Levent Atici

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.

Implications of Age Structures for Epipaleolithic Hunting Strategies in the Western Taurus Mountains, Southwest Turkey

Atici L. 2009. — Implications of Age Structures for Epipaleolithic Hunting Strategies in the Western Taurus Mountains, Southwest Turkey. Anthropozoologica 44(1): 13-39. ABSTRACT This paper investigates hunter-gatherer behavioral strategies during the Epipaleolithic period in the western Taurus Mountains of Mediterranean Turkey. Seven archaeofaunal assemblages excavated from Karain B and Öküzini caves were analyzed and interpreted with a special emphasis on age structures and their implications for general hunting strategies, site function and use, and seasonality. A detailed analysis of age structures based on dental wear and epiphyseal fusion data combined with other zooarchaeological evidence has revealed that hunter-gatherers in the Western Taurus Mountains intensively hunted wild sheep and goat, mostly targeted prime-age animals, shifted from seasonally restricted site use and hunting to unrestricted multiseasonal site use and hunting pattern, and progressively hunted larger number of juvenile caprines throughout the Epipaleolithic.

Commingled Bone Assemblages: Insights from Zooarchaeology and Taphonomy of a Bone Bed at Karain B Cave, SW Turkey

This chapter aims to initiate a dialogue between paleontologists, forensic anthropologists, human osteologists, and zooarchaeologists and to explore a shared methodological framework. Borrowing conceptual and methodological frameworks developed and used by vertebrate paleontologists and embedding them within a taphonomy- and zooarchaeology-oriented explanatory framework, I present a multivariate taphonomic approach and a comprehensive quantitative matrix using an Epipaleolithic archaeological bone bed from Karain B Cave, Turkey, as a case study. The multivariate taphonomic analysis probes the effect(s) of complex, interacting, depositional, and preservation agents. This methodological framework can be applied to both animal and human bone assemblages, can reveal assemblage formation processes, and can identify natural and cultural agents of bone accumulation, modification, and destruction. In this chapter, I first present a conceptual framework in which I review paleontological approaches to studying bone beds. Then I briefly present the necessary archaeological background to Karain B Cave and the Epipaleolithic bone bed as a case study. Lastly, I elaborate my taphonomic and zooarchaeological methodology. Drawing upon two lines of specific evidence, taxonomic composition and assemblage formation, the present work shows that the Epipaleolithic stratum PI.2 at Karain B is a macrofossil bone bed with multispecific, multitaxic, or multidominant taxonomic representation. As far as the genesis and formation processes are concerned, the archaeofaunal assemblage from the Epipaleolithic bone bed at Karain B provides a good example of human-accumulated and human-modified assemblage exhibiting differential bone preservation.

Spread of Domestic Animals across Neolithic Western Anatolia: New Zooarchaeological Evidence from Uğurlu Höyük, the Island of Gökçeada, Turkey

The zooarchaeological research presented here investigates Neolithic and Chalcolithic (ca. 6500–5000 cal. BC) animal exploitation strategies at Uğurlu Höyük on the Turkish island of Gökçeada in the northeastern Aegean Sea. Toward this end, we first discuss the results of our analysis of the zooarchaeological assemblages from Uğurlu Höyük and then consider the data within a wider regional explanatory framework using a diachronic approach, comparing them with those from western and northwestern Anatolian sites. The first settlers of Gökçeada were farmers who introduced domestic sheep, goats, cattle and pigs to the island as early as 6500 years BC. Our results align well with recently published zooarchaeological data on the westward spread of domestic animals across Turkey and the Neolithization of southeast Europe. Using an island site as a case study, we independently confirm that the dispersal of early farming was a polynucleated and multidirectional phenomenon that did not sweep across the land, replace everything on its way, and deliver the same “Neolithic package” everywhere. Instead, this complex process generated a diversity of human-animal interactions. Thus, studying the dispersal of early farmers from southwest Asia into southeast Europe via Anatolia requires a rigorous methodological approach to develop a fine-resolution picture of the variability seen in human adaptations and dispersals within complex and rapidly changing environmental and cultural settings. For this, the whole spectrum of human-animal interactions must be fully documented for each sub-region of southwest Asia and the circum-Mediterranean.

Archaeobotanical evidence for trade in hazelnut (Corylus sp.) at Middle Bronze Age Kültepe (c. 1950–1830 B.C.), Kayseri Province, Turkey

Archaeobotanical samples from the Middle Bronze Age (MBA; c. 2000–1700 b.c.) city of Kanesh, excavated at the site of Kültepe in Kayseri Province, Turkey, preserve the charred shells of hazelnut (Corylus sp.). Hazelnut species do not naturally grow in the Kayseri area, being a native element of the broadleaf woodlands of Turkey’s Black Sea region, today home to a multi-million dollar international hazelnut export industry. The finds come from both the upper and lower city, being restricted to the Middle Bronze Age Karum level II, an occupation phase which saw the greatest development of the Assyrian trade network of which Kanesh was the administrative centre. This archaeobotanical discovery at Kültepe provides the earliest direct evidence for trade in hazelnuts in the region, probably imported on a small scale as luxury items facilitated by the Assyrian trade network. It also provides independent support for historical claims that hazelnut was traded at Kanesh based on the analysis of cuneiform tablets.

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.