Pastoral subsistence and mounted fighting in the Eastern Tianshan Mountain region: New insights from the Shirenzigou worked bone assemblage.

Situated at a geographic crossroads, the eastern Tianshan Mountain region in northwest China is crucial to understanding various economic, social, and cultural developments on the Eurasian Steppes. One promising way to gain a better knowledge of ancient subsistence economy, craft production, and social change in the eastern Tianshan Mountain region is to study the artifact assemblages from archaeological contexts. Here, we present an analysis of 488 worked animal bones from the large site of Shirenzigou (ca. 1300-1 BCE), to date the largest assemblage of this kind uncovered in the eastern Tianshan Mountain region. We classified these worked bones into six categories, including "ritual objects", "ornaments", "tools", "worked astragali", "warfare and mobility", and "indeterminate". The identification of animal species and skeletal elements indicates that worked bones from Shirenzigou are characterized by a predominance of caprine products, particularly worked astragali, which is consistent with the large proportion of caprine fragments found in animal remains associated with food consumption. This demonstrates the contribution of caprine pastoralism to bone working activities at Shirenzigou. The making of most worked bones does not appear to have required advanced or specialized skills. Considering the absence of dedicated bone working space, alongside the variability in raw material selection and in dimensions of certain types of artifacts, we infer that worked bone production at Shirenzigou was not standardized. In terms of raw material selection and mode of production, Shirenzigou differed from their settled, farming counterparts in the Yellow River valley of northern China. In addition, along with the evidence for violence and horseback riding, the increasing use of bone artifacts associated with warfare and mobility during the late occupation phase of Shirenzigou reflects growing social instability and implies the likely emergence of single mounted horsemen, equipped with light armors, in the region during the late first millennium BCE. Our results provide new insights into animal resource exploitation and changing lifeways of early pastoral societies in the eastern Tianshan Mountain region, expanding our knowledge of the economic, social, and political milieu of late Bronze Age and early Iron Age eastern Eurasia.

Cattle management in an Iron Age/Roman settlement in the Netherlands: Archaeozoological and stable isotope analysis.

Cattle were the predominant domestic animal in the Iron Age and Roman Netherlands, yet their management is still incompletely understood. Some aspects of cattle management, such as birth season and the provision of fodder, have received little or no attention so far. This paper is the first to investigate these aspects for the Iron Age and Roman Netherlands, through a case study of the site of Houten-Castellum. The rural settlement of Houten-Castellum was inhabited from the Middle Iron Age to the Middle Roman period, allowing a comparison between the Iron Age and Roman period. Excavations at this site have yielded a large, well-preserved animal bone assemblage. This paper investigates cattle husbandry by using an integrated approach, combining a multi-isotope analysis (oxygen, carbon and strontium) with archaeozoological and archaeobotanical results from Houten-Castellum and comparing the results with archaeobotanical evidence for fodder and evidence for dairy use for the Iron Age and Roman Netherlands in general. While our data set is small and results must therefore be interpreted cautiously, there is convincing evidence for an extended birth season in the Middle Iron Age, as well as the use of fodder.

Stable isotopes reveal intensive pig husbandry practices in the middle Yellow River region by the Yangshao period (7000-5000 BP).

It is well-known that pigs (Sus scrofa) were domesticated very early in Neolithic China, but far less is known about the processes by which pig husbandry intensified so that pork became the most important animal protein for humans are less clear. Here, we explore pig feeding practices using the carbon and nitrogen isotope composition of bone collagen, focusing on developments in pig husbandry during the Yangshao period (7000-5000 BP) in the middle Yellow River region of China, and at the site of Xipo (5800-5000 BP) in particular. The results show that the diets of domestic pigs at Xipo were dominated by millet foods. Comparisons with other Yangshao sites in the region show a trend of increasing millet foddering for pigs throughout the Yangshao period. These results, and comparisons of the isotopic data for pigs against those for humans from the Xipo cemetery (5300-5000 BP), suggest that pigs were closely managed by humans. The evidence points to an intensification of Neolithic pig husbandry in the middle Yellow River region from this period.

