How did the ancients treat themselves to a "snack" 10,000 years ago? Roast a rabbit?

Audit expert: Cai Dawei

Professor of the School of Archaeology, Jilin University

Happy Year of the Rabbit! Even though rabbits are so cute, they have never escaped the mouths of foodies. Even in the era when written materials were relatively scarce, we can find clues from some archaeological remains that ancient foodies ate rabbits. Did ancient people eat rabbits? How to eat rabbits? Has eating rabbits ever become a fashion?

Source | pixabay

Did the ancients eat rabbits? -- From the number of rabbit bones to see the contribution of rabbit meat

An archaeological site often unearths a greater or lesser number of animal remains, especially animal bones, which may have been intentionally placed, abandoned, or left unintentionally by the ancient people during their production and daily life.

Animal archaeology studies determine the species of animal bones, identify their parts, and use measurement and statistics to analyze the relationship between a certain genus of animal and ancient people in a specific period of time and region. One of the important analysis directions is: which animals were used as meat resources by ancient people, and what proportion of the meat accounted for in their dietary structure, that is, the study of "meat consumption patterns."

Compared with other common meats in human diets, such as pigs, cattle and sheep, the phenomenon of eating rabbits as meat is visible but relatively "unpopular". However, there are many cases of ancient people eating rabbit meat in history, and rabbit bones are often found in archaeological excavations. According to archaeological discoveries, as early as 10,000 years ago, residents of Shuangta, Baicheng, Jilin, began hunting Mongolian rabbits.

In the Dagujie site of the late Yangshao culture in Yulin, Shaanxi Province, the number of identifiable specimens (NISP) and the minimum number of individuals (MNI) of grass rabbit bones accounted for 55.8% and 42.1% of the 11 wild animal bones found, respectively, ranking first; based on the minimum number of individuals (MNI), combined with the average weight, meat yield and average meat volume of grass rabbits, it was found that the meat contribution rate of grass rabbits was 4.5%.

Average weight, meat yield, and average meat volume of several wild animals at the late Yangshao culture sites in Yulin, Shaanxi

Source | Quoted from Chang Jingyu: "Acquisition and Utilization of Animal Resources in the Late Neolithic Period in Yulin, Shaanxi", "Archaeology" Issue 8, 2021.

At Wuzhuang Guoling and Yangjiesha, both sites of the late Yangshao culture in Yulin area, the minimum number of grass rabbit skeletons accounted for 46.3% and 37.5% of all wild animal skeletons respectively, and the meat contribution rates were 2.8% and 2.3% respectively, ranking first and second in their respective wild animal meat contribution rates.

In summary, we can preliminarily speculate that in the late Yangshao culture, in addition to raising livestock, rabbits had become an important source of meat for the ancestors in some areas of Yulin, Shaanxi.

How did the ancients eat rabbits? - Inferring the way rabbits were eaten based on the marks on the surface of rabbit bones

We can also narrow the research perspective further: since we know that the ancients did eat rabbits, can we further speculate how they ate rabbits? In fact, due to the different ways of slaughtering and cooking animals, the surface marks of animal bones found in archaeological excavations are also different. Surface marks refer to the changes in the size, structure, and texture of animal bones caused by external forces, which to a certain extent reflect the ancients' behavior towards animals.

The Xipo site in Lingbao, Shaanxi Province is a site of the middle period of the Yangshao culture. Researchers conducted a statistical analysis of the surface marks on the bones of pigs, deer, rabbits, porcupines, birds and other animals found at the site, and summarized the causes of changes in the bones of animals, such as burning, cutting, and animal biting. We use the pig bones and rabbit bones from the Xipo site as an example to analyze how the Xipo people ate rabbits.

The burning change rate of pig bones was 3.7%, while the cutting and animal gnawing change rates were 1.7% and 0.8% respectively. The low burning change rate reflects that the ancestors of Xipo did not often eat pigs by roasting; the low cutting change rate reflects that the tools used by the ancestors of Xipo to dismember pigs were not very sharp, and even if the tools were sharp, they rarely touched the bones when dismembering pigs; the animal gnawing change rate reflects that after humans eat pigs, there may be residual tissues on the abandoned pig bones, which can attract other animals for "secondary consumption".

In contrast, the burning change rate of rabbit bones was 6.5%, while the cutting and animal gnawing change rates were both zero. The roasting change rate shows that the Xipo people "roasted rabbits" much more frequently than "roasted pigs". The zero change rates of cutting and animal gnawing indicate that the Xipo people did not show a preference for "sharing" rabbit meat, and there was little residual tissue on the rabbit bones after eating, so even if they were abandoned, it would be difficult to attract other animals for "secondary consumption".

