COMMENTARY
Origins of caprine herding Douglas Baird1 Department of Archaeology, Classics, and Egyptology, Liverpool University, Liverpool L69 3GS, United Kingdom
The PNAS article by Stiner et al. (1), “A forager–herder trade-off, from broad-spectrum hunting to sheep management at As¸ıklı Höyük, Turkey,” adds a major new element to our evidence for—and understanding of— the appearance of the first animal herding in southwest Asia, involving the earliest management of caprines (managed caprines including sheep and goat), as well as an important methodological good-practice case study of ways to identify and understand this phenomenon. Two caprine species, sheep and goat, seem to have been the world’s earliest herded animals (a third caprine species in this region, ibex, does not seem to have been herded), although the dog was domesticated many millennia earlier.
Obviously, dating is crucial, and without specific radiocarbon dates published that can be directly related to key elements of the stratigraphy, it is difficult to fully assess the evidence for caprine herding at As¸ıklı before 8400 cal B.C. A long occupation sequence for Level 4 is suggested that could start early in the ninth millennium cal B.C., and this would place central Anatolian innovation in herd animal management as among the earliest examples of such practices, but the absence of the published dating sequence for As¸ıklı Level 4 limits conclusions. Nevertheless, because evidence clearly indicates caprine herding by 8400 cal B.C., it is clear that central Anatolia sees the appearance of this practice contemporaneously with southeastern Turkey, the northern LeEvidence for the Role of Central Anatolia vant, and the northern Zagros. Until this in the Emergence of Early Herding
The role of central Anatolian communities in the appearance of the earliest animal herding has been unclear until now, with limited evidence published in relation to other areas in southwest Asia. The As¸ıklı evidence (relating to the Cappadocia area of central Anatolia) convincingly demonstrates caprine herding (particularly sheep) as early as any other areas where a well-founded case has been proposed. For example, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent (modern day northern Syria and southeastern Turkey) early evidence of caprine herding has been suggested for Nevali Çori on the Upper Euphrates based on herd demography (2), probably contemporary with the best-dated element of the As¸ıklı Level 4 sequence (i.e. 8400–8100 cal B.C.). Further east in the Zagros mountains (eastern Iraq and western Iran), evidence suggests goat herding clearly evident at Ganj Dareh based on demography of the goat culling, directly dated to approximately 8000 cal B.C. (3), with animal dung well-attested at contemporary phases of Sheikh-e Abad (4). The introduction of caprines to Cyprus occurs in this chronological phase (around 8500–8000 cal B.C.), early pre-pottery Neolithic B in Levantine terms, although pig may have been introduced earlier (5).
It is clear that in the ninth millennium cal B.C. caprines were kept very close to the As¸ıklı community. point central Anatolia has not been appreciated to be part of the zone that participated in the development of the first animal herding. We can now thus see a quasicontemporary phase of animal herding in the midninth millennium cal B.C. that includes the phenomenon of the transport of a suite of animals to Cyprus (some or many of which may not have been herded). The fact that this is a widespread supraregional, rather than geographically restricted and regional phenomenon, requires distinct forms of explanation; additionally, the particular circumstances of the central Anatolian record will require peculiar sorts of explanation for the appearance of early herded animals. What of the mechanisms for the appearance of early animal herding at As¸ıklı? This partly involves the question of the dates raised above. If herding does go back to 9000 cal B.C., the evidence would be strongly in favor of indigenous development of caprine herding. This is certainly very possible because Epipaleolithic evidence from the cen-
8702–8703 | PNAS | June 17, 2014 | vol. 111 | no. 24
tral Anatolian plateau clearly indicates the common exploitation of caprines through hunting at the site of Pınarbas¸ı (6). If the dates indicate the appearance of herded caprines at approximately 8500 cal B.C., a different scenario would be possible. As the evidence of mid-ninth millennium Cyprus suggests, people were able to transport animals in challenging circumstances over distance, whether through exchange or colonization or both. It is thus not impossible that the morphologically wild caprines herded at As¸ıklı could have been introduced from other regions. Until the question of mechanism is more clearly resolved the full possibilities of the contribution of this evidence to explanations for the appearance of herding will not be realized. Stiner et al. (1) argue, as with other scholars for other parts of southwest Asia, that caprine management evolved as a response to the increasing energy costs of procuring meat from medium and large mammals through hunting, consequent upon the impact of cultivation and sedentary habitation on local game densities and proximity to settlements. Hunting in this situation, it is argued, would have needed ever more time- and energy-consuming activity, encouraging new strategies. However, because evidence of the appearance of caprine herding seems coeval, in central Anatolia—with the appearance of crop cultivation—this explanation actually seems unlikely in this context. There is no evidence of a period during which sedentary cultivators impact on local animal populations and landscapes in central Anatolia, preceding the appearance of herding, unlike the Levant, for example. The probable simultaneous adoption of cultivation and herding in the As¸ıklı case can rather be seen as responses in central Anatolia to similar possibilities and challenges. As indicated, a quite different set of factors may have operated in the Levant. Explanations for the Emergence of Early Herding
The other major achievement of the Stiner et al. report (1) is that we can understand Author contributions: D.B. wrote the paper. The author declares no conflict of interest. See companion article on page 8404 of issue 23 in volume 111. 1
E-mail: [email protected].
