pigs, 3 ways

i. Pig as food pet.

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ii. Pig as pigoons (fictional and non).

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iii.  Pig as oracle bones to the human past, pigoons of history:

Tracing the roots of pig domestication may help in tracking past human migrations and cultural development, said study lead author Greger Larson, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Durham in England.

Though they are not the earliest known domesticated species — dogs beat them out for that title — pigs were bred in large enough numbers as a food source to leave plenty of bone remnants to study. Domesticated dogs, in contrast, were so limited in number that it's harder to cull information from the few remains they leave behind, Larson said.

Using animal DNA to study human history is easier for several reasons, Larson said. For one thing, the animals outnumbered their human owners and thus left more bones behind to be analyzed. For another, digging up and testing ancient human DNA is ethically problematic.

"Local cultural groups are not super keen for us grind up the bones [from burial sites] to see what their signatures are," Larson said.

- From "Domesticated Chinese pigs' ancestory goes back at least 8,000 years," Los Angeles Times, April 24, 2010