Did the ancients eat rabbits? How to eat rabbit? Has eating rabbits ever been a fad?
On these questions, the answer is yes. Even in the era when written materials were relatively scarce, clues of ancient foodies eating rabbits can be found from some archaeological remains.
It can be said that for Chinese, we have always been dedicated and professional in eating rabbits.
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01
Did the ancients eat rabbits?
From the number of rabbit bones, the contribution rate of meat volume
An archaeological site often finds more or less animal remains, especially animal bones.
The remains of these bones may have been intentionally placed, intentionally abandoned or unintentionally left by the ancients in the process of production and life at that time.
Zoarchaeology research analyzes the relationship between animals and ancient people at a specific time and region by determining the species of these animal bones, identifying their parts, supplemented by measurement, statistics and other means.
One of the most important analytical directions is the study of which animals were used as meat resources by ancient people and what proportion of meat in their diet structure, that is, "meat consumption patterns".
Compared with other meat foods that are common in human diets such as pigs, cattle, and sheep, the phenomenon of using 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 seen in archaeological site excavations.
According to archaeological findings, as early as 10,000 years ago, the inhabitants of the White City Twin Pagodas in Jilin began hunting Mongolian rabbits.
In the Great Paleojie site of the late Yangshao culture in Yulin area, Shaanxi Province, the number of identifiable specimens (NISP) and the smallest number of individuals (MNI) of grass rabbit bones accounted for 55.8% and 42.1% of the bones of 11 wild animals found, respectively, ranking first.
Based on the smallest number of individuals (MNI), combined with the average weight, meat yield and average meat volume of grass rabbits, the meat contribution rate of grass rabbits was 4.5%.
The average weight, meat yield and average meat amount of several wild animals at the late Yangshao culture site in Yulin area, Shaanxi Province. Image source: Quoted from Chang Jingyu: "Acquisition and Utilization of Animal Resources in the Late Neolithic Period in Yulin Area, Shaanxi", Archaeology, No. 8, 2021.
In Wuzhuang Guoyuan and Yangjiesha, which are also sites of the late Yangshao culture in Yulin area, the smallest number of grass rabbit bones accounted for 46.3% and 37.5% of all wild animal bones, respectively.
It was concluded that the contribution rates of meat volume were 2.8% and 2.3%, respectively, ranking first and second in the contribution rate of wild animal meat.
In summary, we can preliminarily speculate that in the late Yangshao culture, in addition to raising livestock, grass rabbits in some areas of Yulin, Shaanxi Province have become an important source of meat supplementation.
02
How did the ancients eat rabbits?
The rabbit eating method is deduced with traces on the surface of the rabbit bone
We can also further narrow down the perspective of the study: now that we know that the ancients did eat rabbits, can we further speculate about how the ancients ate rabbits?
In fact, due to the different ways of slaughtering and cooking animals by the ancients, the surface traces of animal bones seen in archaeological excavations are also different.
Surface traces refer to the changes in the size, structure and texture of animal bones by external forces, which to a certain extent reflect the behavior of ancient people on animals.
The Lingbao Xipo site in Shaanxi is a site of the middle Yangshao culture.
The researchers statistically analyzed the bone surface traces of pigs, deer, rabbits, porcupines, birds and other animal bones found at the site, and summarized the causes of burning, cutting, animal bites and other types of animals that changed the bones.
Let's take the comparison of pig bones and rabbit bones at the Xipo site as an example to analyze the way the people of Xipo eat rabbits.
Among them, the burning change rate of pork bone was 3.7%, while the change rate of cutting and animal gnawing was 1.7% and 0.8%, respectively.
The low rate of change in burning reflects that the ancestors of the Western Slope did not often eat pigs by barbecue;
The low rate of cutting change reflects that the tools used by the ancestors of the Western Slope to dismember pigs are not very sharp, and even if the tools are sharp, the bones are rarely touched when dismembering pigs;
The change rate of animal bite reflects that after humans eat pigs, there may be residual tissue on the abandoned pig bones, which can attract other animals to "secondary food".
In comparison, the rate of change in burning of rabbit bones was 6.5%, and the rate of change for both cutting and animal gnawing was zero.
The rate of change in barbecue shows that the people of Xipo "roast rabbits" much more often than "roast pigs".
The change rate of cutting and animal bite is zero, indicating that Xipo people do not show a preference for "eating" rabbit meat, and there is very little residual tissue on the rabbit bone after eating, even if it is abandoned, it is difficult to attract other animals to "secondary food".
