Existence divokých prasat na Krétě. Pravda nebo fikce?
| Title in English | Existence of wild boars on Crete. True or fiction? |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | According to ancient sources, Crete, as the birthplace of Zeus, was not inhabited by wild animals except deer. Similar information is provided by travelers from the 17th and 19th centuries who visited the island. Nevertheless, the historical presence of wild boars on the island of Crete has been discussed since the beginning of Cretan archaeology. Based on iconographic evidence including hunting scenes and free-standing animals, Evans has already argued that wild boars were hunted on the island during the Bronze Age and that tusks as hunting trophies were used to decorate and arming the helmets from boar tusks. Early excavations at the Phaistos site revealed bones and tusks of supposed wild boars in contexts dating back to the Neolithic and Bronze Age. In the following decades, the remains of wild boars were identified at several other sites in contexts ranging from the Neolithic up to Byzantine periods. According to many researchers, wild boars were either deliberately introduced to the island by man or a feral population was formed from escaped domesticated individuals. Others, however, question the presence of wild/feral pigs on the island. Despite the relatively large number of these findings, the nature of the evidence from the island is often ambiguous or questionable, mainly due to inadequate publishing of data. This conference paper discusses the current state of the issue and is inclined to believe that there is currently no reliable evidence to support the presence of wild boars on the island. |
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