Lior Weissbrod

Domestication Processes and Morphological Change

Little is known about the beginnings and spread of food production in the tropics, but recent research suggests that definitions that depend on morphological change may hamper recognition of early farming in these regions. The earliest form of food production in Africa developed in arid tropical grasslands. Animals were the earliest domesticates, and the mobility of early herders shaped the development of social and economic systems. Genetic data indicate that cattle were domesticated in North Africa and suggest domestication of two different African wild asses, in the Sahara and in the Horn. Cowpeas and pearl millet were domesticated several thousand years later, but some intensively used African plants have never undergone morphological change. Morphological, genetic, ethnoarchaeological, and behavioral research reveals relationships between management, animal behavior, selection, and domestication of the donkey. Donkeys eventually showed phenotypic and morphological changes distinctive of domestication, but the process was slow. This African research on domestication of the donkey and the development of pastoralism raises questions regarding how we conceptualize hunter-gatherer versus food-producer land use. It also suggests that we should focus more intently on the methods used to recognize management, agropastoral systems, and domestication events.

Earliest floral grave lining from 13,700–11,700-y-old Natufian burials at Raqefet Cave, Mt. Carmel, Israel

Flowering plants possess mechanisms that stimulate positive emotional and social responses in humans. It is difficult to establish when people started to use flowers in public and ceremonial events because of the scarcity of relevant evidence in the archaeological record. We report on uniquely preserved 13,700–11,700-y-old grave linings made of flowers, suggesting that such use began much earlier than previously thought. The only potentially older instance is the questionable use of flowers in the Shanidar IV Neanderthal grave. The earliest cemeteries (ca. 15,000–11,500 y ago) in the Levant are known from Natufian sites in northern Israel, where dozens of burials reflect a wide range of inhumation practices. The newly discovered flower linings were found in four Natufian graves at the burial site of Raqefet Cave, Mt. Carmel, Israel. Large identified plant impressions in the graves include stems of sage and other Lamiaceae (Labiatae; mint family) or Scrophulariaceae (figwort family) species; accompanied by a plethora of phytoliths, they provide the earliest direct evidence now known for such preparation and decoration of graves. Some of the plant species attest to spring burials with a strong emphasis on colorful and aromatic flowers. Cave floor chiseling to accommodate the desired grave location and depth is also evident at the site. Thus, grave preparation was a sophisticated planned process, embedded with social and spiritual meanings reflecting a complex preagricultural society undergoing profound changes at the end of the Pleistocene.

The earliest modern humans outside Africa

Earliest modern humans out of Africa Recent paleoanthropological studies have suggested that modern humans migrated from Africa as early as the beginning of the Late Pleistocene, 120,000 years ago. Hershkovitz et al. now suggest that early modern humans were already present outside of Africa more than 55,000 years earlier (see the Perspective by Stringer and Galway-Witham). During excavations of sediments at Mount Carmel, Israel, they found a fossil of a mouth part, a left hemimaxilla, with almost complete dentition. The sediments contain a series of well-defined hearths and a rich stone-based industry, as well as abundant animal remains. Analysis of the human remains, and dating of the site and the fossil itself, indicate a likely age of at least 177,000 years for the fossil—making it the oldest member of the Homo sapiens clade found outside Africa. Science, this issue p. 456; see also p. 389 Fossilized mouthparts indicate the presence of Homo sapiens in the Levant 160,000 years ago. To date, the earliest modern human fossils found outside of Africa are dated to around 90,000 to 120,000 years ago at the Levantine sites of Skhul and Qafzeh. A maxilla and associated dentition recently discovered at Misliya Cave, Israel, was dated to 177,000 to 194,000 years ago, suggesting that members of the Homo sapiens clade left Africa earlier than previously thought. This finding changes our view on modern human dispersal and is consistent with recent genetic studies, which have posited the possibility of an earlier dispersal of Homo sapiens around 220,000 years ago. The Misliya maxilla is associated with full-fledged Levallois technology in the Levant, suggesting that the emergence of this technology is linked to the appearance of Homo sapiens in the region, as has been documented in Africa.

