On Pigs in Subsistence Agriculture.

The article comments on the study of Seung-og Kim published in volume 35 of the "Current Anthropology" journal, which establishes the role of pigs in the rise of political elites in Neolithic China. The author remarks that Kim's project shifts scholarly attention away from the incomplete study of the role of pigs in subsistence agriculture. He contends that Kim failed to cite and exploit the ideas on the existence of the traditional and productive subsistence agricultural practices centering on pig rising in outhouse basement once widespread in Cheju Island, persisting there until the 1980s, when he has cited the findings that pig are very resistant to diseases and produce large amount of fertilizer for farming.