Magnets and shot glasses serve as fun holiday souvenirs, but certain foods synonymous with a country’s identity can make for extra meaningful gifts for friends and loved ones; think French cheese, Dutch Stroopwafels and Canadian maple syrup.
According to new research, communities that lived in western Iran about 11,000 years ago during the Early Neolithic period took a similar approach when it came to gift-giving.
They invested significant effort to bring wild boars hunted in dispersed parts of the landscape as gifts to be eaten at a communal celebration that took place at what is now the archaeological site of Asiab in the Zagros Mountains.
The findings, conducted by an international team of researchers including scientists from The Australian National University (ANU), suggest this practice of offering gifts that have geographical symbolism can be traced back to prehistory.
“Food and long-standing culinary traditions form an integral component of cultures all over the globe. It is for this reason holidays, festivals, and other socially meaningful events commonly involve food. For example, we cannot imagine Christmas without the Christmas meal, Eid without the food gifts, or Passover without matzo ball soup,” Dr Petra Vaiglova from ANU said.
The scientists unearthed the skulls of 19 wild boars that were neatly packed and sealed inside a pit within a round building at the Asiab site. Butchery marks on the animals’ skulls suggest they were used for feasting, but until now scientists were unsure where these boars came from.
Dr Vaiglova and the international research team examined the tooth enamel of five of these wild boars. The researchers analysed microscopic growth patterns and chemical signatures inside the enamel that offered “tell-tale” signs indicating that at least some of the boars used for the feast were not from the area where the gathering took place.
“Just like trees and their annual growth rings, teeth deposit visible layers of enamel and dentine during growth that we can count under the microscope. This is the first time these growth layers have been used to guide geochemical analysis of animal teeth to answer questions about human-animal interactions,” Dr Vaiglova said.
“Rainfall and bedrock have distinct isotopic values in different geographical locations. These isotopic values get incorporated into animal tissues through drinking water and food. 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 five 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 70 kilometers (~43 miles) away from the site where the feast took place.”
The researchers said it is surprising that these hunters went through such effort to kill and transport boars from their local region over difficult mountainous terrain during a journey that likely would have taken several days, especially considering boars were not the most hunted animal during the Early Neolithic period.
Dr Vaiglova said communities living in the Zagros Mountains at this time had a “very diverse hunting strategy” and 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 said.
“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.
“These people were clearly the ultimate dinner party guests.”
The research is published in Nature Communications Earth and Environment and involved scientists from Australia, Germany, Denmark and Iran.