Ungulate domestication and early animal husbandry in the Upper Euphrates basin

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In large parts of the Fertile Crescent, the expansion of grasslands at the end of the Pleistocene had a profound impact on human subsistence, including the emergence of sedentism. While at this stage, hunting of grazing or mixed grazing-browsing wild herbivores provided the bulk of animal proteins, the early Holocene witnessed the domestication of Ov«, Capra, Sus, and Bos, and hence the emergence of livestock husbandry. Recognised recently as one of the key regions with respect to the Neolithic Revolution , our project aimed at a better understanding of the economic and environmental (pre)conditions prevailing in the northem Fertile Crescent from Natufian until PPN times, with a particular research focus on the early stages of ungulate domestication and livestock husbandry in the Upper Euphrates basin.Objectives: To (1) establish a more precise chronology for changes in the human-ruminant relationship in the study area, (2) reconstmct the environmental conditions characterising the Upper Euphrates basin during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, (3) trace the radius and geographic origin of PPN humans, game species and early domesticates from archaeological contexts; and (4) investigate the spreading of early animal husbandry beyond the Upper Euphrates basin. To answer these issues, macroscopic, microscopic, and biomolecular analyses would be applied to fmal Pleistocene and early Holocene human and animal remains from sites in SE-Anatolia and N-Syria in order to trace diachronic and regional changes in ungulate exploitation pattems, herbivore body mass, stable isotope signatures, and mtDNA diversity in early livestock and their wild relatives. Bone specimens would be submitted for *C-dating to provide a more precise timeframe for marked anthropogenic influences on the life cycles of food animals.In the first two years ofthe project, archaeozoological research would comprise yäiz/ia/ analysis ofthe assemblages excavated at Göbekli Tepe, Gürcütepe (sites II and III) and Mezraa-Teleilat in SE-Anatolia and Baaz and Kaus Kozah in Syria. Faunal data generated in the field and in the Munich and Tübingen labs would be entered into compatible databases. In this respect, compatibility of field recording methods was considered an important desideratum as well, a workshop being planned in order to assemble the major teams working on Natufian till PPN faunal remains in the Near East. Finally, a common metrical database for ungulates from Natufian till Neolithic contexts in Anatolia and Syria would be created, in close collaboration with the French, Spanish and other teams working in the study area.Biomolecular research would include stable isotope analysis and mtDNA research. Stable isotope analysis (C, O, N) would be applied to specify the feeding habits of all major vertebrate taxa (including humans) and to reconstmct the local environmental and climatic conditions prevailing prior, during and after the incorporation of animal husbandry into human subsistence. Strontium isotope analysis would supply information on mobility in animals and humans. In the first two years, 300 bone samples fi^om key sites in SE-Anatolia and North-Syria would be analysed for C/N/0 in collagen and for C/O in the stmctural carbonate, and 70 samples m terms of Sr signatures to define the place of origin of selected taxa. In the latter, both tooth enamel and dentine (or compact bone) from the same individual would be analysed to assess whether animals had arrived at the site shortly before their death, or (much) earlier. To test the hypothesis of a close relationship between extant breeds, early Neolithic domestic animals, and wild Bos. Ovis, Capra, and Sus inhabiting the upper Euphrates Basin, mtDNA research would be carried out, starting with Bos.