European Hunter-gatherers Owned Pigs as Early as 4,600 BC: A Study

European hunter-gatherers began acquiring pigs from nearby farmers as early as 4,600 BC, a new study suggests.

The discovery offers new insight into the interactions between Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and incoming Neolithic farmers, as well as the degree to which the former took ideas -- and animals -- from the latter. And while the details regarding this complex interplay remain hotly debated among researchers, it is known that these interactions eventually led to the incorporation of farming and breeding livestock into the lifestyles of the hunter-gatherers.

Previous evidence of ownership of domesticated animals by hunter-gatherers has, up until now, been circumstantial, the researchers behind the new study argue. In this case, the scientists, led by Ben Krause-Kyora from Christian-Albrechts University in Germany, analyzed the ancient DNA from the bones and teeth of 63 pigs from Northern Germany and, in doing so, determined the hunter-gatherers acquired domestic pigs of both Near Eastern and European ancestry.

Whether they received the pigs via trade or exchange, or whether they came into their possession through less forthright means is not clear; however, as co-author Greger Larson from Durham University points out, the pigs would have stood out with their different-colored and spotted coats.

"Humans love novelty, and though hunter-gatherers exploited wild boar, it would have been hard not to be fascinated by the strange-looking spotted pigs owned by farmers living nearby," he said in a statement. "It should come as no surprise that the hunter-gatherers acquired some eventually, but this study shows that they did very soon after the domestic pigs arrived in northern Europe."

Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, research has shown, did have dogs, Krause-Kyora points out, but they did not originally possess pigs, sheep, goats or cows, which were all introduced by incoming farmers in 6,000 BC.

"Having people who [practiced] a very different survival strategy nearby must have been odd," he said, "and we know now that the hunter-gathers possessed some of the farmers' domesticated pigs."