Nerissa Russell

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).

The Wild Side of Animal Domestication

This paper examines not the process but the concept of nonhuman animal domestication. Domestication involves both biological and cultural components. Creating a category of domestic animals means constructing and crossing the boundaries between human and animal, culture and nature. The concept of domestication thus structures the thinking both of researchers in the present and of domesticators and herders in the past. Some have argued for abandoning the notion of domestication in favor of a continuum of human-nonhuman animal relationships. Although many human-animal relationships cannot be neatly pigeonholed as wild or domestic, this paper contends that the concept of domestication retains its utility.There is a critical distinction between animals as a resource and animals as property. Domestication itself had profound consequences for the societies and worldview of the domesticators and their descendents. In addition to the material effects of animal wealth, domestic animals provide both a rich source of metaphor and a model of domination that can be extended to humans.

Dance of the Cranes: Crane symbolism at Çatalhöyük and beyond

In this article, the authors reveal the symbolic role of cranes at Neolithic Catalhoyuk, Turkey. Worked bones of the Common Crane (Grus grus) are interpreted as coming from a spread wing used in dances, a ritual practice perhaps connected with the celebration of marriage.

Arson or Accident? The Burning of a Neolithic House at Çatalhöyük, Turkey

Abstract This paper presents the results of interdisciplinary research on the recently excavated Building 52 at the Anatolian Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. This building provides the richest combination of faunal, botanical, and lithic assemblages of all those uncovered since work at the site was renewed in 1995. Occupation of the building ended with a high-temperature fire, after which a portion of it was emptied and reoccupied. Our research synthesizes numerous data sets in order to describe the house and its sequence of incineration, modification, and reuse. Particular attention is paid to the intentionality of the burning and its interpretive implications. These data contribute to ongoing archaeological discussions of the nature of house abandonment and the intersection of ritual and domestic lift in early agricultural societies.

Plants and Animals Together Interpreting Organic Remains from Building 52 at Catalhoyuk

This paper explores plant and animal distributions inside a Neolithic burned house in order to investigate domestic organization in an early farming society. We use GIS to analyze the spatial distributions of plant and animal remains found inside Building 52 at Çatalhöyük in central Anatolia. We examine how plant and animal stores, food and nonfood materials, and wild and domestic taxa were configured spatially. Results shed light on the logistics of early storage, the importance of economic privacy, and the significance of the “domestic” versus “wild” distinction to early farmers.

Building memories: commemorative deposits at Çatalhöyük

Russell N., Martin L. & Twiss K.C. 2009. — Building memories: commemorative deposits at Çatalhöyük. Anthropozoologica 44(1): 103-128. ABSTRACT Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey, is well known for its incorporation of animal parts into architecture: bucrania, horns in benches, etc. We examine the less visible placement of items in pits or built into remodeling inside houses to commemorate particular events. Animal parts feature prominently in these deposits, typically found under platforms on the south and west of the house, while human burials are usually in the north and east. We examine the range of contents of these commemorative deposits in relation to other lines of evidence regarding the consumption and meanings of animals at Çatalhöyük.

Navigating the Human-Animal Boundary

Animals have long figured in anthropology, but human-animal relations have come into focus in recent decades. The topic links anthropologys sub-disciplines by exploring the biological and cultural nature of both humans and animals in the past and present, as well as articulating with similar concerns in other disciplines. While anthropology is defined in terms of the separation of humans from animals, this exploration exposes the permeability of the human-animal boundary, transcended by thinking animals, bestial ancestors, and trans-species empathy. This forces a rethinking of the nature of personhood: is it only for people?

Agricultural origins on the Anatolian plateau

Significance We demonstrate that the initial spread of farming outside of the area of its first appearance in the Fertile Crescent of Southwest Asia, into Central Anatolia, involved adoption of cultivars by indigenous foragers and contemporary experimentation in animal herding of local species. This represents a rare clear-cut instance of forager adoption and sustained low-level food production. We have also demonstrated that farming uptake was not uniform, with some forager communities rejecting it despite proximity to early farming communities. We also show that adoption of small-scale cultivation could still have significant social consequences for the communities concerned. The evidence suggests forager adoption of cultivation and initiation of herding was not necessarily motivated by simple economic concerns of increasing levels of food production and security. This paper explores the explanations for, and consequences of, the early appearance of food production outside the Fertile Crescent of Southwest Asia, where it originated in the 10th/9th millennia cal BC. We present evidence that cultivation appeared in Central Anatolia through adoption by indigenous foragers in the mid ninth millennium cal BC, but also demonstrate that uptake was not uniform, and that some communities chose to actively disregard cultivation. Adoption of cultivation was accompanied by experimentation with sheep/goat herding in a system of low-level food production that was integrated into foraging practices rather than used to replace them. Furthermore, rather than being a short-lived transitional state, low-level food production formed part of a subsistence strategy that lasted for several centuries, although its adoption had significant long-term social consequences for the adopting community at Boncuklu. Material continuities suggest that Boncuklu’s community was ancestral to that seen at the much larger settlement of Çatalhöyük East from 7100 cal BC, by which time a modest involvement with food production had been transformed into a major commitment to mixed farming, allowing the sustenance of a very large sedentary community. This evidence from Central Anatolia illustrates that polarized positions explaining the early spread of farming, opposing indigenous adoption to farmer colonization, are unsuited to understanding local sequences of subsistence and related social change. We go beyond identifying the mechanisms for the spread of farming by investigating the shorter- and longer-term implications of rejecting or adopting farming practices.

Feathers and talons: birds at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey

Bird remains are few compared to mammals at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, but thanks in part to an extensive flotation program, an assemblage of more than 1300 specimens from secure contexts has been recovered and studied, covering nearly the entire ca. 1100-year sequence from the Neolithic East Mound. The Çatalhöyük inhabitants heavily targeted water birds throughout the sequence. However, the overall relative stability in taxa through time conceals considerable household variation both in areas of the landscape exploited and particular species taken or avoided. As I have argued for the mammals, this may result in part from taboos on some birds, notably herons, that apply only to certain households or other social categories. Indeed, in contrast to earlier sites nearby, the meatier portions of the skeleton are underrepresented at Çatalhöyük, with legs and especially wings predominating. Feathers were likely a major motivation for taking many of the birds, some of them used for costumes. Some bird bones appear in special deposits indicating a symbolic role for, at least, cranes, vultures, crows, and spoonbills.

Animals and humans in complex societies

Zooarchaeology, once largely confined to questions of subsistence and production strategies, has recently devoted much more attention to the social roles of animals in the past. Responding (belatedly) to trends in archaeological theory, on the one hand, and the growth of interdisciplinary animal studies, on the other, zooarchaeologists are now using animal remains to address a broader range of questions that are of interest to archaeologists and others (e.g. Gifford-Gonzalez 2007; Oma 2010; Hill 2013). The three books here exemplify this development, all using zooarchaeological data to explore the varied roles of animals in (mainly) complex societies. Each ranges widely and demonstrates the centrality of animals in the human world, and, therefore, their great potential to illuminate the workings of ancient societies. Each also integrates zooarchaeological data with many other sources of information to create a whole much greater than any of the parts. There is a little overlap in authorship, with a chapter by Sykes in Animals and inequality in the ancient world and contributions by Michael MacKinnon in both edited volumes. These common threads aside, they are quite different books, with different goals and audiences.