Skeletal change rates of some animals from the Xipo site in Lingbao, Shaanxi

Source | Cited from Ma Xiaolin: "Meat Consumption Patterns at Lingbao Xipo Site - Bone Discovery Rate, Surface Traces and Fragmentation", "Huaxia Archaeology" No. 4, 2008

Was eating rabbits fashionable? -- Rabbit bones in tombs and rabbit patterns in stone reliefs prove the custom of eating rabbits

By analyzing the rabbit remains in some sites, we can understand from a narrow perspective that the ancients did eat rabbits, and showed a preference for certain specific ways of eating rabbits. So, is eating rabbits a custom with obvious regional characteristics, or was it once popular? Due to the limitations of archaeological data, the author can only analyze the Han Dynasty, which has a relatively rich archaeological remains related to rabbits.

Firstly, a type of architectural stone with carved images, called "portrait stone", was popular in my country's underground tombs, cemetery ancestral halls, tomb towers and temple towers during the Han Dynasty. The content of the stone portraits reflected the rich and colorful real life at that time, and the "kitchen pictures" (kitchen means kitchen and chef) in the stone portraits revealed the custom of "eating rabbits" among the Han people.

There is a kitchen picture in the Han Dynasty stone reliefs in Xuzhou, Jiangsu: fish and rabbits are hung above, chickens and dogs are running back and forth on the ground, and two cooks are patiently "roasting skewers". From this we can infer that "roasted rabbit meat" had a place in the barbecue food of the Han Dynasty.

A kitchen scene in a stone relief from the Han Dynasty in Xuzhou. The rabbit hanging in the upper left corner of the scene. Source | Stone relief from the Han Dynasty in Xuzhou

Coincidentally, there is a grand kitchen scene in the Han Dynasty stone reliefs on the front balcony of Zhucheng, Shandong: people adding firewood, butchering, washing, and cooking, many cooks each have their own duties, and above the picture is a horizontal bar for hanging ingredients, with 11 hooks on the bar. The fifth hook from the left is hanging a rabbit to be cooked.

A kitchen scene in a stone relief of the Han Dynasty in Zhucheng, Shandong. The fifth hook on the top horizontal bar from left to right has a rabbit hanging on it. Source | A Collection of Shandong Han Dynasty Stone Reliefs

In addition, rabbits appear as ingredients to be cooked in the stone reliefs at Wuliang Temple, Songshan, Nanwushan in Jiaxiang, Shandong, Baimushan in Liangshan, Shandong, and Cao Temple in Sihong, Jiangsu. Based on this, it can be inferred that the custom of "eating rabbits" was quite popular in Shandong, Jiangsu and other places during the Han Dynasty.

But previously, when we analyzed whether and how ancient people ate rabbits, we used rabbit bones as evidence. Rabbit eating was popular in many areas during the Han Dynasty, and this has been confirmed in stone reliefs, which are artworks that reflect real life. So, are there any rabbit bones that reflect the behavior of eating rabbits in the Han Dynasty to verify it?

Among the burial objects in Tomb No. 1 of the Mawangdui Han Dynasty Tomb in Changsha, a large number of animal remains as burial food are particularly eye-catching. According to statistics, there are more than 20 kinds of animal food in Tomb No. 1 of Mawangdui, including mammals, birds, fish, etc. Among them, there are 6 kinds of mammals with visible bones, namely domestic dogs, domestic pigs, sika deer, sheep, cattle and South China hares.

Two hares were found buried in Mawangdui Tomb No. 1. They were adult rabbits of similar size, with their skeletons basically intact. There are two noteworthy burial features: first, the two hares were placed intact in a "bamboo box", a bamboo container that can be used to hold food; second, brown hair was found on the skull and heel bones of the hares. This indicates that the two hares may have been skinned directly and then placed in a food container as food buried with the deceased.

The origin of the bamboo box containing two hares in Mawangdui Han Tomb No. 1 | "Changsha Mawangdui Han Tomb No. 1"

The owner of the No. 1 Han Tomb in Mawangdui is "Xin Zhui", the wife of Li Cang, the prime minister of Changsha State of the Wu clan in the early Western Han Dynasty. Remains of wild rabbits buried as food were found in her tomb, which fully demonstrates that compared with the rabbit eaters depicted in most of the Eastern Han Dynasty stone reliefs, the fashion of eating rabbits may have been popular among the senior nobles of the Western Han Dynasty.