Pork is one of the world's most consumed meats — about a third of all meat worldwide — but also perhaps the most polarizing. Judaism and Islam, for example, both prohibit eating pork. This weekend's read is an article in Archaeology magazine examining the history of pork taboos and scholars' frustrations in trying to identify their origins. The taboos defy easy explanations and pull in aspects of natural history, geopolitics, and religion.
Part of the story revolves around pigs themselves. Domesticated pigs are an offshoot of the wild boar, which has its origins in Southeast Asia about 5 million years ago and over time spread across Asia and into Europe. Scientists estimate that about 10,000 years ago, human settlements began to domesticate pigs, and a quick examination of some facts makes it clear why. Pigs are prolific breeders: Over its lifetime, a sow can have as many as 100 piglets, which reach maturity in only about six months. They eat anything and everything, including much of the garbage humans discard. They only require about half the water a cow or horse needs, and they don't require grazing land. That makes them ideal food stock for places where land and water are in short supply; for example, cities. It isn't much of a surprise that when human settlements started getting larger — about 10,000 years ago — domesticated pigs were a big hit. As the article points out, "big cities are fantastic places to raise pigs." There is shade, protection from predators, stagnant water, and plenty of trash.
Archaeologists trying to establish the diet of ancient civilizations will often look for food remains, such as the bones of animals that were eaten. In a settlement known as Tel Motza, established around 8,600 B.C.E. at what is now Jerusalem, they have found plenty of domesticated pig bones, telling them that pork was regularly consumed at that time. Though in an interesting twist, the recordkeeping from that age doesn't seem to reflect this. Some scholars suggest this is because the governments were more focused on tracking, regulating, and ultimately taxing sheep, goat, and cattle farming, since they require lots of grazing land. This left pig farming as small-scale backyard operations that largely flew under the radar, a "beacon for the urban poor."
That, however, led to an economic and social split: The wealthy came to prefer beef and mutton, differentiating themselves from the pork-eating poor. Also, raising sheep, goats, and cows had other economic advantages because they provided other goods, such as wool and milk. Over the following centuries, pigs slowly disappeared: from the diet, and also from rituals people performed.
That brings us to the Israelites, who by 1,200 B.C.E. were living in pastoral communities in the highlands of the Levant (the area along the eastern Mediterranean shore). Their mobile lifestyle was incompatible with raising pigs, so they, too, stuck with sheep, goats, and cattle. But along the Mediterranean coast, the Philistines arrived, and they brought pigs with them and built cities. While pork was not the main staple of their diet by any means (scientists estimate it was perhaps one-fifth of the meat in their cities, and far less in smaller villages), the Philistines were the nemesis of the Israelites, and pork-eating habits became a key differentiator of ethnic identity. Over the next two centuries, the Philistines also seem to have largely given up pork.
Around 1,000 B.C.E., the Israelites conquered Jerusalem, and, as tended to happen in cities for the reasons stated above, pork consumption started creeping back in.
The Hebrew Bible prohibits several foods, including pork, camel, and fish without scales. These dietary restrictions became politically important starting around 300 B.C.E., after Alexander the Great invaded the Levant, and Hellenistic kingdoms moved in — and brought their love of pork with them. Academics suggest that Judaism codified its food restrictions in the second century B.C.E. as a cultural and ethnic response to Hellenistic overlords. Then, in the following century, the Hellenistic kingdoms fell, and the Romans — who loved pork even more — moved in. Pork became a cultural and political flashpoint: Romans would sometimes punish Jews who would not eat pork, and, in response, pigs became symbols to the Israelites of Roman corruption, greed, violence, and oppression.
The story continues: In the first century, the early Christian movement rejected Jewish dietary restrictions. Scholars suggest this may have been a move to attract non-Jewish people to their religion. Then, the sixth century saw the rise of Islam, which took the middle ground and rejected most of the Jewish dietary restrictions except for pork. The scholars note that while pork consumption declined in the Middle East with the rise of Islam, pockets have always remained and still exist there.
The article is a fascinating look at how one animal, representing one food source, has been affected by economics, society, and geopolitics, but at the same time has also helped to shape them.
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