TY - JOUR
T1 - An endemic pathway to sheep and goat domestication at Aşikli Hoyuk (Central Anatolia, Turkey)
AU - Stiner, Mary C.
AU - Munro, Natalie D.
AU - Buitenhuis, Hijlke
AU - Duru, Günes
AU - Özbaşaran, Mihriban
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We owe many thanks to Ben Arbuckle, Jean-Denis Vigne, and Angelos Hadjikoumis for generously sharing information with us and to two anonymous reviewers and the handling PNAS editor for their critical comments, which have helped us greatly improve this paper. Our research was funded by Archaeology Program grants from the NSF (BCS-0912148 and BCS-1354138 to M.C.S.) and the Istanbul University Research Fund (Project Nos. 24030 and 25754 to M.O€.). We also wish to thank our colleagues and students for their unfailing support to the AH project as well as the community of Kızılkaya Village and the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, General Directorate of Cultural Assets and Museums.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/1/25
Y1 - 2022/1/25
N2 - Sheep and goats (caprines) were domesticated in Southwest Asia in the early Holocene, but how and in how many places remain open questions. This study investigates the initial conditions and trajectory of caprine domestication at Aşikli H€oy€uk, which preserves an unusually high-resolution record of the first 1,000 y of Neolithic existence in Central Anatolia. Our comparative analysis of caprine age and sex structures and related evidence reveals a local domestication process that began around 8400 cal BC. Caprine management at Aşikli segued through three viable systems. The earliest mode was embedded within a broad-spectrum foraging economy and directed to live meat storage on a small scale. This was essentially a "catch-and-grow" strategy that involved seasonal capture of wild lambs and kids from the surrounding highlands and raising them several months prior to slaughter within the settlement. The second mode paired modest levels of caprine reproduction on site with continued recruitment of wild infants. The third mode shows the hallmarks of a large-scale herding economy based on a large, reproductively viable captive population but oddly directed to harvesting adult animals, contra to most later Neolithic practices. Wild infant capture likely continued at a low level. The transitions were gradual but, with time, gave rise to early domesticated forms and monumental differences in human labor organization, settlement layout, and waste accumulation. Asikli was an independent center of caprine domestication and thus supports the multiple origins evolutionary model.
AB - Sheep and goats (caprines) were domesticated in Southwest Asia in the early Holocene, but how and in how many places remain open questions. This study investigates the initial conditions and trajectory of caprine domestication at Aşikli H€oy€uk, which preserves an unusually high-resolution record of the first 1,000 y of Neolithic existence in Central Anatolia. Our comparative analysis of caprine age and sex structures and related evidence reveals a local domestication process that began around 8400 cal BC. Caprine management at Aşikli segued through three viable systems. The earliest mode was embedded within a broad-spectrum foraging economy and directed to live meat storage on a small scale. This was essentially a "catch-and-grow" strategy that involved seasonal capture of wild lambs and kids from the surrounding highlands and raising them several months prior to slaughter within the settlement. The second mode paired modest levels of caprine reproduction on site with continued recruitment of wild infants. The third mode shows the hallmarks of a large-scale herding economy based on a large, reproductively viable captive population but oddly directed to harvesting adult animals, contra to most later Neolithic practices. Wild infant capture likely continued at a low level. The transitions were gradual but, with time, gave rise to early domesticated forms and monumental differences in human labor organization, settlement layout, and waste accumulation. Asikli was an independent center of caprine domestication and thus supports the multiple origins evolutionary model.
KW - Forager-producer transition
KW - Mortality patterns
KW - Pre-Pottery Neolithic
KW - Sheep and goat management
KW - Zooarchaeology
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2110930119
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2110930119
M3 - Article
C2 - 35042793
AN - SCOPUS:85123064208
VL - 119
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
SN - 0027-8424
IS - 4
M1 - e2110930119
ER -