www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1406870111
Baird
communities as phenomena that transcended individual generations. The clear evidence of early herding at As¸ıklı Level 4, dating to approximately 8400– 8200 cal B.C., also points to intriguing variability in human–animal relationships over relatively small distances, and that different communities may have responded to the possibilities of practices, such as animal herding, in a very variable manner. Thus, approximately 150 km to the west of As¸ıklı at the contemporary site of Boncuklu in the Konya Plain, dating to approximately 8400– 7800 cal B.C., there is no evidence of any major uptake of caprine herding (7). In terms of meat acquisition the community at Boncuklu had a focus on aurochs and boar hunting, fishing, and fowling. A focus on
traditional wetland exploitation by this farming community led to either very modest or no interest in animal herding, even though that community was certainly aware of the practices in Cappadocia, because over 90% of the Boncuklu chipped stone tool assemblage derives from Cappadocia, from obsidian sources near As¸ıklı. Finally the Stiner et al. report (1) indicates that only multiple strands of evidence—here phytoliths, animal demographies, morphological evidence, dung studies as part of soil micromorphology—really allow us to approach the questions involved in the appearance of animal herding. When these are combined in the future with ancient DNA studies we can expect exciting outcomes.
1 Stiner MC, et al. (2014) A forager–herder trade-off, from broadspectrum hunting to sheep management at As¸ıklı Höyük, Turkey. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 111(23):8404–8409. 2 Peters J, von den Driesch A, Helmer D (2005) in The First Steps of Animal Domestication: New Archaeobiological Approaches, eds Vigne J-D, Peters J, Helmer D (Oxbow, Oxford), pp 96–124. 3 Zeder M (2005) in The First Steps of Animal Domestication: New Archaeobiological Approaches, eds Vigne J-D, Peters J, Helmer D (Oxbow, Oxford), pp 125–147. 4 Matthews R, Mohammadifar Y, Matthews W, Motarjem A (2010) Investigating the Early Neolithic of western Iran: The Central Zagros Archaeological Project (CZAP). Antiquity 84(323). Available at www. antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/matthews323/. Accessed June 2, 2014.
5 Vigne J-D, Carrère I, Briois F, Jean Guilaine J (2011) The early process of mammal domestication in the Near East: New evidence from the Pre-Neolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic in Cyprus. Curr Anthropol 52(S4):S255–S271. 6 Baird D, et al. (2013) Juniper smoke, skulls and wolves’ tails. The Epipalaeolithic of the Anatolian plateau in its South-west Asian context; insights from Pınarbas¸ı. Levant 45(2):175–209. 7 Baird D, Fairbairn A, Martin L, Middleton C (2012) in Neolithic in Turkey: New Excavations, New Discoveries, eds Ozdogan M, Bas¸gelen N, Kuniholm P (Arkeoloji v Sanat Yayinlari, Istanbul), pp 219–244.
PNAS | June 17, 2014 | vol. 111 | no. 24 | 8703
COMMENTARY
something of the nature of early herding practice from the evidence. It is clear that in the ninth millennium cal B.C. caprines were kept very close to the As¸ıklı community, with large quantities of dung on the site, including stabling deposits and the perinatal material. The bringing of animals for extended periods into the settlement can help us understand factors involved in the initiation of herding. In this context caprines are integrated closely with household activity in the settlement, and therefore seem likely to be integral to the creation of households and resource accumulation. Caprines would here have been an evident feature of the settlementscape and, like the houses themselves, would testify to the reproductive success of the household, in both biological and social terms. One presumes that the scale of herdkeeping indicated for most of As¸ıklı Level 4, with approximately 50% of the faunal assemblage on site being caprines and so much dung, was based on strong choices selecting for behaviors that in earlier periods had involved the sporadic taming of these animals (whether that process took place in central Anatolia or elsewhere). We can thus see this sort of herding as important in underwriting and visibly testifying to the construction of households and
Origins of caprine herding Douglas Baird1 Department of Archaeology, Classics, and Egyptology, Liverpool University, Liverpool L69 3GS, United Kingdom
The PNAS article by Stiner et al. (1), “A forager–herder trade-off, from broad-spectrum hunting to sheep management at As¸ıklı Höyük, Turkey,” adds a major new element to our evidence for—and understanding of— the appearance of the first animal herding in southwest Asia, involving the earliest management of caprines (managed caprines including sheep and goat), as well as an important methodological good-practice case study of ways to identify and understand this phenomenon. Two caprine species, sheep and goat, seem to have been the world’s earliest herded animals (a third caprine species in this region, ibex, does not seem to have been herded), although the dog was domesticated many millennia earlier.
