Benjamin S. Arbuckle

Data Sharing Reveals Complexity in the Westward Spread of Domestic Animals across Neolithic Turkey

This study presents the results of a major data integration project bringing together primary archaeozoological data for over 200,000 faunal specimens excavated from seventeen sites in Turkey spanning the Epipaleolithic through Chalcolithic periods, c. 18,000-4,000 cal BC, in order to document the initial westward spread of domestic livestock across Neolithic central and western Turkey. From these shared datasets we demonstrate that the westward expansion of Neolithic subsistence technologies combined multiple routes and pulses but did not involve a set ‘package’ comprising all four livestock species including sheep, goat, cattle and pig. Instead, Neolithic animal economies in the study regions are shown to be more diverse than deduced previously using quantitatively more limited datasets. Moreover, during the transition to agro-pastoral economies interactions between domestic stock and local wild fauna continued. Through publication of datasets with Open Context (opencontext.org), this project emphasizes the benefits of data sharing and web-based dissemination of large primary data sets for exploring major questions in archaeology (Alternative Language Abstract S1).

Initial diversity in sheep and goat management in Neolithic south-western Asia

Abstract In this paper we survey a large body of faunal data for the practice of young male culling in Neolithic south-western Asia. Although the young male kill-off model is one of the most widely used models for identifying animal domestication in Neolithic south-western Asia, its ubiquity has never been addressed on a regional scale. By focusing on a combination of kill-off age and the shape of the distributions of biometric data, we are able to address the emergence and ubiquity of young male culling amongst Neolithic sheep and goat herders. Although the intensive culling of young males has been presented as a ‘leading edge marker’ for the initiation of sheep and goat herding, we find that clear evidence for young male kill-off appears in the faunal record only in the early 8th millennium cal BC — considerably later than the origins of caprine management. Instead, Neolithic caprine management practices appear to have been characterized by a high degree of ‘initial diversity’, especially in the 9th and early 8th millennia, suggesting that early management strategies may have been much more varied than previously realized. However, after c. 7500 cal BC young male kill-off was widely practised across south-western Asia, suggesting this efficient and effective management technology quickly replaced the diversity of local management strategies prevalent earlier.

The early management of cattle (Bos taurus) in Neolithic central Anatolia

The authors use metrical, demographic and body part analyses of animal bone assemblages in Anatolia to demonstrate how cattle were incorporated into early Neolithic subsistence economies. Sheep and goats were domesticated in the eighth millennium BC, while aurochs, wild cattle, were long hunted. The earliest domesticated cattle are not noted until the mid-seventh millennium BC, and derive from imported stock domesticated elsewhere. In Anatolia, meanwhile, the aurochs remains large and wild and retains its charisma as a hunted quarry and a stud animal.

Ancient goat genomes reveal mosaic domestication in the Fertile Crescent

How humans got their goats Little is known regarding the location and mode of the early domestication of animals such as goats for husbandry. To investigate the history of the goat, Daly et al. sequenced mitochondrial and nuclear sequences from ancient specimens ranging from hundreds to thousands of years in age. Multiple wild populations contributed to the origin of modern goats during the Neolithic. Over time, one mitochondrial type spread and became dominant worldwide. However, at the whole-genome level, modern goat populations are a mix of goats from different sources and provide evidence for a multilocus process of domestication in the Near East. Furthermore, the patterns described support the idea of multiple dispersal routes out of the Fertile Crescent region by domesticated animals and their human counterparts. Science, this issue p. 85 Ancient goat genomes elucidate a dispersed domestication process across the Near East. Current genetic data are equivocal as to whether goat domestication occurred multiple times or was a singular process. We generated genomic data from 83 ancient goats (51 with genome-wide coverage) from Paleolithic to Medieval contexts throughout the Near East. Our findings demonstrate that multiple divergent ancient wild goat sources were domesticated in a dispersed process that resulted in genetically and geographically distinct Neolithic goat populations, echoing contemporaneous human divergence across the region. These early goat populations contributed differently to modern goats in Asia, Africa, and Europe. We also detect early selection for pigmentation, stature, reproduction, milking, and response to dietary change, providing 8000-year-old evidence for human agency in molding genome variation within a partner species.