Ethnoarchaeology of pig husbandry in Sardinia and Corsica

In this chapter we illustrate, with examples, present-day traditional practices of pig husbandry in Sardinia and Corsica. The approach to this work is ethnoarchaeological, which means that its main aim is to collect modern socio-economic data that can be useful for the interpretation of zooarchaeological remains of pigs and, more in general, for our understanding of the past (cf. Schiffer 1976: 31). The analysis of modern society as an aid to understanding the past has a long tradition in archaeology, and was particularly encouraged by the innovations in archaeological methods of the late 1960s and 1970s (e.g. Binford 1978; Gould 1980). The comparison between past and present is based on the concept of analogy (cf. Gould 1980: 29), which has been much discussed and criticized in the archaeological literature (Audouze 1992). Nevertheless, analogy remains a useful tool in archaeological interpretation as long as it is used cautiously and with an understanding of context (Hodder 1982). It can also be argued that archaeological interpretation is inevitably analogical as we cannot directly observe the past, and any attempt to improve our understanding of the past is based on comparative models, whether they are drawn from ethnographic observations or not. The relation between people and animals represents a core factor in the functioning of past and modern societies. Sus hunting and husbandry in particular constitute very important activities in many different periods and areas of the world. There is a wealth of ethnographic studies on human–Sus relations in traditional societies, but this is mainly confined to the South Pacific (e.g. Rappaport 1968; Griffin 1998; Sillitoe 2003). Ethnoarchaeological studies of human–Sus relations are much rarer, though the work carried out by ethnographers has occasionally been used for archaeological interpretations (e.g. Nemeth 1998; Redding & Rosenberg 1998). The geographic bias towards South East Asia, and New Guinea in particular, is understandable when we consider the abundance of wild and domestic pigs in those regions, and the great importance that they have for local economies and societies. Conversely, most of western Asia is dominated by Muslim cultures, where pig husbandry is not practised because of the prohibition of pork consumption (Simoons 1961).