Food at a Funeral

Natalie Munro of the University of Connecticut and Leore Grosman of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem believe they've uncovered evidence of a 12,000-year-old ceremonial feast at a burial site in northern Israel. That photo above? It shows toe bones from an auroch, an ancestor of modern cattle that weighed more than 2,000 pounds, and it appears they've been split open with a tool that let people eat the marrow inside. The archaeologists found both adult and juvenile toe bones, suggesting more than one auroch was eaten, along with other remains of butchered wild cattle and dozens of cooked tortoises in a cave where a number of humans were buried, including a woman the researchers believe was a shaman. Since the tortoise shells were found under, around, and on top of the woman's remains, Munro believes there's good evidence that the eating occured at the same time as the ritual burial, imbuing the large meal with spiritual significance. And because of that, she argues they've discovered "the first good evidence for feasting in the archaeological record that we know of."

What's really interesting is that the Natufian people, who lived in the area 14,500 to 11,500 years ago, seem to have been the first to settle down in fairly permanent villages, and the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle would have caused friction and strained social relationships, the researchers say. Community members were coming into contact more often, and they could no longer go their separate ways to find new sources of food when arguments arose. But feasts may have helped ease that transition, and funerals would have provided a good opportunity to bring the community together to soothe disputes, as Munro notes in a write-up: 

Sedentary communities require other means to resolve conflict, smooth tensions, and provide a sense of community. We believe that feasts, especially in funeral contexts, served to integrate communities by providing this sense of community.