speaker
Tinerland. Yeah, it's probably Tinerland. Yeah, just don't land it, you know? Like, don't overpronounce land and you'd be fine. But any Irish listeners, I apologise if I've pronounced that. I'm from the north, so that's my excuse. Okay, so if anybody knows how to pronounce this, please, you know, this is a show.
00:46:40
Speaker
Anyways, so, uh, tin real, tin, oh my gosh. This, this brand new cooking. Yes.
00:46:51
Speaker
It's really, it's actually really interesting because we were just talking about, you know, before the tin-reland saga, we were talking about, you know, how do you approach cooking pigs? And this is a really good example of kind of how we figure that out. So from what I understand, Simona, feel free to, as always, correct me.
00:47:16
Speaker
a feature on the site that they were excavating and they've been trying to figure out kind of how it was used to cook pigs and we'll put a link again to this in the show notes. It's got an amazing illustration of what they kind of think of how it was used.
00:47:35
Speaker
Yeah, there's some interesting also like post-ex photos of the feature that you can look at to maybe ever crack and interpreting it yourself. Because basically what they found on this side, we have this this elongated pit that had been backfilled like following this use. And the backfill contained pig remains. Among other things, there was also like charred hazelnuts, I believe, and also heat cracked stone.
00:48:05
Speaker
But what was very interesting about it is that the actual edges and the base of the feature, as you can see in the photo, have gone red. And that's something that clay does when it's been exposed to heat. So this feature when it had been initially cut out had been exposed like that burning was happening
00:48:27
Speaker
in that pit in a way that it reached all the way to the sides and the base and they've turned the clay sort of that sort of pinkish red that sort of indicates that it's been exposed to heat. Therefore, what the interpretation has been that this pit had been cut out to roast either like most or an entire animal
00:48:49
Speaker
and then have been backfilled with so the debris that had been caused by the event so you'd have the stones that were also heat exposed because they've they've been cracked also another thing that stone likes to do it also likes to turn red depending on the geology of it which would have been sort of in the fire with the coals so it's been backfilled with that and then the leftover of the shell the the hazelnuts and the pig remains and so the whole feature has been then covered up
00:49:19
Speaker
But another interesting feature that was found adjacent to it was one that has been interpreted as a windbreak that was on the southwest side of this pit. So the theory is that maybe this windbreak was put there to control the level of oxygen going in and out of the fire pit.
00:49:44
Speaker
So from here, so like, again, one of the sort of generic general theories on the use of the feature that has been put forward. The idea of this layering technique, because the sort of the shape and say profile of the feature is very reminiscent of a typical Maori roasting technique.
Understanding Ancient Cooking Methods
00:50:09
Speaker
What some Maori do is that they'll have a pit, which would have then a layer of hot coals and then a thin layer of soil on top, followed by a layer of leaves, in that case banana leaves.
00:50:25
Speaker
I guess in the Bronze Age you would have been substituted for something that would have been available in the surrounding area, which then at the top, you get the meat, which is usually either most of an animal or an entire animal. So that's a case in which they've been, you know, we've been looking at
00:50:45
Speaker
sort of evidence in the ethnographic record to interpret things that we find on archaeological sites. So I guess this, this excavation by Rubicon Heritage is a very good example of that also like where ethno-archaeology sort of and sort of field archaeology meet.
00:51:06
Speaker
Yeah, and it's a really good example of how ethno archaeology, which kind of to explain a little bit more, in case some listeners don't know, it's ethno archaeology is using ethnographic materials, so kind of materials that are, you know, from interviews with other communities, or, you know,
00:51:27
Speaker
oral or written texts about certain things from the people who actually did those things. You kind of using that as part of our interpretations when we're interpreting the past and it's this is a really good example of how
00:51:46
Speaker
I think without that kind of ethnographic information, I don't know how anyone could kind of decipher the idea of roasting pigs with this kind of layering technique. And another thing that I actually found really interesting about this is one of the ways they kind of deciphered this is by looking at the pig remains that actually were in this excavation. They had a really distinct coloration
00:52:12
Speaker
on the bones due to the intense heat from cooking. So one thing that you can kind of find out, depending on what the bones look like, and if they've been burnt in any way, the coloration can be correlated with different temperatures. So you get, you know, usual kind of black
00:52:33
Speaker
burning coloration to like a white chalky blue gray kind of color. It's really interesting kind of stuff. But yeah, seriously, I was wondering, actually, you mentioned a specific coloration that was found within this pit, was it actually specified? Sort of what color what temperature the bones would have been exposed to?
00:52:58
Speaker
I don't believe they were in this particular case, but I would assume that if it's intense heat from cooking, it's probably more on the kind of like white-ish coloration, that like chalky white color. But again, if that's wrong, anyone from Rubicon Heritage, please feel free to correct me on Twitter or something.
Conclusion and Humorous Dinner Discussion
00:53:25
Speaker
But seriously, everyone listening has to look at the illustration of what they think this looks like. It's extremely cool. And I love it. But yeah, that was all our case studies. Anything else you want to say about pig Simona before we take it to the close? No, I think she probably have your dinner now. Oh, yeah, I'm so hungry. Hilariously enough, I believe I'm having chili for dinner tonight. Oh, chili. Another thing that doesn't exist in the archaeo animals universe.
00:53:54
Speaker
our deep lore and things that don't exist. Just wait until somebody makes squirrel chili. That'll be the day. Oh, that's probably good to be honest. I was hoping actually you'd have something pork related. That would be like the icing on the cake, you know.
00:54:13
Speaker
that you go and you just, you'd have to make a bacon sandwich. Actually, this is a like, this is a decent question. So bacon sandwich, Alex, what goes on a bacon sandwich? What's your kind of like, if you were to be given one, how would you stack it? Lettuce and tomato, duh. Oh, a BLT. A BLT, but also with the guacamole as the like filler.
00:54:42
Speaker
I'm very American. Guacamole. I disagree. If bacon is good, you don't need anything else. Wow. Could you imagine a fistful of bacon? Yeah, I can imagine it. That was like my Sunday afternoon. I love it.
00:55:07
Speaker
Bacon and brie? Mm, that is pretty good. All right, we need to. That's going quite English. Yeah, sorry. We need to get to the end because I might die if I hear more about food. But this has been Archio Animals. Make sure you contact us on Twitter. We're at Archio Animals. We'd love to hear your feedback about the episodes. You can yell at me if you want. Thankfully, no one has yelled at me about never seeing a squirrel before. And I appreciate that.
00:55:35
Speaker
You can also, you know, find us on Facebook at archaeo animals. Be sure to share the episode with people, let them know that we have a very good archaeology podcast. I can't say that with a straight face.
00:55:53
Speaker
And definitely leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps out the show. And I think that's it. Have a nice evening slash morning slash day slash whatever time you're listening to this. Yeah. OK. Well, that was our show then. Bye. I'm going to go eat so much food now.
00:56:30
Speaker
Thank you for listening to RQ animals. Please subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you get your podcasts from. You can find us on Twitter at rqanimals. Also, the views expressed on the podcast are those of ourselves, the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily represent those of our intuition, employers, and the RQOD podcast network. Thanks for listening.
00:56:55
Speaker
This show is produced and recorded by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.
00:57:17
Speaker
Thanks again for listening to this episode and for supporting the Archaeology Podcast Network. If you want these shows to keep going, consider becoming a member for just $7.99 US dollars a month. That's cheaper than a venti quad eggnog latte. Go to archpodnet.com slash members for more info.