Doctoral Dissertation Research: Factors Underlying Animal Domestication

在过去的一万年里发生的、影响到世界各地所有人口的最重要的“革命”也许就是动植物的驯化。为了理解影响当今世界社会发展的因素，必须考虑到这一因素。这项研究探讨并有可能揭示一个物种的驯化所涉及的多种，复杂和相互作用的力量。在娜塔莉·芒罗博士的指导下，杰奎琳·迈耶将通过对新石器时代前陶器B（PPNB）考古遗址Kfar HaHoresh（KHH）（约1000年）的动物骨骼进行分析，研究古代的仪式习俗。公元前8500-6750卡尔），以色列。KHH是PPNB中一个罕见的仪式中心，这是一个以西南亚山羊驯化为标志的相当大的生存变化时期。动物驯化，即野生动物被人类基因改造和驯服的过程，是从觅食到农业转变的关键组成部分，并不可逆转地彻底改变了人们与动物以及彼此之间的互动方式。尽管采集者到农民的转变所涉及的社会、经济和意识形态变化在日常生活中密切互动，但这些变化通常被单独考虑。当这些因素结合在一起时，就有更大的力量来评估中东和大西南亚部分地区新石器化进程的驱动因素。KHH的PPNB遗址是一个理想的环境，通过在人类历史上这个关键时刻的经济变革背景下探索仪式实践来整合这些方面。这个位于以色列加利利地区拿撒勒山的隐蔽的停尸房遗址已经产生了涉及动物的仪式活动的挑衅性证据。这包括人类埋葬与相关的动物遗骸，一个大型的盛宴坑包含野牛的遗骸，以及不太明显的小藏匿动物部分和处置事件的沉积物。这个项目将有助于最近的研究集中在新石器时代的仪式实践的特殊例子，通过改进方法来检测不太明显的类型涉及动物的仪式活动。动物骨头将被用来记录KHH仪式中使用的物种和身体部位的类型。此外，人口统计资料和体型数据将用于确定KHH的山羊是家养的还是野生的，因为家养动物在仪式中的象征作用和经济价值与野生动物不同。通过揭示KHH在有组织的宗教和动物驯化的黎明时期所进行的各种仪式，本研究将探讨新的仪式实践如何在同期经济变革的背景下发展。该项目将为农业起源、PPN仪式的功能和象征意义以及山羊驯化过程的核心辩论提供高分辨率的动物生存和动物管理数据。动物群数据库将在出版后通过开放的互联网访问提供，以便其他研究该地区和周边地区驯化的人可以使用它进行比较。该项目还将制定标准，以确定与仪式做法有关的沉积物，这将适用于不同时间和地点的一系列考古遗址。最后，本研究将有助于美国和以色列学者之间的研究交流。长期的数据收集期和与KHH考古实地学校的持续合作将为研究生和本科生提供实地和实验室动物骨骼和牙齿鉴定和管理技术方面的培训。

Perhaps the most important "revolution" which has occurred in the past ten millennia and which has affected all populations in all parts of the world is the domestication of plants and animals. To understand the factors which have shaped the development of world societies today this factor must be taken into account. This research examines and has the potential to shed light on the multiple, complex and interacting forces involved in the domestication of one species. Under the direction of Dr. Natalie Munro, Jacqueline Meier will investigate ancient ritual practices through the analysis of animal bones from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) archaeological site of Kfar HaHoresh (KHH)(ca. 8500-6750 cal BC), Israel. KHH served as a rare ritual center in the PPNB, a period of considerable subsistence change marked by goat domestication in Southwest Asia. Animal domestication, or the process by which wild animals became genetically modified and tamed by humans, was a key component of the transition from foraging to farming, and irreversibly revolutionized how people interact with animals and with each other. The social, economic and ideological changes that were involved in the forager-farmer transition are most often considered separately, despite close interaction between these components in daily life. When combined, these factors have much greater power to assess the drivers of the Neolithization process in parts of the Middle East and greater southwest Asia. The PPNB site of KHH is an ideal setting to integrate these aspects by exploring ritual practice against a backdrop of transformative economic change at this pivotal point in human history. This secluded mortuary site in the Nazareth Hills of the Israeli Galilee region has yielded provocative evidence of ritual activities involving animals. This includes human burials with associated animal remains, a large feasting pit containing the remains of wild cattle, as well as less obvious deposits of small caches of animal parts and disposal events. This project will contribute to recent studies focused on exceptional examples of Neolithic ritual practices by refining methods to detect less obvious types of ritual activities involving animals. Animal bones will be used to document the types of species and body-parts used in ritual practices at KHH. Additionally, demographic profiles and body-size data will be used to determine whether the goats from at KHH were domestic or wild, because domesticated animals have different symbolic roles and economic value in rituals than their wild counterparts. By revealing the full spectrum of rituals practiced at KHH during a period that has been linked to the dawn of organized religion and animal domestication, this study will investigate how new ritual practices developed within the context of contemporaneous economic change. This project will contribute high-resolution, faunal subsistence and animal management data to debates that are central to the origins of agriculture, the function and symbolism of PPN rituals and the process of goat domestication. The faunal database will be made available via open internet access following publication so that others studying domestication in this and surrounding regions can use it for comparison. This project will also develop criteria for identifying deposits associated with ritual practice, which will be applicable for an array of archaeological sites in different times and places. Finally, this study will contribute to the research exchange between American and Israeli scholars. A long-term data collection period and continued work with the KHH archaeological field school will provide graduate and undergraduate student training in animal bone and teeth identification and curation techniques in the field and lab.