Feasting is more than just about filling bellies; it’s a way to connect, celebrate, and strengthen familial and social ties. That’s why, today, holidays and festivals still revolve around meals. Imagine Christmas without its festive feast, Eid without sweet treats, or Passover without matzo ball soup; they just wouldn’t feel right.
And when it comes to meaningful gifts, nothing beats a taste of home. French cheese, Dutch Stroopwafels, and Canadian maple syrup – these aren’t just snacks; they’re edible symbols of culture.
Turns out this tradition goes way back. According to new research led by researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) communities in western Iran, around 11,000 years ago, were already using food as a heartfelt way to share and connect, suggesting the language of food is timeless.
Millenia ago, in the Zagros Mountains, prehistoric communities went to great lengths to hunt wild boars from far-flung corners of the land, not just for survival, but also as meaningful gifts. These animals weren’t randomly chosen; they were brought to a communal feast at what is now the archaeological site of Asiab, transforming dinner into a powerful social ritual.
At Asiab, researchers uncovered 19 wild boar skulls, carefully packed into a pit inside a round building. The skulls bore butchery marks, hinting at a feast; however, the real mystery was their origin.
To uncover this, the team turned to an unlikely source: their teeth. By zooming in on the enamel of five wild boars, the team discovered microscopic growth patterns and chemical clues, like nature’s own GPS, that revealed some of these animals weren’t local. They had been brought in from other regions.
Just like tree rings tell the story of a tree’s life, teeth also grow in layers. This was the first time researchers had used those enamel layers to guide geochemical analysis, a groundbreaking method for exploring how ancient humans interacted with animals.
Rainfall and rocks leave invisible fingerprints in the land, and animals pick them up through the water they drink and the food they eat. These geochemical “signatures” become locked into their teeth, making tooth enamel a powerful tool for tracing an animal’s past habitat.
By analyzing the enamel of five wild boars, the team found a surprising amount of variation in the chemical values. That means not all the animals came from the same place. Some may have been hunted as far as 70 km (43 miles) away from the feast site at Asiab.
So these hunters didn’t just grab the nearest game. They trekked across rugged mountains, likely for days, to bring back boars from specific distant locations, even though boars weren’t the most commonly hunted animals during the Early Neolithic period.
Boars are tough, aggressive animals that are not easy to hunt. Showing them off at a feast wasn’t just about food; it was a bold statement. Bringing them from faraway places added extra meaning, turning the feast at Asiab into a powerful celebration of skill, effort, and community.
“What is special about the feast at Asiab is not only its early date and that it brought together people from multiple geographically dispersed settlements, but also the fact that people who participated in this feast invested substantial amounts of effort to ensure that their contributions involved an element of geographic symbolism,” explained Petra Vaiglova from ANU. “This feast also took place at a time that pre-dates agriculture and farming practices.”
This feast at Asiab wasn’t just dinner; it was a significant event. The effort to hunt and haul wild boars across rugged terrain shows just how far people were willing to go to make the gathering memorable. It’s a powerful reminder that the tradition of bringing gifts is tied to place.
The research is published in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment.
Source: Australian National University
