CARDIFF, WALES—According to a statement released by Cardiff University, a recent study has shed new light on an exceptional era in British history that was characterized by large communal feasts. The research team used isotope analysis on material found within six huge middens dating to the end of the Bronze Age in Wiltshire and the Thames Valley to more closely examine which animals were consumed and where they came from. Not only did the results reveal that these gatherings were enormous, but that they involved very specific choices defined by location. At the site of Potterne in Wiltshire, where over 15 million animal bone fragments were found, pork was predominantly on the menu. In Runnymede in Surrey, beef was the meat of choice, while at East Chisenbury, near Stonehenge, hundreds of thousands of sheep were served over the years. Additionally, while pigs and cattle were often brought to these food festivals from distant locations, the sheep that were consumed were mostly of local stock. “We believe this demonstrates that each midden was a lynchpin in the landscape, key to sustaining specific regional economies, expressing identities, and sustaining relations between communities during this turbulent period,” said researcher Carmen Esposito. These communal celebrations were so integral to the social dynamics of the era that the study raises the question as to whether archaeologists should talk about the transitional period between the Bronze and Iron Ages as being Britain's Age of Feasting. Read the original scholarly article about this research in iScience. For more, go to "Neolithic Henge Feasts," one of ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 Discoveries of 2019.