Origins of house mice in ecological niches created by settled hunter-gatherers in the Levant 15,000 y ago

Significance Decreases in hunter-gatherer mobility during the Late Pleistocene altered relationships with animal communities and led to domestication. Little is known, however, about how selection operated in settlements of varying duration. This study of mice in modern African mobile settlements and ancient Levantine sites demonstrates competitive advantages for commensal mice when human mobility is low and niche partitioning with noncommensal wild mice when mobility increases. Changing mice molar shapes in a 200,000-y-long sequence from the Levant reveal that mice first colonized settlements of relatively settled hunter-gatherers 15,000 y ago. The first long-term hunter-gatherer settlements transformed ecological interactions and food webs, allowing commensal house mice to outcompete wild mice and establish durable populations that expanded with human societies. Reductions in hunter-gatherer mobility during the Late Pleistocene influenced settlement ecologies, altered human relations with animal communities, and played a pivotal role in domestication. The influence of variability in human mobility on selection dynamics and ecological interactions in human settlements has not been extensively explored, however. This study of mice in modern African villages and changing mice molar shapes in a 200,000-y-long sequence from the Levant demonstrates competitive advantages for commensal mice in long-term settlements. Mice from African pastoral households provide a referential model for habitat partitioning among mice taxa in settlements of varying durations. The data reveal the earliest known commensal niche for house mice in long-term forager settlements 15,000 y ago. Competitive dynamics and the presence and abundance of mice continued to fluctuate with human mobility through the terminal Pleistocene. At the Natufian site of Ain Mallaha, house mice displaced less commensal wild mice during periods of heavy occupational pressure but were outcompeted when mobility increased. Changing food webs and ecological dynamics in long-term settlements allowed house mice to establish durable commensal populations that expanded with human societies. This study demonstrates the changing magnitude of cultural niche construction with varying human mobility and the extent of environmental influence before the advent of farming.

Ancient Urban Ecology Reconstructed from Archaeozoological Remains of Small Mammals in the Near East

Modern rapidly expanding cities generate intricate patterns of species diversity owing to immense complexity in urban spatial structure and current growth trajectories. We propose to identify and uncouple the drivers that give rise to these patterns by looking at the effect of urbanism on species diversity over a previously unexplored long temporal frame that covers early developments in urbanism. To provide this historical perspective we analyzed archaeozoological remains of small mammals from ancient urban and rural sites in the Near East from the 2nd to the 1st millennium BCE, and compared them to observations from modern urban areas. Our data show that ancient urban assemblages consistently comprised two main taxa (Mus musculus domesticus and Crocidura sp.), whereas assemblages of contemporaneous rural sites were significantly richer. Low species diversity also characterizes high-density core areas of modern cities, suggesting that similar ecological drivers have continued to operate in urban areas despite the vast growth in their size and population densities, as well as in the complexity of their technologies and social organization. Research in urban ecology has tended to emphasize the relatively high species diversity observed in low-density areas located on the outskirts of cities, where open and vegetated patches are abundant. The fact that over several millennia urban evolution did not significantly alter species diversity suggests that low diversity is an attribute of densely-populated settlements. The possibility that high diversity in peripheral urban areas arose only recently as a short-term phenomenon in urban ecology merits further research based on long-term data.

Cats in recent Chinese study on cat domestication are commensal, not domesticated

Recent archaeological research in China is rewriting the story of the origins of agriculture and plant and animal domestication. The study by Hu et al. (1) presents findings regarding early cat–human interactions with implications for domestication unearthed in Middle-Late Yangshao (6,000–5,000 B.P.) cultural levels at the site of Quanhucun, Shaanxi Province in the context of early Chinese Neolithic agriculture. Evidence provided by the authors includes morphometric, isotopic, and carbon-14 analyses of the cat skeletal remains.

Satsurblia: new insights of human response and survival across the Last Glacial Maximum in the southern Caucasus.

