Archaeologists from Germany and the United Kingdom have revealed insights into cuisine choices and eating habits at Durrington Walls, a Neolithic settlement thought to be the residence for the builders of nearby Stonehenge. Detailed analyses of pottery and animal bones have uncovered evidence of organized feasts featuring barbeque-style roasting, and an unexpected pattern in how foods were distributed and shared across the site.
Stonehenge, a famous prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England.
Analyzing food residues remaining on several hundred fragments of pottery, the team – led by Dr Oliver Craig of the University of York – 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,” the scientists said.
“The special placing of milk pots at the larger ceremonial buildings reveals that certain products had a ritual significance beyond that of nutrition alone,” said Prof. Mike Parker Pearson of University College London.
“The sharing of food had religious as well as social connotations for promoting unity among Britain’s scattered farming communities in prehistory.”
Surprisingly, there was very little evidence of plant food preparation at Durrington Walls. The main evidence points to mass animal consumption, particularly of pigs.
Further analysis of animal bones 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 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,” said team member Dr Lisa-Marie Shillito of Newcastle University.
“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,” the archaeologists said.
“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.
“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,” Prof. Pearson said.
This is significant as it would require orchestration of a large number of volunteers.
The observed patterns of feasting don’t fit with a slave-based society where labor was forced and coerced, as some archaeologists have suggested.
“Evidence of food-sharing and activity-zoning at Durrington Walls shows a greater degree of culinary organization than was expected for this period of British prehistory,” Dr Craig explained.
“The inhabitants and many visitors to this site possessed a shared understanding of how foods should be prepared, consumed and disposed,” he added.
“This, together with evidence of feasting, suggests Durrington Walls was a well-organized working community.”
The findings were published in the October 2015 issue of the journal Antiquity.
“This new research has given us a fantastic insight into the organization of large-scale feasting among the people who built Stonehenge,” Prof. Pearson said.
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Oliver E. Craig et al. 2015. Feeding Stonehenge: cuisine and consumption at the Late Neolithic site of Durrington Walls. Antiquity, vol. 89, no. 347, pp. 1096-1109; doi: 10.15184/aqy.2015.110
