Hijlke Buitenhuis

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).

A forager–herder trade-off, from broad-spectrum hunting to sheep management at Aşıklı Höyük, Turkey

Significance This article provides original results on the formative conditions of sheep domestication in the Near East. To our knowledge, none of the results has been published before, and the results are expected to be of wide interest to archaeologists, biologists, and other professionals interested in evolutionary and cultural processes of animal domestication. Aşıklı Höyük is the earliest known preceramic Neolithic mound site in Central Anatolia. The oldest Levels, 4 and 5, spanning 8,200 to approximately 9,000 cal B.C., associate with round-house architecture and arguably represent the birth of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in the region. Results from upper Level 4, reported here, indicate a broad meat diet that consisted of diverse wild ungulate and small animal species. The meat diet shifted gradually over just a few centuries to an exceptional emphasis on caprines (mainly sheep). Age-sex distributions of the caprines in upper Level 4 indicate selective manipulation by humans by or before 8,200 cal B.C. Primary dung accumulations between the structures demonstrate that ruminants were held captive inside the settlement at this time. Taken together, the zooarchaeological and geoarchaeological evidence demonstrate an emergent process of caprine management that was highly experimental in nature and oriented to quick returns. Stabling was one of the early mechanisms of caprine population isolation, a precondition to domestication.

Of cats and men: the paleogenetic history of the dispersal of cats in the ancient world

The origin and dispersal of the domestic cat remain elusive despite its importance to human societies around the world. Archaeological evidence for domestication centers in the Near East and in Egypt is contested, and genetic data on modern cats show that Felis silvestris lybica, the subspecies of wild cat inhabiting at present the Near East and Northern Africa, is the only ancestor of the domestic cat. Here we provide the first broad geographic and chronological dataset of ancient cat mtDNA sequences, drawing on archaeological specimens from across western Eurasia and northern and eastern Africa, dating from throughout the Holocene and spanning ~9,000 years. We characterized the ancient phylogeography of F. s. lybica, showing that it expanded up to southeastern Europe prior to the Neolithic, and reconstructed the subsequent movements that profoundly transformed its distribution and shaped its early cultural history. We found that maternal lineages from both the Near East and Egypt contributed to the gene pool of the domestic cat at different historical times, with the Near Eastern population providing the first major contribution during the Neolithic and the Egyptian cat spreading efficiently across the Old World during the Classical period. This expansion pattern and range suggest dispersal along maritime and terrestrial routes of trade and connectivity. Late trait selection is suggested by the first occurrence in our dataset of the major allele for blotched-tabby body marking not earlier than during the Late Middle Ages. Significance The cat has long been important to human societies as a pest-control agent, object of symbolic value, and companion animal, but little is known about its domestication process and early anthropogenic dispersal. Our DNA analyses of geographically and temporally widespread archaeological cat remains show that while the cat’s world-wide conquest began in prehistoric times, when tamed cats accompanied humans on their journeys over land and sea, it gained momentum during the Classical period, when the Egyptian cat successfully spread throughout the ancient world. The appearance of a new coat pattern at the end of the Middle Ages suggests late breeding control that might explain the semi-domestic status of the cat. This distinguishes the domestication process of cats from that of most other domesticates.

EOL Computational Data Challenge: Primary Zooarchaeology Dataset

This table contains data originating from different projects and collections. These different projects may have worked under different assumptions and methodologies which may complicate comparisons. This may be the case even if projects and collections used the same descriptive terminology. In working with these data, you should exercise your best critical judgment as a researcher and examine available dataset documentation and related publications to help inform your interpretations.