One of the earliest barbecues (5,700 BCE) has been found on the banks of the River Tjonger, in the Netherlands. There appears to have been quite a feast, with the meat being provided by the auroch, an ancient ox which was bigger than the modern day cow. The beasts were either caught in a trap pit and then clubbed or were shot with bow and arrow. They were butchered on the spot before the meat was transported back to the settlement in manageable pieces, but not before the legs had been hacked off, to get to the marrow bone.
     How was all this discovered? By examining a discarded flint blade that was found near the killing point and by noting the chop marks that had been made on the bones, indicating that the meat had been carefully separated. The people of the Late Mesolithic loved their auroch meat but, with the spread of farming, the aurochs natural habitat began to disappear and numbers dwindled. It hung on vainly until 1627 CE, when the last known auroch died in a Polish zoo.

Edited from Discovery News (27 June 2011)