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Rooting for pigfruit: pig feeding in Neolithic and Iron Age Britain compared

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Julie Hamilton ,
Robert E.M. Hedges  and
Mark Robinson
Julie Hamilton
Affiliation:
Oxford University Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK
Robert E.M. Hedges
Affiliation:
Oxford University Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK
Mark Robinson
Affiliation:
Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PW, UK
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Abstract

‘They dream of the acorned swill of the world, the rooting for pigfruit…’ Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood.

Carbon and nitrogen isotopes show a marked change in the diet of British pigs between the Neolithic and the Iron Age. The authors neatly deduce that this was due to the loss of the Neolithic wildwood where pigs were wont to root for fungus amongst the rotting trees.

Keywords

BritainNeolithicIron Agepigdietstable isotopesfungus
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 322 , December 2009 , pp. 998 - 1011
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2009

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