Discover Ancient Eating Rituals At Stonehenge With Feast!

19 Oct 2017 02:29 PM

A new exhibition at Stonehenge opens this month to showcase the diet of the Neolithic people who built and used the monument 4500 years ago.

Feast!, a new exhibition at Stonehenge opening Friday 20 October, will reveal what the late Neolithic community cooked and ate.

This research provides key culinary insights into the culture, rituals and identity of the people who lived here more than 4500 years ago.

The exhibition will explain how key finds indicate Neolithic people feasted on pigs and cows but were lactose intolerant. It will also show how their food was transported to the Wiltshire site from as far away as north-east Scotland.

Watch our live stream of the launch of Feast! on YouTube, Friday 5.30pm.

What The Research Tells Us About Stonehenge

The new research examined the lives of the people who lived at the nearby settlement, Durrington Walls, and uncovered thousands of discarded animal bones and teeth. This suggests that the area wasn't a typical Neolithic village, but a site of feasting and ceremony, where great amounts of beef and pork were eaten.

Isotope analysis of hundreds of pig and cattle teeth proves that these communities were bringing in animals from as far as 500 miles away. This indicates Stonehenge was well-known across Britain and people travelled far and wide to help build the monument, as well as take part in the midwinter feasts.

Feast! will display a collection of rare finds from the site including the skull of an aurochs, a now extinct species of wild cattle. Visitors will also see decorated Neolithic pots used in the preparation of pork and beef dishes and a rare complete bronze cauldron from 700BC that featured as a centrepiece of late Bronze Age ceremonial feasts.

Click here for full press release