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Funerals and feasts during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of the Near East

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Nigel Goring-Morris  and
Liora Kolska Horwitz
Nigel Goring-Morris
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91905, Israel (Email: goring@mscc.huji.ac.il)
Liora Kolska Horwitz
Affiliation:
Department of Evolution, Systematics and Ecology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel (Email: lix100@excite.com)
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Extract

Evidence for a Neolithic funeral feast has been excavated in northern Israel. A herd of eight wild cattle (aurochs) were slaughtered and joints of their meat placed in a pit which was covered over and the human burial laid on top. This was covered in turn with plaster, but the human skull was later removed through an accurately sited hole. It was the feast that began this funerary sequence, and the authors conservatively calculate that it provided a minimum of 500kg of meat. Given a 200g steak apiece this could theoretically feed some 2500 people, endorsing the authors' claim that the site was a central cult site serving surrounding villages. It is also suggested that the aurochs skulls, missing from the pit, may have been reserved for ritual purposes elsewhere, an early example of the Near Eastern bull cult that was later to have a long history in Europe.

Keywords

NeolithicPPNBIsraelLevantaurochsfeastingmortuary behaviour
Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 314 , 1 December 2007 , pp. 902 - 919
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2007

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