1.1. Distribution anomalies

4Several distribution anomalies appear in the preceding chapters concerning some archaeozoological data. They concern the carnivores, for which nearly all the dog bones (and the only cat phalanx) were found within the Communal building (chap. 27), which also happens to be the place where we found 11 of the 13 human remains (chap. 32). They also concern the wild boar in three different aspects: the over-representation of young individuals in the Communal building, the unbalanced representation of some parts of the head, and the high frequency of less fragmented bone specimens within the buildings’ walls.

1.2. Over-representation of young WILD BOARS in the Communal building

5Analyses of the diversity of age-at-death profiles in the different areas of Klimonas show a high degree of homogeneity, except for the profile of the St 10 Communal building stratigraphic units. In contrast to the other profiles, it presents a peak for the 6-9 months age class (chap. 29). However, apart this peak, the rest of the profile is not much different from the others, as if the St 10 profile was made up of the addition of 10 to 15% of young individuals to the profile from areas otherwise occupied by residential buildings (fig. 31-1). This St 10 profile, however, clearly differs from the pig husbandry profile of the middle phases of Shillourokambos. We proposed to interpret it as the result of mixing the stock of suid bones common to the entire site – they were probably embedded in the mud material used for the construction of embankments, floors, benches and walls of the successive Communal buildings (Mylona et al. 2017; see chap. 9) – together with teeth and jaws left on the spot, resulting from special activities that took place in the successive Communal buildings.

Fig. 31-1 – Comparison of the age-at-death profiles of the Communal building and of the rest of the village, based on the data of chap. 29.

6What about these activities? We can only say that they were restricted to this special building and involved the culling or consumption of a precise age class comprised between 6 and 9 months, suggesting a practice with high social or symbolic value. Was it a special hunting session? Was it even a case of capturing live animals and keeping them in captivity for a short time before sacrificing them, as attested in some modern hunter societies? Or were the young individuals only picked from the various products of the hunt for their age and ritually butchered and eaten in the Communal building? Is there a link between this practice and the presence of a small number of 1-2 months old animal bone in the Communal building, which we also reported in chap. 29? These questions remain open.

7The choice of this age class was, however, probably significant. Assuming that most births took place in spring, as suggested by the stable isotopic data (chap. 29), piglets reached the age of 6-9-months between October and January. Due to the specific anatomical-physiological properties shared with all suids, this is a period when the wild boars would have accumulated their fat reserve for the winter. The tender, fat first-year suids may have symbolised abundance for the villagers of Klimonas or those who were allowed to enter the Communal building and participate in social or symbolic activities there. The particular time around the winter solstice may also have played a role in this ritual.

1.3. Unbalanced representation of some parts of the head

8In chap. 24, we observe a significant over-representation of the labial teeth, canines and incisors, especially the lower ones, in the assemblages of the Central Sector, which are mostly composed of osteological series from the Communal building. This is the main difference between the Central and B sectors (fig. 24-2). Furthermore, we observe that even in the B Sector, the lower labial teeth and the anterior parts of mandibles are over-represented compared to all other anatomic units (fig. 31-2), but to a lesser extent than in the Central Sector. Undoubtedly, the villagers of Klimonas paid particular attention to the anterior parts of the mandibles. Only the analyses of the remarkable faunal deposit (see below) can shed light on this strange phenomenon.

Fig. 31-2 – Representation of the Minimum number of Anatomic Units (MAU) values over the whole skeleton of the wild boar in the Sector B of Klimonas, based on the data of chap. 29.

9On another hand, a substantial deficit of cranial bones compared to the rest of the skeletal parts (fig. 31-2) and to the representation of the anatomical parts of Shillourokambos (chap. 29, fig. 29-9) accentuates the over-representation of the anterior parts of the mandibles. The maxillae are less affected by this substantial deficit (fig. 29.11). There is a clear under-­representation of the cranial box compared to the jaws, especially the mandible. The abundance of phalanges and other small bones, including fragments of the pelvis, make it unlikely that this difference only resulted from the activity of dogs, which were present in the village of Klimonas and absent from the middle and late phases of occupation of Shillourokambos. We will discuss this observation more in detail below.

