Investigating the Neo-lithic Transition

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The fundamental goal of this research is to provide insight into the process of human - environmental interaction, and how human and natural systems, each influence the other. The early Neo-lithic period was perhaps the greatest transition in human record--a time of dramatic change in which people moved from a foraging lifestyle to a farming-based one, thus altering both the course of human history and our place in environmental systems. Although we recognize the significance of the Neo-lithic period, it remains poorly documented. Improved documentation of this important time period of human change may help us better understand our present day rapid technical change.With the support of the National Science Foundation, Dr. Mary Stiner and an international team of archaeologists will investigate the very beginnings of sheep domestication and herding practices in the Middle East. The research focuses on the social and economic consequences of early sheep management and related changes to the human-built environment. The study will be conducted at one of the first settlements in central Turkey, the pre-pottery Neolithic site of Aþýklý Höyük (transl. ankle-bone hill), dating to the interval of 10,300-11,000 years ago. Using the theoretical framework of human-animal co-evolution, this study considers how iterative problem-solving altered the conditions of selection for both humans and sheep across roughly 50 human generations. The investigation will be accomplished through an integrated study of animal bones, geological traces and botanical (phytolith) remains from the site. The transitional period between foraging and food-producing societies is poorly known, in stark contrast to a wealth of information on the later Neolithic. Prior research at Aþýklý Höyük by the PI and colleagues has demonstrated that sheep were held captive on site. Managing sheep in this way brought on both advantages and challenges to these people. Such close human-animal proximity is expected to have provoked novel strategies of waste and pest management, alterations in architecture and community layout, and reorganization of social institutions surrounding the exploitation of these animals. This study will provide critical information on the day-to-day contexts of animal management in its formative stages, and how this initial history of close interaction between humans and animals set society on a new path of socioeconomic change. The investigation will also shed light on the "selection rules" that ultimately produced domesticated forms of sheep. The research is innovative in its implementation of an interdisciplinary approach to test ideas drawn in a developmental evolutionary framework. The study will last 3 years (2014-2017), and NSF funds will contribute to excavation and material recovery costs and support a wide range of specialized laboratory studies in radiocarbon dating, sediment micromorphology, phytolith analysis, and zooarchaeology. NSF funds will also cover travel and per diem costs for the PI, collaborators and UA graduate students, and provide short-term focused training opportunities for Turkish PhD students in archaeological science. The broader impacts of this research center on the surprising relations between small, cumulative innovations in animal management and their long-term effects on fundamental qualities of human society. Nearly every aspect of modern human existence is touched in some way by our dependence upon domestic plants and animals. Humans' concerted use and manipulation of a select few species (including sheep) has altered the course of history and greatly affected humans place in natural systems. As profound as some of these effects have been, scientists and a keenly interested public still do not understand how the processes were set in motion. The archaeology of Aþýklý Höyük is sufficiently detailed and continuous to serve as a laboratory for wedding our understandings of ecological and social evolutionary processes behind the story of animal domestication. The research meanwhile addresses larger needs for integrative approaches in domestication research and the development of skilled, creative scientists for the next generation.