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Updated:20/05/2022 09:14h
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The builders of the famous megalithic monument of Stonehenge, in England, they held great banquets, but not all of them ended with a good digestion. Researchers have analyzed ancient faeces found at Durrington Walls, a prehistoric village just 2.8 km from the stone construction and believed to have housed the people who built it. In the coprolites, left behind by humans and dogs, they discovered evidence of parasitic worm eggs, suggesting that these individuals feasted on the offal and internal organs of cattle, raw or undercooked, and fed them to their pets. leftovers.
Archaeologists led by the University of Cambridge studied 19 coprolites found in the Neolithic settlement and preserved for more than 4,500 years.
Five pieces, left behind by a human and four dogs, contained parasite eggs. And four of them, including the human one, were riddled with capillary worms, identified in part by their lemon-like shape.
There are many types of capillarids that infect a wide range of animals throughout the world, but on the rare occasions that a European species infects humans, the eggs usually lodge in the liver and do not reach the faeces. That in this case the eggs were found in the feces indicates that the individual had eaten raw or undercooked lungs or liver from an already infected animal, causing the parasite’s eggs to pass directly through the body.
winter party
The parasites, the first Neolithic ones found in Britain, “are consistent with previous evidence of a winter feasting on animals during the construction of Stonehenge,” said Piers Mitchell of the Cambridge Department of Archeology and lead author of the study. The researchers believe that it was cows brought for a great banquet from Devon or Wales, almost a hundred kilometers away, that caused the infection when they were consumed. Previously identified butchery patterns on cattle bones suggest that the beef was cut primarily for stewing and the bone marrow was removed. People ate the spoiled meat and gave the leftovers to their dogs. According to Mike Parker Pearson of the UCL Institute of Archaeology, “pork and beef were roasted or boiled in clay pots, but it seems that the viscera were not always that well cooked.”
One of the coprolites from a dog also contained fish tapeworm eggs, indicating that it had previously eaten raw freshwater fish. However, no other evidence of fish consumption, such as bones, has been found at the site. “Durrington Walls was largely seasonally occupied, mainly in the winter periods. The dog probably already arrived infected with the parasite, “says Mitchell.
“Tapeworm infection (as seen in the dog) can cause abdominal discomfort and sometimes lead to anemia. However, the eggs of the capillarids do not indicate infection of humans or dogs”, indicates the researcher.
While Durrington Walls was a party and dwelling place, as evidenced by the pottery and large number of animal bones found at the site, Stonehenge itself was not, with few finds to suggest that people lived or ate there in the past. dough.
Winter Solstice
According to Mitchell, “Isotopic evidence suggests that in the Neolithic period people from all over southern Britain traveled to Stonehenge with their pigs and cattle, which they ate at Durrington Walls. Piglets were born in the spring (March) and slaughtered at Durrington Walls at 9 months of age (December/January). This coincides with the winter solstice, when the sun on the shortest day of the year aligns with the Stonehenge stone circle at sunrise.” Their purpose was “first to build the stone circle, and then to hold festivals around the winter solstice, slaughtering pigs and cattle to eat together.”
Stonehenge is considered a spiritual or religious monument, built by the Neolithic to be aligned with the rising sun on the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year) and the summer solstice (the longest day of the year). It is part of a complex ceremonial site with other circles (of stone or wood), burial mounds, and ceremonial routes for processions.
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