1.4. Less fragmented bone specimens in the walls and foundation trenches of the buildings

10In chap. 24, we pointed out a strong correlation between the low degree of cooking and post-depositional fragmentation of the bones (spiral and transversal breakage, respectively) and their location in the foundation trenches and bases of the earth walls of the buildings of the B Sector (fig. 24-5). This was especially visible with reference to the rubbish deposits found. This observation should be confronted to a deeper analysis of putative symbolic deposits.

2.1. Definition and questions

11A small number of wild boar specimens or groups of specimens appear to be singular because they meet two criteria: 1) they are composed of complete or large portions of bones which contrast with the usual highly fragmented specimens and 2) they are more or less isolated in a location such as a particular pit, a foundation trench or a mud wall or bench, where they cannot be assimilated to the rare well preserved specimens of primary refuse deposits. At the time of the excavation, we had already hypothesized that they must have been deposited there intentionally, according to symbolic practices. If this is the case, they would be comparable to the animal deposits from some Khiamian or PPN buildings in the Levant, found hidden within the buildings’ benches or walls, notably the aurochs bucrania and scapulae described at Jerf el-Ahmar, Dja’de (Stordeur and Abbès 2002, Helmer et al. 2004, Stordeur 2015), Hallan Çemi (Rosenberg et al. 1995) or Tell Halula (Saña Segui 1999).

Tab. 31-1 – List and brief description of the 20 symbolic animal deposits identified at Klimonas.

2.2. General pattern of the remarkable deposits in the different Sectors and contexts

12After a rigorous selection, we have isolated 20 deposits that meet the two criteria defined above, allowing us to considering them remarkable, and, therefore, of probable symbolic significance (tab. 31-1).

13Such deposits appear to be rare or even absent in the Communal building (fig. 31-3), where we nevertheless found 81% of the 37 dog specimens and the only cat specimen from the entire site. Here also is where we identified an enigmatic but significant excess of labial teeth and found evidence of an over-representation of 6-9-month-old suids that we can interpreted above as an expression of particular symbolic slaughter or dietary practices. The associated two paired third phalanges of a young wild boar (fig. 31-4, A) in the lower part of the second building is not a remarkable deposit sensu stricto because it had not been discovered in a particular pit. However, it should be mentioned here because it may be an expression of these practices.

Fig. 31-3 – Synthetic description of the remarkable animal bone deposits of Klimonas, according to: A, the buildings, B, the context in the building, C, the anatomical part, and D, the nature of the objects (after the data of tab. 31-1).

Fig. 31-4 – Some examples of remarkable/symbolic deposits of wild boar bones

14The B Sector provided 17 of the 20 remarkable/symbolic deposits. However, they are not equally distributed among the buildings. Buildings B10 and, secondarily, B09 and B17 provided most of them, with 9, 2 and 2 deposits, respectively.

15There is only one deposit in building B800 (fig. 31-4, B), but this does not mean that such deposits were less frequent in this building than in those of the B Sector, taking into account that the total amount of identified animal bone specimens is ten times less in B800 than in all of B Sector.

16Almost half of the deposits were in the foundation trenches (fig. 31-3, B) and one-third in the bases of the mud walls (which is ultimately more or less the same).

2.3. Anatomical and technical selection

17Twenty of the twenty-nine objects suspected of being symbolically deposited (70%; fig. 31-3, C) fall into four anatomical categories: skulls (2), mandibles (5; fig. 31-4, C), scapulae (8; fig. 31-4, D) or tibiae (5; fig. 31-4, E-F). The other categories are: metapodials (3), long bone diaphyses (2; very probably tibia), lumbar vertebrae, fibulae, phalanges and the sub-complete skeleton of a very young suid. On another hand, 75% of the objects are food remains, while the others refer to the bone industry (fig. 31-3, D), either tools or tool fragments or raw material extraction matrixes for tool manufacture (fig. 31-4, F). Except for one bone awl made out of a fibula, all the latter surely or very likely come from tibiae. All four tibiae are left side, but this is not statistically significant (p = .09).

18Altogether, the dominant categories represented in the remarkable/symbolic deposits are only three: bone industry (8), scapula (8) and mandible (5); and far behind: skull, vertebrae, metapodials, phalanges and sub-complete skeleton.

