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Published (Version of record)CC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open Access
Published (Version of record)CC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open
Journal article
Transport of animals underpinned ritual feasting at the onset of the Neolithic in southwestern Asia
Communications earth & environment, Vol.6(1), pp.1-12
03/07/2025
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Abstract
Feasting played an important role in cementing social bonds between prehistoric communities. At Early Neolithic Asiab, western Iran, ceremonial feasting is evidenced by the butchered skulls of nineteen wild boars (Sus scrofa), an animal that was not commonly hunted in the region at the time. Here we use microscopic dental growth patterns to guide geochemical analyses of five wild boar teeth from Asiab and examine the geographical scope from which the animals derived. Our dataset includes 165 stable oxygen isotope values, 107 strontium isotope ratios, and Barium concentration maps. The findings indicate that despite Asiab’s location in an environment favourable to wild boars, the animals used for ceremonial feasting originated from a wide geographical catchment, with at least some necessitating transport over substantial distance across mountainous terrain. This deepens our understanding of the effort invested by the participating pre-agricultural communities for celebrating social connectivity across the wider landscape.
Details
- Title
- Transport of animals underpinned ritual feasting at the onset of the Neolithic in southwestern Asia
- Creators
- Petra Vaiglova - Australian National UniversityHorst Kierdorf - University of HildesheimCarsten Witzel - University of HildesheimGeorgina Falster - Australian National UniversityRenaud Joannes-Boyau - Southern Cross UniversityYue Wang - Australian National UniversityJiade Wu - Australian National UniversityIan Williams - Australian National UniversityBrett Knowles - Australian National UniversityYang Wu - Australian National UniversityPernille Bangsgaard - University of CopenhagenLisa Yeomans - University of CopenhagenTobias Richter - University of CopenhagenHojjat Darabi - Razi University
- Publication Details
- Communications earth & environment, Vol.6(1), pp.1-12
- Publisher
- Nature Publishing Group UK
- Number of pages
- 12
- Grant note
- David Foundation Griffith University - New Researcher Grant (Griffith University Arts, Education, and Law Group) Early Career Researcher Grant Development Award (Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research) Early Career Research Support Award (Society for Archaeological Science) Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research at the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts of the Islamic Republic of Iran
- Identifiers
- 991013294040702368
- Copyright
- © The Author(s) 2025 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Science and Engineering; Science
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article