The following article published by the researchers
of University of York made an interesting finding that the Stonehenge builders
of 25th century BCE offered only milk products to Gods in their
ceremonies while their usual food was mainly non-vegetarian. Though there is no
evidence so far of them having consumed vegetarian food, the evidence on only- dairy
products indicates an evolved Thought (borrowed?) on non-violence as a virtue which
is needed to connect with Gods or higher realms.
The research has revealed that the
inhabitants seemed to possess knowledge of how to prepare foods thereby
indicating that they were either immigrants or have had a long previous
history. This is to mean that they were not primitive but already developed
ones. For such people to use only dairy products such as milk and yoghurt in religious
offerings, it also means that they have learned or inherited that habit from
someone. Who they could be?
Related article:- On
Stonehenges, Druids and Dasyus
*****
From
The culinary habits of the
Stonehenge builders.
Posted by TANN
A team of archaeologists at the
University of York have revealed new insights into cuisine choices and eating
habits at Durrington Walls -- a Late Neolithic monument and settlement site
thought to be the residence for the builders of nearby Stonehenge during the
25th century BC. Stonehenge.
[Credit: WikiCommons]
Together with researchers at the
University of Sheffield, detailed analysis of pottery and animal bones has
uncovered evidence of organised feasts featuring barbeque-style roasting, and
an unexpected pattern in how foods were distributed and shared across the site.
Chemically analysing food residues
remaining on several hundred fragments of pottery, the York team found
differences in the way pots were used. Pots deposited in residential areas were
found to be used for cooking animal products including pork, beef and dairy,
whereas pottery from the
ceremonial spaces was used predominantly for dairy.
Such
spatial patterning could mean that milk, yoghurts and cheeses
were perceived as fairly exclusive foods only consumed by a select few, or that
milk products -- today often
regarded as a symbol of purity -- were used in public ceremonies.
Unusually, there was very little
evidence of plant food preparation at any part of the site. The main evidence
points to mass animal consumption, particularly of pigs. Further analysis of
animal bones, conducted at the University of Sheffield, found that many pigs
were killed before reaching their maximum weight. This is strong evidence of
planned autumn and winter slaughtering and feasting-like consumption.
The main methods of cooking meat are
thought to be boiling and roasting in pots probably around indoor hearths, and
larger barbeque-style roasting outdoors -- the latter evidenced by distinctive
burn patterns on animal bones. A reconstruction drawing of how the prehistoric
village of Durrington Walls might have looked in 2500BC
[Credit: English Heritage]
Bones from all parts of the animal
skeleton were found, indicating that livestock was walked to the site rather
than introduced as joints of meat. Isotopic analysis indicates that cattle
originated from many different locations, some far away from the site. This is
significant as it would require orchestration of a large number of volunteers
likely drawn from far and wide.
The observed patterns of feasting do not
fit with a slave-based society where labour was forced and coerced, as some
have suggested. Dr Oliver Craig, Reader in Archaeological Science at the
University of York and lead author on the paper, said: "Evidence of
food-sharing and activity-zoning at Durrington Walls shows a greater degree of
culinary organisation than was expected for this period of British prehistory.
The inhabitants and many visitors to
this site possessed a shared understanding of how foods should be prepared,
consumed and disposed. This, together with evidence of feasting, suggests
Durrington Walls was a well-organised working community." Professor Mike
Parker Pearson, Professor at University College London and Director of the
Feeding Stonehenge project who also led the excavations at Durrington Walls,
said: "This new research has given us a fantastic insight into the
organisation of large-scale feasting among the people who built Stonehenge.
Animals were brought from all over
Britain to be barbecued and cooked in open-air mass gatherings and also to be
eaten in more privately organized meals within the many houses at Durrington
Walls. "The special
placing of milk pots at the larger ceremonial buildings reveals that certain
products had a ritual significance beyond that of nutrition alone. The
sharing of food had religious as well as social connotations for promoting
unity among Britain's scattered farming communities in prehistory. " Dr
Lisa-Marie Shillito, who analysed the pottery samples and recently joined
Newcastle University, added: "The combination of pottery analysis with the
study of animal bones is really effective, and shows how these different types
of evidence can be brought together to provide a detailed picture of food and
cuisine in the past."
The study has been published in the Antiquity
Journal.
Source: University
of York [October 12, 2015]