2.4. Description of three of the most remarkable symbolic deposits

19A detailed description of the three most remarkable deposits of the B Sector provides further insights into the significance of this practice.

2.4.1. Building B10, wall and foundation trench (St 644 and 6634)

20Scattered along the base of the uphill wall and within the bench of building B10, we found the anterior part of the ramus from two mandibles, three sub-complete scapulae (two left and one right side), and two adult left tibiae used as a matrix for making bone tools.

Fig. 31-5 – The four scapulae and the bone awl of the remarkable/symbolic deposit of St 644, at the base of the earth wall of building B10.

Tab. 31-2 – List of the animal bones found in St 644 and St 6634. The specimens which are interpreted as remarkable/symbolic deposits are in bold.

21Diametrically opposite the eastern doorway of the building, the base of the wall (St 644) provided 21 bone remains grouped in a restricted area (tab. 31-2), most of them being small fragments embedded in the building’s mud material. Five of them contrast with the others because they are more complete. These are four sub-complete right scapulae found together with an exceptional complete bone awl made from the distal half of an adult fibula (fig. 31-5). The right scapulae describe a series of increasing ages, from less than one month to 6-10 months old. Some 10 to 20 cm below this assemblage, in the centre of a large pit (St 6634) coalescing with the foundation trench (below a bench?), once again were 18 animal bones, including the sub-complete skull of a piglet (ISO-B371) less than 2 months old (fig. 31-6) and the symphyseal parts of the ramus from two mandibles of different ages (8-12 months and subadult). These animal bones were mixed with stones and macro-tools.

Fig. 31-6 – The sub-complete skull of a young wild boar found in St 6634 (ISO-B371), below the west bench of building B10.

22It is unclear whether these two sets of remarkable specimens come from one or two separate deposits. They are emblematic of the three most frequent types of anatomic parts found in the remarkable bone deposits (scapulae, anterior mandibles, bone tools), and the piglet skull is the only subcomplete skull ever found at Klimonas. The particular concentration of eight items in this singular location contrasts with the isolated symbolic deposits scattered along the northern arch of the wall. This location, at the furthest point from the building’s opening to the external world (entrance), i.e., in the most private domestic space, can be interpreted as a symbol of the privacy of the home and its significance in terms of household identity or cohesion. The proximity of the foundation trench and the presence of exceptionally young suids together with older ones may refer to the parallel between the reconstruction of the home and the renewal of generations.

2.4.2. Building B17, foundation trench (St 6709)

23At the bottom of the north arch of building B17’s foundation trench, a series of 18 sparsely fragmented bones of young boars was found, together with some 40 small fragments of eroded bones and numerous fossil Spondylus pebbles (chap. 18). The breakage pattern and a series of thin cut marks on a rib indicate butchering. These 18 bones are remarkable for several reasons. Although many pieces are missing, they describe all the skeleton parts of an individual killed, again, between 6 and 10 months (skull, mandible, vertebrae, ribs, scapula, humerus, radius, ulna, pelvis, femur, fibula, metapodials). Furthermore, we found these bones grouped in a restricted section of the trench. Finally, they show no post-depositional breakage marks, and some were still articulated (pelvis and femur) or stuck together by carbonate concretions in a pseudo-anatomical position (fig. 31-7).

Fig. 31-7 – Ribs (with focus on the cut marks) and right pelvis and femur still articulated from the sub-complete young wild boar skeleton deposited in the foundation trench of building B17 (St 6709).

24This incomplete skeleton suggests that a ritual meal centred on young boars of the same age class as in the Communal building preceded some symbolic foundation deposits.

2.4.3. Building B26, wall (St 6793; ISO-B140)

25This last deposit is probably the most remarkable. It was located 50 cm above the bottom of the uphill foundation trench of building B26, within the thick northern arch of the mud wall. It comprised a series of stones and wild boar bones grouped in a roughly parallelepipedic volume (L= 35cm, l= 15cm, h=25cm; fig. 31-8, A). This concentration of items contrasted with the virtual absence of large object elsewhere in this mud wall arch. The stones were small-sized limestone, flint stones or pebbles with no particular shape. There were 11 wild boar bones, among which 6, adult or subadult, did not seem to be remarkable and might have been erratic: an isolated first upper lacteal incisor, one half of an epistropheus, a femur diaphysis, a proximal flake of tibia and two phalanges (first axial and second abaxial). It was unclear if the additional left distal half of scapula should be considered erratic or part of the intentional deposit.

