The Archaeology of Pig Domestication in Eurasia
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The Archaeology of Pig Domestication in Eurasia Max Price1,2 · Hitomi Hongo3
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract The multifaceted behavioral and ecological flexibility of pigs and wild boar (Sus scrofa) makes study of their domestication both complex and of broad anthropological significance. While recognizing contextual contingency, we propose several “pathways” to pig domestication. We also highlight the diversity of pig management practices. This diversity complicates zooarchaeological detection of management techniques employed by humans in the early steps of domestication, and we stress the need for multiple lines of evidence. Drawing together the evidence, we review early Holocene human–Sus relations in Japan, Cyprus, northern Mesopotamia, and China. Independent pig domestication occurred in northern Mesopotamia by c. 7500 cal. BC and China by c. 6000 cal. BC. In northern Mesopotamia pig domestication followed a combined “commensal and prey” pathway that evolved into loose “extensive” husbandry that persisted as the dominant form of pig management for several millennia. There are not yet enough zooarchaeological data to speculate on the early stages of pig domestication in China, but once that process began, it involved more intensive management (relying on pens and fodder), leading to more rapid selection for phenotypes associated with domestication. Finally, pig domestication “failed” to take off in Japan. We suggest this was related to a number of factors including the lack of domestic crops and, potentially, cultural barriers to conceiving animals as property. Keywords Pigs · Sus scrofa · Domestication · Neolithic · Holocene · Zooarchaeology
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s1081 4-019-09142-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Max Price [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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Journal of Archaeological Research
Introduction The domestication of animals and plants in the Holocene was a major turning point in human history. The adoption of agriculture set the stage for state-level societies, massive population growth, selection for novel phenotypes (e.g., lactase persistence), and unprecedented impacts on the environment. No less significant were the impacts on animals and plants that underwent domestication. They achieved levels of population growth and phenotypic variation otherwise selected against in the wild (Larson and Fuller 2014; Zeder 2015). For these reasons, documenting the processes of domestication and the cultural contexts in which they took place touches on multiple fields of inquiry, from anthropology to zoology (e.g., Frantz et al. 2016; Hide 2003; Mayer et al. 1998). One of the most unique species to be domesticated is the pig (Sus scrofa). Today, pigs are one of the most common livestock animals in the world. Equally significant are long-standing pork taboos, which
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