Wild, domestic and feral? Investigating the status of suids in the Romanian Gumelnita (5th mil. cal BC) with biogeochemistry and geometric morphometrics

In south-eastern Romania, a prominent place was given to pigs in the Gumelnita culture (Late Chalcolithic, second half of 5th millennium BC); as was the highly prized wild boar, one of a variety of species targeted for hunting. The wild boars' ecological niche and the scale of pig husbandry were investigated during a stable isotope study of the Gumelnita A2 occupations at Bordusani-Popina, Harsova-tell and Vitanesti-Magurice. Results from the bone collagen delta N-15 and delta C-13 analysis suggested that the wild boars did not inhabit dense forests, in any of these locations. The emerging picture is of small-scale pig husbandry involving household management: pigs being fed leftovers and/or by-products of human activities. At Vitanesti, previous work involving geometric morphometrics on suid molars evidenced, besides the two expected groups of small domestic pigs and large specimens with wild molar shape (i.e. wild boar), the presence of specimens with large size and domestic shape molars, whose relationship with the human community was unclear. Results from the combined geometric morphometric and stable isotope analyses, suggested that the large specimens with domestic molar shape lived in close proximity to the wild ecosystem. They were probably not part of the domestic stock, but belonged to a feral population and were acquired through hunting. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.