Fig. 31-8 – Deposit of cephalic remains of wild boar in the wall of B26 (ISO-B140, St 6793): A, first stripping, in nadiral view; B, third stripping, after removal of the mandible and pebbles; C, detail view of the third stripping showing the two abaxial metapodial.

26The last four specimens were much more remarkable because two of them were among the largest pieces of bones found on the site and because they were placed in a scene which partly mimics a pseudo-anatomical reconstruction. From the top to the bottom of the deposit, they consisted of:

• An inverted anterior part of the symphyseal portion of a mandible broken at the level of the second molars (fig. 31-8, A; fig. 31-9, A); it still bore all the definitive labial teeth, the canines indicating a male, as well as the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th premolars (the right P/2 was broken freshly, the two P/1 formerly left their alveolus), the first and second molars, the right M/2 being broken. Downwards facing, the tusks were well developed; the left one seemed longer, as it had slightly slipped out of the alveolus, due to gravity, after decomposition. The molars were heavily worn, indicating an age between 2 and 3 years; several teeth, including the canines, had burn marks at the cusp tips, due to firing.
• A right facial rostrum, comprising the premaxilla (fig. 31-8, B; 31-9, B), the maxilla, and part of the jugal bone; the snout bone was absent. The first incisor was definitive, but the second was still lacteal; the alveolus of the third incisor was empty. The definitive canine referred to a male and was in primary wear. The molar row was complete, with M3/ visible in crypt; the wear of the main cusps of M1/ barely reached the dentine and M2/ was not worn, indicating an age between 14 and 18 months, according to Horard Herbin’s reference (1997).
• Two abaxial metapodials were found close together (fig. 31-8, C; fig. 31-9, C-D), their respective proximal articulation facing north-east, their axial faces facing each other. However, the cranial faces were inverted. The first (south-east) was an unfused left second metacarpal (less than 24 months), the epiphysis absent from the deposit (despite fine water sieving). The second was a left fifth metatarsal with a fully fused epiphyses (more than 2 years).

Fig. 31-9 – Bones of wild boar collected in the deposit of St 6793: A, dorsal, lateral and occlusal views of the upper right jaw; B, occlusal and ventral views of the anterior mandibular portion; C, lateral view of the left fifth metatarsal; D, lateral view of the left unfused second metacarpal.

Fig. 31-10 – Drawing of a wild boar footprint in soft ground, showing the marks of the dewclaws behind the ones of the two main hooves (the shading is proportional to the deepness of the footprint. This pattern is significant for any game tracker or hunter probably since Prehistoric times.

27From these observations, we deduced that the bones were fresh at the time of the deposit (no post-depositional break, most of the teeth in their alveolus). However, they resulted from previously cooked and consumed joints (bone fracturing and burn marks on the tip of tooth cusps). The slippage of the left lower tusk indicates that the deposit was set in a (parallelepipedic?) volume at least partially empty of soil (a perishable matter box?). The pseudo-anatomical orientation of the maxilla and mandible, the arrangement of the two abaxial metapodials and their position at the entrance of the “mouth” suggest a significant intentional staging. The selection of a 2–3-year-old adult male jaw with tusks and the double association of subadult and adult anatomical parts (upper and lower jaw, metapodials) reinforces this interpretation. Again, it suggest a symbolic representation of both masculinity and generation renewal.

28The presence of two abaxial metapodials and their position in the deposit appear more enigmatic. These are the small bones of the short and apparently insignificant second and fifth vestigial fingers (dewclaws), which are located on either side of the two main fingers on which each limb of the wild boar is in contact with the ground. These bones were even smaller considering the general size of the body of the Cypriot wild boars due to their evolution in an island context (chap. 30). However, for wild boar hunters, even though they are small, dewclaws are well known (Bouldoire and Vassant 1989). Their function is to prevent the boar from sinking into the soft ground by widening the support surface of the limb. As a result, dewclaw marks are imprinted in the soft ground on either side of the two main finger marks, whether at a slow pace or running. Before seeing the boar, the tracker sees its tracks and recognizes them not only in the print of the two hooves of the axial fingers, which can be confused with the those of ruminants, but especially in the small marks left by the dewclaws (fig. 31-10).

