Pig domestication
Domesticación del cerdo
- Date
- c. 8500 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Çayönü Tepesi, Diyarbakır, Turkey
- Credited to
- PPNB communities of the upper Tigris; independently, the Cishan-Peiligang culture in China
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Reduction in size and dental change in wild boar kept near the settlement, fed on scraps. An omnivorous animal that turns waste into meat and fat without competing for pasture.
Independent domestication in Anatolia (c. 8500 BCE) and China (Cishan and Jiahu, c. 6500 BCE); European lineages derive from local wild boar through introgression.
What it led to
- Recycling of settlement waste into protein
- Shared zoonoses (influenza, tapeworm, trichinosis) and health pressure in dense villages
- Later food taboos linked to the pig's ecology in arid regions
Built on
- Wild boar hunting
- Sedentism and refuse accumulation
Made possible
- Force-feeding of geese (origin of foie gras)c. 2500 BCE
- Salting and preservation of meat
- Stall-fed livestock farming