First Tailgate? Stonehenge Site of Ancient Pig BBQ

An article in National Geographic details research into sites around Stonehedge where prehistoric pork barbecues were held as part of large social events.   Based on elemental analysis from the pig bones, it appears that travelers came from all over England.

A BBQ cook-off perhaps? 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/03/stonehenge-pig-roasts-united-ancient-britain
Stonehenge-era pig roasts united ancient Britain, scientists say
A new study of bones discarded after prehistoric barbeques is providing unexpected insight into the first ‘pan-British’ gatherings.
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BY KRISTIN ROMEY
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PUBLISHED MARCH 13, 2019
A surprising study of leftovers from 4,500-year-old pig roasts reveals that prehistoric ceremonial sites around Stonehenge served as “pan-British” centers that helped bring together disparate populations of Neolithic peoples from across the island for the first time. The study was published today in the journal Science Advances.


During the late Neolithic period in Britain (around 2800-2400 B.C.), large feasts were held at ceremonial centers in southern England such as Durrington Walls, where the builders of Stonehenge likely lived, and Marden, the largest circular earthworks in Britain.

Excavations at Durrington Walls, for example, have shown that enormous feasts took place there during the winter, when celebrants roasted and ate large quantities of pork and the occasional cow. Of the 8,500 bones recovered at Durrington, for instance, pigs outnumbered cattle ten to one.

The presence of large amounts of pig bones at other similar ceremonial sites in the region reinforces the idea that the prehistoric pork roast was a late Neolithic phenomenon in southern England. Researchers, however, remained unsure whether the purpose of these feasts was to unify a local population—much like a community barbeque— or to forge alliances between neighboring groups.

Now, a chemical analysis of the pig bones is revealing an unexpected result: The ceremonial sites, and the feasts hosted there, served as lynchpins of vast social networks across the island “demonstrating a level of interaction and social complexity not previously appreciated.”

Pigs as proxy

In recent years, scientists have tried to answer the question of how far-flung the feasters were with strontium isotope analysis, a technique that identifies a unique chemical signature that reflects the geological area that a human or animal lived in. Previous isotopic studies of cremated human remains at Stonehenge and cattle bones from Durrington Walls suggest that both may have come to the ceremonial sites from considerable distances—some as far as modern Wales.

Until now, however, researchers never bothered with analyzing the isotopic signatures of pig bones recovered from sites like Durrington Walls, assuming that the pigs would have been bred locally near the feasting centers where they were butchered and eaten, and therefore would provide little useful information on where the feasters themselves came from. Cattle would have been driven by humans across great distances and could therefore be used as a proxy for human movement, they reasoned, but long-distance pig herding?

“I was worried that the pigs wouldn’t tell us where these people were coming from,” says Richard Madgwick, a lecturer in archaeological science at Cardiff University and lead author on the Science Advances article.

However, the new isotopic analysis of 131 pig remains from four different late Neolithic ceremonial sites (Durrington Walls, Marden, Mount Pleasant, and West Kennet Palisade Enclosures) reveals that the vast majority of pigs consumed at the sites were not raised locally, but rather brought by feasters from many different areas in Britain, including Wales and Scotland— at distances of at least 30 miles and potentially more than 350 miles.

The fact that these ceremonial centers drew people from many different areas in Britain, and often from considerable distances, suggests that these feasting sites weren’t just for local or regional gatherings, but rather evidence for the first "pan-British" events in history.

Rest of story -
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/03/stonehenge-pig-roasts-united-ancient-britain