29Dewclaws marks make the wild boar’s footprints unique from all other ungulates and can therefore be assimilated with the natural entity of the wild boar. This was already true at the time of the PPNA, as suggested by the fact that, along with the ear, eyes, canines and phallus, dewclaws are the rare anatomical details appearing on some of the representations of Göbekli Tepe (Enclosure C – P12; Peters and Schmidt 2004). The arrangement of the two abaxial metapodials in the St 6793 deposit may refer to the particular importance of dewclaws for hunters. Perhaps many other symbolic deposits of complete abaxial metapodials may have existed in the walls of foundation trenches at Klimonas and have escaped the notice of unaware excavators.

3.1. General characterisation of the symbolic animal manifestations

30The detailed analyses of 20 wild boar bones or bone groups, mostly located in the B Sector, confirm that about 15 were not fortuitous accumulations but remarkable deposits. According to our criteria listed above, they resulted from symbolic practices.

31These remarkable/symbolic deposits first shed light on two of the three distribution anomalies presented in the first part of this chapter: the overrepresentation of anterior parts of the jaws, i.e., the labial and premolar part of the mandible, and the overrepresentation of the large and slightly fragmented bones in the foundation trenches and bases of the residential buildings earth walls. These two are the probable result of these remarkable deposits consisting mainly of the labial part of mandibles and located in the foundation trenches or within the base of the buildings’ earth walls; or of the dismantling of s these deposits during the reconstruction of the buildings and their secondary deposition and mixing with the numerous other bone remains resulting from butchery, cooking, and meals.

32Our observations of the remarkable/symbolic deposits also complement the third distribution anomaly that we have described, concerning, in the Communal building, a particular slaughter- or consumption of 6-9-months young wild boars. Even if this age class also appears (among others) in the remarkable deposits of the residential buildings, it was the object of particular practices carried out only in the Communal building, i.e., probably reserved for a part of the villagers. On the contrary, the special treatment of the head that produced the under-representation of the cranial bones in the assemblages remains enigmatic: Were the skulls abandoned on the spot of slaughter and dismemberment of the carcasses during a kind of ritual? On the other hand, were they subjected to a particular treatment in the village itself, either for gathering them in special places as it was mentioned in PPN of Teppeh Asiab (Bangsgaard et al. 2019) or for an enigmatic use that would have led to their rapid destruction, such as an exposure like the one we mentioned to explain the lack of cattle skulls during the early phases of Shillourokambos (Vigne 2011d)? These questions remain open.

33Whether visible in distribution anomalies or remarkable deposits, all these probable manifestations of symbolic activities are much less spectacular than the aurochs horn cores of Mureybet or Jerf el-Ahmar or the animal representations of Göbekli or Nevalı Çori. Their low archaeological visibility is a characteristic, which sometimes makes them even a little dubious and suggests that they would probably have gone unnoticed by most non-archaeozoologists. For the latter reason, this type of event is possibly much more numerous than is thought at PPN sites. Perhaps this low archaeological visibility also reflects that these manifestations were not ostentatious. Like the human skulls or aurochs horn cores hidden within the building’s benches or pillars of Jerf el Armar (Stordeur 2015), our remarkable deposits were embedded into the building material. No one was to see them, but we suspect everyone remembered their presence.

34Beyond their relative diversity, all of these anomalies and remarkable deposits form a system because of their location, which contrasts communal areas with residential or specifically designated areas at the base of the walls; and because of the choice of particular anatomical units or age classes of wild boar. Even if these manifestations are probably only a tiny part of a much more diversified and complex system that will always escape our understanding of archaeologists and modern humans, this relative coherence allows to risk a more advanced attempt to sketch this symbolic system.