Skeletal change rate of some animals at the Lingbao Xipo site in Shaanxi. Image source: Quoted from Ma Xiaolin: "Meat Consumption Patterns at the Lingbao Xipo Site—Bone Discovery Rate, Surface Traces and Fragmentation", Huaxia Archaeology, No. 4, 2008
03
Was rabbit eating ever fashionable?
The tomb "rabbit bone" and the portrait stone mutually prove the custom of eating rabbits
By analyzing the rabbit remains at some sites, we understand to a certain extent that the ancients did eat rabbits from a smaller perspective, and show a tendency towards certain specific rabbit eating methods.
So, is rabbit eating a distinctly regional custom, or was it once popular?
In view of the limitations of archaeological data, the author can only take the Han Dynasty, which is rich in archaeological remains related to rabbits, as an example for analysis.
First of all, a kind of architectural structure called "portrait stone" was prevalent in the basements, cemetery ancestral halls, tombs and temples of the Han Dynasty on the mainland, and its content reflected the colorful real life at that time.
The "kitchen diagram" (庖kitchen is the kitchen, cook) in the portrait stone reveals the custom of many Han dynasty people of "eating rabbits".
There is such a picture of a kitchen in the Han portrait stone in Xuzhou, Jiangsu: fish and rabbits hang above, chickens and dogs running back and forth on the ground, and two cooks are patiently "kebabs", from which we can speculate that there is a place for "roasted rabbit meat" in the barbecue food of the Han Dynasty.
The picture of the kitchen in the Xuzhou Han portrait stone, the rabbit hanging in the upper left corner of the picture. Image source: "Xuzhou Han Portrait Stone"
Coincidentally, there is a grand kitchen picture in the portrait stone of the former Liangtai Han in Shandong Zhucheng:
Adding firewood, slaughtering, washing, palming the stove, many cooks perform their own duties, and above the picture, there is a crossbar for hanging ingredients, 11 hooks are placed on the crossbar, and the fifth hook hook from left to right is a rabbit to be cooked.
The kitchen picture in the portrait stone of the former Liangtai Han in the city of Shandong, the upper crossbar counts from left to right, and the fifth hook hangs with a rabbit. Image source: "Shandong Han Portrait Stone Anthology"
In addition, in the portrait stones of Wuliang Temple, Song Mountain, Nanwu Mountain in Jiaxiang, Shandong, Baitomb Mountain in Liangshan, Shandong, and Cao Miao in Sihong, Jiangsu, rabbits appear as ingredients to be cooked in the kitchen diagram.
It is speculated that the custom of "eating rabbits" in Shandong, Jiangsu and other places in the Han Dynasty was relatively popular.
But when we analyzed whether and how the ancients ate rabbits, we used rabbit bones, which are real animal remains, as arguments.
Rabbit eating was prevalent in many areas of the Han Dynasty, which has been confirmed in artworks that reflect real life, such as portrait stones, so are there rabbit bone remains that reflect the rabbit eating behavior of the Han Dynasty to mutually corroborate?
Among the burial objects in Tomb No. 1 of Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha, the 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 Mawangdui No. 1 tomb, covering mammals, birds, fish, etc.
Among them, there are 6 kinds of mammals with physical skeletons, namely domestic dogs, domestic pigs, sika deer, sheep, scalpers and South China hares.
Two burial hares were found in Mawangdui No. 1 Tomb, which are adult rabbits of similar body shape, and the bones of the whole body are basically intact.
Two noteworthy burial features are twofold: one is that the two hares are placed intact in "bamboo pipes", which are bamboo containers that can be used to hold food; The second is that brown hairs were found on the skull and calcaneus of the hare.
This suggests that the two hares may have been skinned directly and then buried as food in a feeding vessel.
Mawangdui No. 1 Han Tomb contains the bamboo shoots of two hares. Image source: "Changsha Mawangdui No. 1 Han Tomb"
The tomb owner of Mawangdui No. 1 Han Tomb is "Xin Chai", the wife of Cheng Xianglicang of Changsha State of Wu in the early Western Han Dynasty, and the remains of hare buried as food were found in her tomb.
It fully shows that compared with most of the rabbit eaters depicted in the portrait stones of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the fashion of rabbit eating may have been popular among the high-ranking nobles of the Western Han Dynasty.
Reviewed: Cai Dawei Professor at the School of Archaeology, Jilin University
Source: Digital Beijing Science Center
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