The size of ancient Egyptian pigs. A biometrical （古埃及的猪的大小。）.pdf

BioarchaeologyoftheNearEast,8:83–107(2014) The sizeofancient Egyptian pigs Abiometricalanalysisusing molar width *1 2 LouiseBertini ,EdwinCruz-Rivera 1 Department ofSociology,Anthropology,Psychology,andEgyptology, AmericanUniversityinCairo,AUCAvenue,NewCairo,11835Egypt email: Bertini@(correspondingauthor) 2 BiologicalSciencesProgram, AsianUniversity forWomen,Chittagong,Bangladesh Abstract: A large assortment of pig mandibles from eleven ancient Egyptian sites dating fromtheOldKingdomthroughthePtolemaic-Romanperiod(c.2686BCandupthrough AD 400) were analyzed and their measurements compared to: 1) a modern domestic pig standard sample from Egypt, and 2) a wild boar standard sample from Turkey. Age at death,sizesoffirst,second,andthirdmolars(M ,M ,andM ),andcoefficientsofvaria- 1 2 3 tion(CV)wereconsistentwiththepresenceofdomesticpig-onlypopulationsformostsites. However, tooth sizes, CV, and tendency towards bimodality in the distribution of sizes for Mendes and Kom Firin suggests the presence of either two populations of similar ani- mals or sexual dimorphism. For these two sites, comparisons with the two standards were consistentwiththepresenceofdomesticpigsandeitherlargerferalpigsorwildboar,some- times at similar densities. Furthermore, results for the Abydos Settlement Site suggested that wild boar/feral pigs might have been hunted occasionally. Consistent with previous studies,mandibularwearscores(MWS)showedthatpigswereslaughteredwithinthefirst 18-21 months of age. Neither MWS, data distribution tendency, molar width, nor CV alone were sufficient