3.2. Location of the symbolic manifestations

35The remarkable deposits always concern bone remains deposited shortly after the consumption of the corresponding joint. Therefore, it seems they were remarkable not because of a particular treatment of the joints or bones themselves. What made them remarkable were the chosen of the anatomical part and of the place where they lay, i.e., within the mud of the walls or benches and in the foundation trench of a small number of “domestic” buildings in Sectors B and F. Of the six buildings with remarkable animal bone deposits in Sector B, five are precisely the only ones whose walls were preserved and excavated (B10, B17, B25-27). It is highly probable that remarkable deposits also existed in the other residential buildings, as suggested by two deposits found near the foundation trench of building B09. However, even if we cannot completely exclude the existence of remarkable deposits in the upper part of the earthen walls, we did not find any in the better-preserved upper parts of walls in B800, B10 or even B26. Therefore, we can reasonably suspect these deposits were closely related to the foundation and to the early stages of the building’s construction.

36The nine deposits found in the uphill half-ring wall in B10 and within its bench(es) may indicate that each of the residential buildings may originally have had up to about 20 symbolic deposits. The absence, in the Communal building, of any remarkable animal deposit like those in the residential buildings may also be partly due to not excavating the uphill wall. However, we actually did not find any deposits of animal bones in the southern foundation trench (where we found some remarkable deposits of bead, pendants and arrowheads; Vigne et al. 2012) nor within the benches (where we found a small number of human skull shards). Again, despite a possible taphonomic or recovery bias, we can reasonably suspect that the remarkable deposits of animal bones were mainly, or totally, restricted to the residential buildings.

37Nevertheless, animals and their symbolic meanings have not been excluded from the Communal building, where they are represented differently. These representations may have taken the form of the presence of certain species such as dogs and of the overrepresentation of labial teeth and 6-9-months old wild boars, which are less abundant in the domestic areas of Sectors F and B. In contrast, animal deposits were almost absent from the numerous pits dug in the floors of buildings (caches probably hidden during the PPNA occupation, chap. 13), whether in Communal or in residential buildings, where deposits consisted instead of several dozen of remarkable flint objects, macro-tools, or beads and pendants.

38The deposits of animal bones were seemingly included directly in the construction earth during the building process. However, some of these deposits suggest more sophisticated rituals. The incomplete young boar from the foundation trench of B17 suggests a possible meal (ritual?) shortly before deposition. The complex deposits of B10 and, in addition, the sophisticated arrangement of the bones of B26, probably deposited in a parallelepipedic box made in of perishable material and whose pseudo-anatomical staged figures associate different anatomical parts and different ages, also suggest more sophisticated rituals.

39Thus, the remarkable animal bone deposits seem to have been clearly separate from the other symbolic deposits (stone tools, pendants and bead; with exception of the isolated tusk in building B10) which were also mostly located in the foundation trench and basal wall of the Communal buildings, near the entrance or in caches dug in the floor of the buildings. The position of the two main deposits found in building B10, clearly located in the most private part of the building, opposite the entrance, even suggests that these deposits may also have an identity dimension for the familial or clan group that lived in the building. This implies that they refer to a symbolic system of their own, more strictly connected to the domestic or even to the private sphere and specific anthropozoological relationships. At the same time, they are closely linked to the building considered dwelling, more precisely to its foundation, renewal or reconstruction processes.

40Of course, these are basic interpretations. Numerous anthropological surveys around the world revealed that a very complex imaginary world was hidden behind often trivial objects. For example, over a very large Siberian and North American area, Stepanoff (2022) pointed out strong and complex topological correspondences between the body, the cosmic, the geographic and the dwelling spaces, in which animals play an important role in the shaman’s imaginary journey. In the shamanic imaginary world, animal species are often grouped by pairs of opposite significances, which find parallels in many other binary oppositions such as left/right, north/south, upstream/downstream, male/female, sun/moon, upper/lower imaginary worlds. Animal representations or material manifestations (e.g. bearskin) have thus a special place in the dwelling space, either near the house door of beside the fireplace. For sure, the significance of the animal remarkable deposits of Klimonas and of their location were much richer than we can suspect.

