1. The Power of Pigs Cairo's Pig Problem The Power of Zooarchaeology Pigs as a Lens into the Past 2. Animals in a Landscape The Setting: Geography of the Near East Dramatis Personae: Pigs and Wild Boar Pig Domestication Raising Pigs "Pig Principles" and Types of Data 3. From Paleolithic Wild Boar to Neolithic Pigs Reluctant Hunters of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic The Road to Domestication: The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A The Intensification of Wild Boar Hunting at Hallan Cemi Taking Boars on Boats to Cyprus Wild Boars in Rituals Domestication by Two Pathways First Domestic Pigs: The Early and Middle PPNB 4. Out of the Cradle The (Delayed) Adoption of Pig Husbandry in the Near East The First European Pigs New Approaches in the Late Neolithic Penning Pigs Feasting on Pork Pigs in Other Rituals Pigs in the Chalcolithic: The Great Transformation 5. Urban Swine and Ritual Pigs in the Bronze Age Plows, Wool, Warhorses (and Wardonkeys), and Wealth Regional Diversity in Pig Husbandry in the Early and Middle Bronze Age The (Informal) City Pigs of Early and Middle Bronze Age Mesopotamia The Inheritance of Tradition in Western Anatolia, Egypt, and Iran The Erosion of Pig Husbandry in the Levant and Western Syria Pigs and the Changing Environment Pigs in Texts Pork Consumption in the Late Bronze Age Pigs and the Gods

6. Theorizing the Taboo

The Anthropology of Taboo

Theories of the Pig Taboo

Biblical Explanations

Classical Writers on Pig Taboos

Health-Related Explanations

Religious Explanations

Douglas's Physiological Explanation

Ecological Explanations

Political-Economic Explanations

Ethnic-Political Explanations

The Chicken Explanation

Making Sense of the Pig Taboo

The Pig Taboo as an Evolving Cultural Element

7. The Coming of the Taboo: Pigs in the Iron Age

The Iron Age and Israelite Ethnogenesis

The Writing of the Torah and the Pork Taboo

The Archaeology of the Israelites and the First Jews

Pig Husbandry in the Iron Age

Pig Husbandry and Avoidance in the Southern Levant

The Evolution of the Israelite Pig Taboo

Writing the Taboo

Pig Taboos in Other Parts of the Near East

The Genetic Turnover

8. Clash of Cultures in the Classical Period

Pigs in Greek and Roman Cultures

Economic Roles

Ritual and Cultural Significance

Zooarchaeology of the Greco-Roman Near East

Raising Pigs in the Classical Period

Judaism and the Levant in the Classical Period

Unholy of Unholies: Pigs and the Clash of Cultures

Between Judaism and Christianity

Pigs in Christian Thought

9. Islam and the Modern Period

Islam: Orthopraxy, Food Laws, and the Pig Taboo

Zooarchaeological and Historical Data on Pigs

Raising Domestic Pigs in the Near East Today

Informal Economics: Pig Husbandry in Egypt

Formal Economics: "White Steak" and Pig Husbandry in Israel

Wild Boar in the Near East Today

Swine, Bigotry, and Intolerance

Transgression

10. The Complexity of Swine

Swine in Retrospect: A Window onto Complexity

Domestication

The Ritual Significance of Swine

The Unpredictable Evolution of the Pig Taboo

The Uniqueness of the Pig Taboo

Tradition and Fate.