An Iron Age pig is a cross between a Tamworth sow and a Wild Boar. The theory behind the name is that the wild boar roamed Britain before the Iron Age, and the pig was domesticated after the Iron Age so if you cross them you will get some pork that our Iron Age ancestors would have been familiar with. This is pork as it used to taste!
From Cotswold Farm (UK):
IRON AGE PIGS - Not a Rare Breed as they are a hybrid
... They are a reconstruction of the type of pigs which would have been herded through the forests by our Iron Age ancestors. They were created here in the early 1970's by crossing Tamworth sows with a European wild boar from London Zoo, for a scientific reconstruction project which was later copied as the BBC 'Living in the Past' series. The piglets are born striped nose to tail, just like wild piglets, but we have selected for temperament and ours are now fully domesticated.
Like many of our animals, the Iron Age pigs have been popular set dressing from many historical films but most recently "Sally" and "Gwinny", two of our sows, starred in the big screen drama, "The Hour of the Pig" which is now on general release. This amazing story is based on a real medieval court case, in which a pig, played by "Sally", stands trial for the murder of a child.
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