Doctoral Dissertation Research: Factors Underlying Animal Domestication

也许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”是动植物的驯化。要了解影响当今世界社会发展的因素，必须考虑到这一因素。这项研究考察了一个物种驯化过程中涉及的多重、复杂和相互作用的力量，并有可能阐明这一点。在Natalie Munro博士的指导下，Jacqueline Meier将通过分析来自以色列Kar HaHoresh(约公元前8500-6750年)的陶器前新石器时代B(PPNB)考古遗址的动物骨骼来研究古代的仪式习俗。KHH在PPNB中是一个罕见的仪式中心，这是一个相当大的生存变化时期，标志着西南亚的山羊驯养。动物驯化，即野生动物经过基因改造并被人类驯服的过程，是从觅食到耕作过渡的关键组成部分，不可逆转地彻底改变了人类与动物以及彼此之间的互动方式。尽管日常生活中这些组成部分之间存在着密切的互动，但人们往往将牧民-农民转变过程中涉及的社会、经济和意识形态的变化分开考虑。综合起来，这些因素在评估中东部分地区和大西南亚地区新石化化进程的驱动因素方面的力量要大得多。KHh的PPNB遗址是一个理想的环境，通过在人类历史上这一关键时刻的转型经济变革的背景下探索仪式实践，将这些方面整合在一起。以色列加利利地区拿撒勒丘陵的这一与世隔绝的太平间地点提供了涉及动物的仪式活动的挑衅性证据。这包括与相关动物遗骸一起的人类埋葬，一个容纳野牛遗骸的大型盛宴坑，以及不太明显的动物部位和处置事件的小储藏。这个项目将有助于最近的研究，重点是新石器时代仪式实践的特殊例子，通过改进方法来发现涉及动物的不太明显的仪式活动类型。动物骨骼将被用来记录KHH仪式中使用的物种类型和身体部位。此外，人口统计资料和体型数据将被用来确定来自KHH的山羊是家养的还是野生的，因为驯养的动物在仪式上具有不同的象征作用和经济价值，与野生山羊不同。通过揭示KHH在一个与有组织的宗教和动物驯化的黎明有关的时期所实行的全部仪式，这项研究将调查新的仪式实践如何在当代经济变化的背景下发展起来。该项目将有助于对农业起源、PPN仪式的功能和象征意义以及山羊驯化过程至关重要的辩论提供高分辨率的动物生存和动物管理数据。该动物群数据库将在出版后通过开放的互联网访问提供，以便该地区和周边地区研究驯化的其他人可以使用它进行比较。该项目还将制定确定与仪式实践有关的沉积物的标准，该标准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。长期的数据收集和与KHH考古野外学校的持续工作将为研究生和本科生提供野外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.