Spatial Variation and the Origins of Agriculture

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Dr. Natalie Munro of the University of Connecticut will provide a local scale investigation of the transition to agriculture, while addressing contentious debates over long-term subsistence evolution, the emergence of settled life, and the process of plant and animal domestication. The origins to agriculture had a profound impact on all aspects of human sociocultural life. Although research once emphasized single origins of agricultural products, accumulating data increasingly support multiregional models that emphasize local scale processes in the emergence and adoption of agriculture. This project will take an essential next step: the creation of a high-resolution, local-scale reconstruction of the transition to agriculture and the process of plant and animal domestication. Detailed reconstructions of local-scale forager-farmer transition are few, but are necessary to map study how ideas, plants and animals were innovated and transferred across much larger time scales and geographic areas. Although the forager-farmer transition is most often viewed dichotomously as an adoption versus an in situ scenario, Dr. Munro and colleagues will consider information exchange and the movement of plants and animals among localities in Southwest Asia via interaction networks. The project will provide student training and education, foster international collaboration and engage in public outreach. Results will be disseminated to public audiences through a museum exhibit, articles for public audiences, and a series of lectures. This study will contribute to the study of agricultural origins by providing, a high-resolution dataset for the Upper Jordan Valley (UJV) of Israel. The UJV provides an especially interesting test case because of its unique ecological conditions created by a large fresh-water system, its low elevation and the accessibility of trade routes through the larger Rift Valley. These conditions also allow investigation of more specific socioeconomic questions about topics such as aquatic resource exploitation and the impact of climatic events like the Younger Dryas. Investigation will center on three Epipaleolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites in the UJV. These include Jordan River Dureijat and Nahal Ein Gev II which together will provide the first complete Epipaleolithic sequence for the UJV, and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Munhatta. More specifically activities will include: (1) test excavations and sampling at Munhatta. Micromorphological, sediment, isotope and zooarchaeological sampling at this critical site will investigate animal keeping, animal mobility, animal exchange and the importance of cereal grasses; (2) the collection of a comprehensive zooarchaeological database from published Epipaleolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites from the Upper Jordan Valley and more broadly across Southwest Asia to enable a comparative meta-analysis of regional plant and animal domestication pathways, and document the range of methods and measures used to detect the process of animal and plant domestication in adjacent regions; and (3) the collection of zooarchaeological data from Jordan River Dureijat and Nahal Ein Gev II.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.