Obviously, dating is crucial, and without specific radiocarbon dates published that can be directly related to key elements of the stratigraphy, it is difficult to fully assess the evidence for caprine herding at As¸ıklı before 8400 cal B.C. A long occupation sequence for Level 4 is suggested that could start early in the ninth millennium cal B.C., and this would place central Anatolian innovation in herd animal management as among the earliest examples of such practices, but the absence of the published dating sequence for As¸ıklı Level 4 limits conclusions. Nevertheless, because evidence clearly indicates caprine herding by 8400 cal B.C., it is clear that central Anatolia sees the appearance of this practice contemporaneously with southeastern Turkey, the northern LeEvidence for the Role of Central Anatolia vant, and the northern Zagros. Until this in the Emergence of Early Herding
The role of central Anatolian communities in the appearance of the earliest animal herding has been unclear until now, with limited evidence published in relation to other areas in southwest Asia. The As¸ıklı evidence (relating to the Cappadocia area of central Anatolia) convincingly demonstrates caprine herding (particularly sheep) as early as any other areas where a well-founded case has been proposed. For example, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent (modern day northern Syria and southeastern Turkey) early evidence of caprine herding has been suggested for Nevali Çori on the Upper Euphrates based on herd demography (2), probably contemporary with the best-dated element of the As¸ıklı Level 4 sequence (i.e. 8400–8100 cal B.C.). Further east in the Zagros mountains (eastern Iraq and western Iran), evidence suggests goat herding clearly evident at Ganj Dareh based on demography of the goat culling, directly dated to approximately 8000 cal B.C. (3), with animal dung well-attested at contemporary phases of Sheikh-e Abad (4). The introduction of caprines to Cyprus occurs in this chronological phase (around 8500–8000 cal B.C.), early pre-pottery Neolithic B in Levantine terms, although pig may have been introduced earlier (5).
It is clear that in the ninth millennium cal B.C. caprines were kept very close to the As¸ıklı community. point central Anatolia has not been appreciated to be part of the zone that participated in the development of the first animal herding. We can now thus see a quasicontemporary phase of animal herding in the midninth millennium cal B.C. that includes the phenomenon of the transport of a suite of animals to Cyprus (some or many of which may not have been herded). The fact that this is a widespread supraregional, rather than geographically restricted and regional phenomenon, requires distinct forms of explanation; additionally, the particular circumstances of the central Anatolian record will require peculiar sorts of explanation for the appearance of early herded animals. What of the mechanisms for the appearance of early animal herding at As¸ıklı? This partly involves the question of the dates raised above. If herding does go back to 9000 cal B.C., the evidence would be strongly in favor of indigenous development of caprine herding. This is certainly very possible because Epipaleolithic evidence from the cen-
8702–8703 | PNAS | June 17, 2014 | vol. 111 | no. 24
tral Anatolian plateau clearly indicates the common exploitation of caprines through hunting at the site of Pınarbas¸ı (6). If the dates indicate the appearance of herded caprines at approximately 8500 cal B.C., a different scenario would be possible. As the evidence of mid-ninth millennium Cyprus suggests, people were able to transport animals in challenging circumstances over distance, whether through exchange or colonization or both. It is thus not impossible that the morphologically wild caprines herded at As¸ıklı could have been introduced from other regions. Until the question of mechanism is more clearly resolved the full possibilities of the contribution of this evidence to explanations for the appearance of herding will not be realized. Stiner et al. (1) argue, as with other scholars for other parts of southwest Asia, that caprine management evolved as a response to the increasing energy costs of procuring meat from medium and large mammals through hunting, consequent upon the impact of cultivation and sedentary habitation on local game densities and proximity to settlements. Hunting in this situation, it is argued, would have needed ever more time- and energy-consuming activity, encouraging new strategies. However, because evidence of the appearance of caprine herding seems coeval, in central Anatolia—with the appearance of crop cultivation—this explanation actually seems unlikely in this context. There is no evidence of a period during which sedentary cultivators impact on local animal populations and landscapes in central Anatolia, preceding the appearance of herding, unlike the Levant, for example. The probable simultaneous adoption of cultivation and herding in the As¸ıklı case can rather be seen as responses in central Anatolia to similar possibilities and challenges. As indicated, a quite different set of factors may have operated in the Levant. Explanations for the Emergence of Early Herding
The other major achievement of the Stiner et al. report (1) is that we can understand Author contributions: D.B. wrote the paper. The author declares no conflict of interest. See companion article on page 8404 of issue 23 in volume 111. 1
E-mail: [email protected].
