Hmm good point about the pigs. Mr Rh thinks pigs are horrid and dirty (unfairly I feel) and only good for eating, curiously. There's quite a difference between your domesticated pig and your mad wirey-haired rushing at you with its tusks wild pig, too. You wouldn't say to a wild boar that it was dirty and a scavenger? even if it did roll around in mud and snuffle for truffles. It's just too hard. Do you think that's true? So a pig in Neolithic society would have had a different reputation?

Another thing about carnivores is that there aren't many of them. It's much easier to bag a rabbit than track down a fox or a weasel. And besides, why bother going for a tiger when you might get eaten yourself. A sheep is going to put up a lot less fight.

I suppose people have eaten certain species (including humans - and it's debateable whether they did in Britain thousands of years ago, but they've certainly been eaten in New Guinea, hence the disease kuru) - to get their power or essence or whatever, so you might want to eat a tiger or a dog for its hunting prowess and general get-up-and-go.

If we were eating dogs in the Neolithic though, there ought to be some knawed bones around and the remains of some chilli sauce?