Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 Sep 22;106(38):16135-8.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.0905015106. Epub 2009 Aug 18.

Pre-Neolithic wild boar management and introduction to Cyprus more than 11,400 years ago

Jean-Denis Vigne  1 , Antoine Zazzo, Jean-François Saliège, François Poplin, Jean Guilaine, Alan Simmons
Affiliations

Pre-Neolithic wild boar management and introduction to Cyprus more than 11,400 years ago

Jean-Denis Vigne et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

The beginnings of pig domestication in Southwest Asia are controversial. In some areas, it seems to have occurred abruptly ca. 10,500 years ago, whereas in nearby locations, it appears to have resulted from a long period of management of wild boar starting at the end of the Late Pleistocene. Here, we present analyses of suid bones from Akrotiri Aetokremnos, Cyprus. This site has provided the earliest evidence for human occupation of the Mediterranean islands. Morphological analysis and direct radiocarbon dating of both degraded collagen and apatite of these bones reveal that small-sized suids were living on Cyprus 11,400-11,700 years ago. We demonstrate that these suids were introduced by humans and that, at this early date, their small size must result from island isolation. This sheds light on the early Holocene colonization of Cyprus and on pre-Neolithic Mediterranean seafaring. We further argue that wild boar were managed on the mainland before their introduction to Cyprus (i.e., before the beginning of the Neolithic and at least 1 millennium before the earliest known morphological modifications attributable to domestication). This adds weight to the theory that pig domestication involved a long period of wild boar management that started about the time of the Pleistocene/Holocene transition.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Dorsal views of abaxial (A and B) and axial (C and D) third phalanges of suids from Aetokremnos: FN367 N97E87–88 (A), FN385 N99E87 (B), FN914 N96E89 (C), and FN340 N96E91 (D). C and D were previously attributed to the fallow deer (16). Photograph courtesy of J.-D.V.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Comparison of the size of the suid phalanges at Aetokremnos with those of contemporary wild boar, PPNB early domestic suids, Pottery Neolithic pigs of the Northern and Southern Levant, and Neolithic Mediterranean island pigs from Corsica. The reference value (0.00) is the mean of the values of the pig phalanges from US 1,000, at Shillourokambos, Cyprus. References for data are listed in SI Text.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Larson G, et al. Ancient DNA, pig domestication, and the spread of the Neolithic into Europe. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2007;104:15276–15281. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Peters J, von den Driesch A, Helmer D. In: The First Steps of Animal Domestication. New Archaeological Approaches. Vigne J-D, Peters J, Helmer D, editors. Oxford: Oxbow Books; 2005. pp. 96–124.
    1. Ervynck A, Dobney K, Hongo H, Meadow R. Born free? New evidence for the status of Sus scrofa at Neolithic Çayönü Tepesi (Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey) Paléorient. 2001;27(2):47–73.
    1. Rosenberg M, Nesbitt R, Redding RW, Peasnall BL. Hallan Çemi, pig husbandry, and post-Pleistocene adaptations along the Taurus-Zagros Arc (Turkey) Paléorient. 1998;24(1):25–41.
    1. Redding R. In: The First Steps of Animal Domestication. New Archaeological Approaches. Vigne J-D, Peters J, Helmer D, editors. Oxford: Oxbow Books; 2005. pp. 41–48.

LinkOut - more resources