www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1406870111
Baird
communities as phenomena that transcended individual generations. The clear evidence of early herding at As¸ıklı Level 4, dating to approximately 8400– 8200 cal B.C., also points to intriguing variability in human–animal relationships over relatively small distances, and that different communities may have responded to the possibilities of practices, such as animal herding, in a very variable manner. Thus, approximately 150 km to the west of As¸ıklı at the contemporary site of Boncuklu in the Konya Plain, dating to approximately 8400– 7800 cal B.C., there is no evidence of any major uptake of caprine herding (7). In terms of meat acquisition the community at Boncuklu had a focus on aurochs and boar hunting, fishing, and fowling. A focus on
traditional wetland exploitation by this farming community led to either very modest or no interest in animal herding, even though that community was certainly aware of the practices in Cappadocia, because over 90% of the Boncuklu chipped stone tool assemblage derives from Cappadocia, from obsidian sources near As¸ıklı. Finally the Stiner et al. report (1) indicates that only multiple strands of evidence—here phytoliths, animal demographies, morphological evidence, dung studies as part of soil micromorphology—really allow us to approach the questions involved in the appearance of animal herding. When these are combined in the future with ancient DNA studies we can expect exciting outcomes.
1 Stiner MC, et al. (2014) A forager–herder trade-off, from broadspectrum hunting to sheep management at As¸ıklı Höyük, Turkey. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 111(23):8404–8409. 2 Peters J, von den Driesch A, Helmer D (2005) in The First Steps of Animal Domestication: New Archaeobiological Approaches, eds Vigne J-D, Peters J, Helmer D (Oxbow, Oxford), pp 96–124. 3 Zeder M (2005) in The First Steps of Animal Domestication: New Archaeobiological Approaches, eds Vigne J-D, Peters J, Helmer D (Oxbow, Oxford), pp 125–147. 4 Matthews R, Mohammadifar Y, Matthews W, Motarjem A (2010) Investigating the Early Neolithic of western Iran: The Central Zagros Archaeological Project (CZAP). Antiquity 84(323). Available at www. antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/matthews323/. Accessed June 2, 2014.
5 Vigne J-D, Carrère I, Briois F, Jean Guilaine J (2011) The early process of mammal domestication in the Near East: New evidence from the Pre-Neolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic in Cyprus. Curr Anthropol 52(S4):S255–S271. 6 Baird D, et al. (2013) Juniper smoke, skulls and wolves’ tails. The Epipalaeolithic of the Anatolian plateau in its South-west Asian context; insights from Pınarbas¸ı. Levant 45(2):175–209. 7 Baird D, Fairbairn A, Martin L, Middleton C (2012) in Neolithic in Turkey: New Excavations, New Discoveries, eds Ozdogan M, Bas¸gelen N, Kuniholm P (Arkeoloji v Sanat Yayinlari, Istanbul), pp 219–244.
PNAS | June 17, 2014 | vol. 111 | no. 24 | 8703
COMMENTARY
something of the nature of early herding practice from the evidence. It is clear that in the ninth millennium cal B.C. caprines were kept very close to the As¸ıklı community, with large quantities of dung on the site, including stabling deposits and the perinatal material. The bringing of animals for extended periods into the settlement can help us understand factors involved in the initiation of herding. In this context caprines are integrated closely with household activity in the settlement, and therefore seem likely to be integral to the creation of households and resource accumulation. Caprines would here have been an evident feature of the settlementscape and, like the houses themselves, would testify to the reproductive success of the household, in both biological and social terms. One presumes that the scale of herdkeeping indicated for most of As¸ıklı Level 4, with approximately 50% of the faunal assemblage on site being caprines and so much dung, was based on strong choices selecting for behaviors that in earlier periods had involved the sporadic taming of these animals (whether that process took place in central Anatolia or elsewhere). We can thus see this sort of herding as important in underwriting and visibly testifying to the construction of households and
