There probably were pigs in the middle east. At least in Jesus time, for sure. Going back to Moses time, yes. Back to Abraham's time, probably. Noah's time? Yeah......in the back of the ark........
Anthropologist Marvin Harris (bless his soul) believes that the taboo about eating pork relates to food. Horses, cows and many other animals can digest cellouse (grass, hay,etc) humans and pigs can't...pigs have to eat the same thing we eat. The food required to feed a pig to maturity would feed 10 humans. During times of famine, if you had a pig, you would essentially be starving humans to support the pig. This would cause repeated problems...the religious leaders managed to work 'pork is bad' into the religion and this problem was solved.