Archaeologist Karen Wicks with the pigs that found stone tools belonging to hunter-gatherers who lived 12,000 years ago on the Isle of Islay, Scotland.
Steven Mithen and Karen Wicks, University of Reading
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Islay then, according to Mithen, “would have been largely a frozen tundra, with a mix of grasses and shrubs, with possibly some dwarf birch, much like the far north today.”
Reindeer flourished there at the time, and were clearly a favorite of the hunters. Their tools suggest that they used every part of the animal, from the horns to the meat to the hide.
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Basking sharks, seals, otters and other animals are also in the region, so the researchers believe the hunter-gatherers were tracking down some of these animals too -- especially meaty seals.
Despite the remoteness of the site, Mithen said it is even plausible that the area’s natural resources sustained Neanderthals long beforehand.
“The nearest Neanderthal-like remains come from a cave in North Wales and date to 230,000 years ago,” he said. “It is not inconceivable that they might have reached western Scotland, but the last ice sheets and glaciers are likely to have destroyed all evidence.”
Traveling to the remote location would have been a challenge even for the hunter-gatherers who lived on Islay 12,000 years ago. Felix Reide of Aarhus University, who is an expert on Late Glacial Period tool making, believes that these people developed “a maritime adaption” that enabled them to explore northern regions, including Scandinavia and Scotland.
Their legacy likely lives on to this day.
“It is possible,” Mithen said, “that some genes from the Ice Age hunters are still present in modern day Scottish populations.”
As for the novelty of “pig archaeology,” British Archaeology editor Mike Pitts told Discovery News that many years ago, he “came across a pair of very nice Neolithic flint axeheads that had been said to have been dug up by pigs.”
“Pigs find things when they root about with their noses and front feet, digging for food,” Pitts said. "It helps if there is someone there at the time to see the find!”