3.3. Selection of anatomical parts and their possible meaning

41The animal bones from the remarkable deposits were rigorously selected, supporting the feeling of rather normative practices. Except for the single skull and the incomplete skeleton of young wild boars from B10 and B17, respectively, only two to three anatomical categories are found:

• The scapula is the largest flat bone in the skeleton. It protects the animal’s vital organs during its life (heart, lung, aorta) and can thus obstruct the arrow and hinder the hunt (Ducateau and Vigne 1993). Also, it is a symbolic deposit within the benches of several PPNA buildings on the mainland (Helmer et al. 2004);
• The rostral mandibular or maxillary parts with the tusks, either male (fig. 31-11, A) or, in one case, female. They are the wild boar’s principal weapon and the principal danger for hunters. This part of the animal held a strong symbolic value magnified in the PPNA Göbekli Tepe representations of wild boars (Peters and Schmidt 2004) and the PPNB buildings of the Euphrates valley (Helmer et al. 2004). Even today, the symbolic value endures in all sorts of trophies showing this part of the animal with the incisors (fig. 31-11, B) or in the form of a composition of the canines, often mimicking the horn cores of large bovid (fig. 31-11, C; see also Poplin 1991). These remarks suggest that the symphyseal parts of the mandible with tusks deposited in the base of the earthen walls at Klimonas may be the insular substitute of aurochs’ horn cores deposited within the benches of numerous PPNA buildings of the mainland. They are twisted relative to the animal’s body so that the two-horned shape is emphasized as the aurochs’ identity marker, just as the rostral part of the mandible with tusks is an identity marker of wild boar at Klimonas. Similarly, horns and tusks are dangerous and therefore highly symbolic of wildness and hunting achievement (Poplin 2000). This interpretation of rostral parts of mandibles hidden within the base of the walls of buildings in Sector B, may help to explain the enigmatic overrepresentation of the labial teeth evidenced in the Communal building where, however, we never found any symphyseal part of a wild boar mandible. This fact suggests that something was done with the labial teeth in the Communal building, involving “two-horned” objects (ornaments, head gears, trophies…) in perishable material, including isolated labial teeth after extraction from the mandible; it should be mentioned that symphyseal portions of suid mandibles with strong canines have also been found in remarkable deposits at the Central Anatolia site of Bonçuklu (L. Martin, pers. comm.), however more recent than Klimonas of nearly one millennium (Baird et al. 2018);
• At least in one case, abaxial metapodials, which are the dewclaw bones making the wild boar footprint recognisable for hunters and a kind of signature of the species. They also appear in some representations from Göbekli Tepe (Peters and Schmidt 2004). As F. Poplin has already pointed out, there is also a strong symbolic parallel between the “split feet” of the artiodactyls and the “bi-horn” (Poplin 1988), which becomes apparent when comparing figs. 31-10 and 31-11;
• The long bones of the rear leg, fibulae and tibiae, either as matrices, as scraps of bone industry, or as bone tools; these may be the only part of the boar skeleton that is straight enough to make bone tools (chap. 18).

Fig. 31-11 – A, Frontal view of the wild boar mandible of the B26 remarkable/symbolic deposit, compared with : B, a modern warthog mural trophy (on a wooden board) on sale on internet (July 2019); C, a modern wild boar trophy (on a slate disk with a silver oak leaf), on sale on internet (July 2019); D, the representation of an aurochs head on Pillar 2 at Göbekli Tepe (redrawn after Peters and Schmidt, 2004).

42The symbolic values that emerge from this selection of anatomical parts are definitely connected to anthropozoological representations of wildness and hunting. In Klimonas as in any PPNA or other hunters’ society, hunting was not only a vital subsistence activity. It had also a strong psycho-social dimension based upon widely shared values such as the dangerousness of wild beasts (especially males) and hunting, the risk of failed hunts, and the respect and even the personification of nurturing game or nature.

43Associating bones of different ages suggests another symbolic dimension of these remarkable deposits. This is particularly clear in the deposit of B26, where the mandible of an old individual is virtually “re-fitted” with the maxillary of a subadult (both males), and where an unfused and one fused abaxial metapodials are arranged as a virtual pair of fingers. It is also visible in the series of the four right scapulae of different ages, from newborn to 6-9-months old, grouped in the wall of building B10 and also overrepresented in the Communal building. By relating these observations together with the close link between the animal deposits and the processes of foundation or reconstruction of domestic buildings, it is tempting to interpret the age associations in the walls of “domestic buildings” as symbolic representations of generation renewal. The frequent association with male symphyseal parts of mandibles bearing strong tusks could even betray the patrilineal character of this succession, as is the case in 90% of the current hunting societies, according to the ethnographic database (Binford 2001, Kirbi et al. 2016).

