Archaeologists from Cardiff University excavate a midden at East Chisenbury near Stonehenge
By analysing the chemical signatures preserved in the bones, the researchers have shown that some animals were raised hundreds of miles away before being slaughtered for the festivities.
At Potterne in Wiltshire, pigs were driven in from across the country, even from as far north as Yorkshire. Runnymede in Surrey was a hub for cattle, whose remains bear the isotopic traces of distant pastures. East Chisenbury, a monumental mound just ten miles from Stonehenge, tells a different story: here, sheep dominated, and most were reared locally, suggesting more insular, regional gatherings.
* From the archive: Archaeology from the air
Dr Carmen Esposito, lead author of the study, said: "Our findings show each midden had a distinct make up of animal remains, with some full of locally raised sheep and others with pigs or cattle from far and wide.
"We believe this demonstrates that each midden was a linchpin in the landscape, key to sustaining specific regional economies, expressing identities and sustaining relations between communities during this turbulent period, when the value of bronze dropped and people turned to farming instead."
The research, published in the journal iScience, points to an era of "feasting networks" that flourished between about 900 and 500BC. It seems people turned to food and its ritualised consumption as a way to forge alliances, affirm identities and navigate uncertainty.
Professor Richard Madgwick, co-author, said: "At a time of climatic and economic instability, people in southern Britain turned to feasting -- there was perhaps a feasting age between the Bronze and Iron Age.
"These events are powerful for building and consolidating relationships both within and between communities, today and in the past. The scale of these accumulations of debris and their wide catchment is astonishing and points to communal consumption and social mobilisation on a scale that is arguably unparalleled in British prehistory."
* Meet one of the strangest dinosaurs ever discovered
The key to unlocking these discoveries was multi-isotope analysis, a method that traces the distinct chemical make-up of different regions. As animals graze and drink, these markers are absorbed into their bones and teeth, allowing archaeologists to pinpoint where they were reared -- even thousands of years later.
Madgwick added: "Overall, the research points to the dynamic networks that were anchored on feasting events during this period and the different, perhaps complementary, roles that each midden had at the Bronze Age-Iron Age transition."
What emerges is not a picture of isolated farming hamlets, but of a connected world: people travelling long distances, converging on landmark sites, feasting together and leaving behind piles of bones that would endure for millennia.
These middens, once dismissed as mere rubbish heaps, now appear as monuments in their own right -- enduring testaments to a society that came together not to build palaces or temples, but to share food on a staggering scale.