Pigs in Between: Pig Husbandry in the Late Neolithic in Northern Mesopotamia

Abstract

Stuck between the agricultural and urban revolutions, the Late Neolithic (LN; seventh and sixth millennia BC) often receives less attention from zooarchaeologists than other periods. However, recent data suggest that this period was defined by agricultural intensification and new forms of livestock management. Data from pigs and wild boar—both referred to in this paper as Sus scrofa—add to the developing picture of dynamic agricultural systems in northern Meso- potamia and southern Anatolia. Survivorship data indicate a diversity of pig slaughter strategies. Meanwhile, increasing rates of linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) and the continued reduction in dental size, which follows a different pattern than postcranial metrics, are argued to be evidence of pig husbandry becoming more intensive in the LN. That is, pigs were increasingly penned, foddered, and kept away from wild boar, although wild boars were still used as a stocking resource. These patterns represent a shift from the more extensive “free-range” pig husbandry systems that likely domi- nated the region in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Alongside other forms of agricultural changes, the shifts in pig husbandry in the LN may have been connected to evolving foodways, agricultural expansion, and incipient forms of social complexity in the LN period.