3.4. Comparisons and final discussions

44We have identified only about 15 unquestionable remarkable animal bone deposits at Klimonas. This small number results from their systematic location within the bases of the mud walls, most of which have been eroded or left unexcavated. There should have been more of them. They are absent from the Communal building, although animal symbolism was involved in the ritual activities that took place there, in the form of the slaughter or consumption of young suids aged 6-9 months.

45All in all, these symbolic manifestations describe relatively normative practices: in the course of the first steps of construction or re-construction of the domestic buildings, sometimes following a complex ritual, some bones coming from food refuses but selected with reference to their high anthropozoological symbolic values (wildness, hunting, virility, nurturing nature), were deposited in more or less sophisticated arrangements, some of them staging pseudo-anatomical associations of young and adult animals. These animal deposits refer to ritual practices and symbolic systems distinctly separate from the ones involved in the stone, beads, or pendants deposits, which also occurred in pits excavated in the building floors, unlike animal deposits. They are much more connected with the domestic and private sphere. They may be closely related to a symbolic parallel between the turnover of (patrilineal?) generations and the renewal or reconstruction of household identity. In addition to these practices, which seems mostly related to the “domestic” sphere, other rituals involving the slaughter/consumption of animals were carried out in the Communal building, i.e., presumably reserved for a particular part of the population. The wild boar’s skull was also the object of specific practices. However, it is impossible to say more about this, and the possibility of other symbolic practices around the wild boar inaccessible to archaeology is open.

46We should also place these symbolic manifestations concerning the wild boar in the broader and richer framework of other symbolic behaviours of the Klimonas villagers concerning the animal world. They concern the special status of dogs, whose bone remains are somewhat rare and mostly limited to the Communal building, as are human bones. Numerous remains of dog extremities, i.e., mandible bones and limb extremities bones suggesting the remains of one or more dog skins, were found within the slope or steps of the entrance to the earliest Communal building (chap. 27). They also concern marine food, whether fish or shellfish, the remains of which are absent from the excavation records, suggesting a very strict food taboo (chap. 19, 24), which had also been identified, to a lesser extent, in the early phases of Shillourokambos (Desse and Desse-Berset 2011, Desse-Berset et al. 2021). The connection between these symbolic manifestations remains enigmatic. They may even have been mutually exclusive if one considers the absence of dog deposits in the foundation trenches of the “domestic” buildings and the apparent lack of deposits of the labial part of the mandibles of wild boar in the foundation trench of the Communal building.

47In broad terms, the animal symbolic system of Klimonas is not dissimilar to those of many PPNA sites on the mainland, where high standardised and significant animal deposits have been found (Helmer et al. 2004), reflecting the rapid development of ritual practices associated to the development of these early cultivators’ societies (Cauvin 2000, Whitehouse et al. 2019). It is worth noting, however, that the expression of this anthropozoological symbolism of the Levantine PPN in Cyprus was strongly affected by the reduction of the large mammal diversity to a single species, the wild boars. Boar scapulae replaced aurochs scapulae; rostral parts of mandibles with strong tusks depicting horn cores replaced aurochs bucrania. The bone industry, strongly constrained by the absence of deer antlers or ruminant metapodials as it could only develop from boars’ hind legs (fibula and tibia), became part of the animal bones with high symbolic value. Another difference is the shift of symbolic animal manifestations from the Communal building (the location of scapulae and aurochs’ horn cores in mainland PPNA sites) to the residential buildings and their strong links with the turnover of generations and buildings, i.e., a partial shift to the more “secular” and private sphere. A further suggestion is that, despite their rather normative character, these symbolic manifestations involving animals would have been less related to communal aspects and more to the private or residential home than at the large classical PPNA sites of the close mainland. It is unclear if this is due to the peripheral situation of Cyprus relative to the nuclear zone of the North Levant, or to the Late situation of Klimonas in the PPNA process, just before the beginning of the PPNB whose characteristic is the assertion of the residential function to the detriment of the monumental/communal (Hadad 2019: 43).

48However, it would be interesting to examine the situation on the mainland in more detail. Many remarkable animal deposits may have eluded excavators due to unexcavated stone and earthen walls or because the better preserved animal bones did not suggest any particular symbolic meaning of the bone industry.