The region of western Georgia (Imereti) has been a major geographic corridor for human migrations during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic (MP/UP). Knowledge of the MP and UP in this region, however, stems mostly from a small number of recent excavations at the sites of Ortvale Klde, Dzudzuana, Bondi, and Kotias Klde. These provide an absolute chronology for the Late MP and MP–UP transition, but only a partial perspective on the nature and timing of UP occupations, and limited data on how human groups in this region responded to the harsh climatic oscillations between 37,000–11,500 years before present. Here we report new UP archaeological sequences from fieldwork in Satsurblia cavein the same region. A series of living surfaces with combustion features, faunal remains, stone and bone tools, and ornaments provide new information about human occupations in this region (a) prior to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) at 25.5–24.4 ka cal. BP and (b) after the LGM at 17.9–16.2 ka cal. BP. The latter provides new evidence in the southern Caucasus for human occupation immediately after the LGM. The results of the campaigns in Satsurblia and Dzudzuana suggest that at present the most plausible scenario is one of a hiatus in the occupation of this region during the LGM (between 24.4–17.9 ka cal. BP). Analysis of the living surfaces at Satsurblia offers information about human activities such as the production and utilisation of lithics and bone tools, butchering, cooking and consumption of meat and wild cereals, the utilisation of fibers, and the use of certain woods. Microfaunal and palynological analyses point to fluctuations in the climate with consequent shifts in vegetation and the faunal spectrum not only before and after the LGM, but also during the two millennia following the end of the LGM.

Recent shrinkage of the range of the Eastern Spadefoot Toad, Pelobates syriacus (Amphibia: Anura): archaeological evidence from the Bronze Age in Israel

Abstract The analysis of the remains collected in the Ara Burial Cave in Lower Galilee, Israel (Late Bronze Age II, c. 1300-1200 BCE), permitted the identification of 725 anuran remains belonging mostly to Bufo viridis but also to Pelobates cf. syriacus. The origin of the anuran assemblage in Ara cave appears to be intrusive, probably related to the need to find aestivation shelter during the dry and hot summer season. Despite the relative rarity of Pelobates remains (attributable to a single individual), their presence in the Ara cave testifies to a wider range of the taxon in the recent past, since the cave is located outside its present range. Pelobates remains are also found in several Israeli Late Pleistocene archaeological sites that lie outside the present fragmented range of the species and completely fill its main gap in this country. This suggests recent environmental modifications, which may be due to climatic fluctuations as well as anthropogenic impact. An accurate analysis of the range contraction evidenced by the zooarchaeological record, and of the environmental changes that recently occurred in the region, should be taken into consideration in the preparation of soundly based conservation or reintroduction plans in Israel.

A glimpse of an ancient agricultural ecosystem based on remains of micromammals in the Byzantine Negev Desert

It is widely believed that Byzantine agriculture in the Negev Desert (fourth to seventh century Common Era; CE), with widespread construction of terraces and dams, altered local landscapes. However, no direct evidence in archaeological sites yet exists to test this assumption. We uncovered large amounts of small mammalian remains (rodents and insectivores) within agricultural installations built near fields, providing a new line of evidence for reconstructing anthropogenic impact on local habitats. Abandonment layers furnished high abundances of remains, whereas much smaller numbers were retrieved from the period of human use of the structures. Digestion marks are present in low frequencies (20% of long bones and teeth), with a light degree of impact, which indicate the role of owls (e.g. Tyto alba) as the principal means of accumulation. The most common taxa—gerbils (Gerbillus spp.) and jirds (Meriones spp.)—occur in nearly equal frequencies, which do not correspond with any modern Negev communities, where gerbils predominate in sandy low-precipitation environments and jirds in loessial, higher-precipitation ones. Although low-level climate change cannot be ruled out, the results suggest that Byzantine agriculture allowed jirds to colonize sandy anthropogenic habitats with other gerbilids and commensal mice and rats.

Reply to Dekel et al.: Preagricultural commensal niches for the house mouse and origins of human sedentism

In their letter, Dekel et al. (1) comment on our recent findings on the origin of house mice ( Mus musculus domesticus ) 15,000 y ago, ecological impacts of the first settled hunter-gatherers, and insights that this study provides on early domestication processes (2). They maintain that mice were parasitic with humans rather than commensal, and attracted by refuse and feeding opportunities in nomadic and sedentary hunter-gatherer settlements. Dekel et al. (1) contrast “negative” interactions with mice with the benefit that hunter-gatherers obtained from early interactions with wolves and wild boar. These arguments do not conform to empirical results from … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: lweissbr{at}research.haifa.ac.il or cucchi{at}mnhn.fr. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1