Evidence for early dispersal of domestic sheep into Central Asia.

The development and dispersal of agropastoralism transformed the cultural and ecological landscapes of the Old World, but little is known about when or how this process first impacted Central Asia. Here, we present archaeological and biomolecular evidence from Obishir V in southern Kyrgyzstan, establishing the presence of domesticated sheep by ca. 6,000 BCE. Zooarchaeological and collagen peptide mass fingerprinting show exploitation of Ovis and Capra, while cementum analysis of intact teeth implicates possible pastoral slaughter during the fall season. Most significantly, ancient DNA reveals these directly dated specimens as the domestic O. aries, within the genetic diversity of domesticated sheep lineages. Together, these results provide the earliest evidence for the use of livestock in the mountains of the Ferghana Valley, predating previous evidence by 3,000 years and suggesting that domestic animal economies reached the mountains of interior Central Asia far earlier than previously recognized.

Investigating Neolithic caprine husbandry in the Central Pyrenees: Insights from a multi-proxy study at Els Trocs cave (Bisaurri, Spain).

Sheep remains constitute the main archaeozoological evidence for the presence of Early Neolithic human groups in the highlands of the Southern Pyrenees but understanding the role of herding activities in the Neolithisation process of this mountain ecosystem calls for the analysis of large and well-dated faunal assemblages. Cova de Els Trocs (Bisaurri, Huesca, Spain), a cave located at 1564 m a.s.l on the southern slopes of the Central Pyrenees, is an excellent case study since it was seasonally occupied throughout the Neolithic (ca. 5312-2913 cal. BC) and more than 4000 caprine remains were recovered inside. The multi-proxy analytical approach here presented has allowed us to offer new data elaborating on vertical mobility practices and herd management dynamics as has not been attempted up until now within Neolithic high-mountain sites in the Iberian Peninsula. For the first time, δ18O and δ13C stable isotope analyses offer direct evidence on both the regular practice of altitudinal movements of sheep flocks and the extended breeding season of sheep. Autumn births are recorded from the second half of the fifth millennium cal. BC onwards. Age-at-death distributions illustrate the progressive decline in caprine perinatal mortality together with the rising survival rate of individuals older than six months of age and the larger frequency of adults. This trend alongside the 'off-season' lambing signal at the implementation of husbandry techniques over time, probably aiming to increase the size of the flocks and their productivity. Palaeoparasitological analyses of sediment samples document also the growing reliance on herding activities of the human groups visiting the Els Trocs cave throughout the Neolithic sequence. In sum, our work provides substantial arguments to conclude that the advanced herding management skills of the Early Neolithic communities arriving in Iberia facilitated the anthropisation process of the subalpine areas of the Central Pyrenees.

New evidence on the earliest domesticated animals and possible small-scale husbandry in Atlantic NW Europe.

The distribution of the first domesticated animals and crops along the coastal area of Atlantic NW Europe, which triggered the transition from a hunter-gatherer-fisher to a farmer-herder economy, has been debated for many decades among archaeologists. While some advocate a gradual transition in which indigenous hunter-gatherers from the very beginning of the 5th millennium cal BC progressively adopted Neolithic commodities, others are more in favor of a rapid transition near the end of the 5th millennium caused by a further northwest migration of farmers-herders colonizing the lowlands. Here, radiocarbon dated bones from sheep/goat and possibly also cattle are presented which provide the first hard evidence of an early introduction of domesticated animals within a hunter-gatherer context in NW Belgium, situated ca. 80 km north of the agro-pastoral frontier. Based on their isotope signal it is suggested that these first domesticates were probably not merely obtained through exchange with contemporaneous farmers but were kept locally, providing evidence of small-scale local stockbreeding in the lowlands maybe as early as ca. 4800/4600 cal BC. If confirmed by future in-depth isotope analyses, the latter testifies of intense contact and transmission of knowledge in this early contact period, which is also visible in the material culture, such as the lithic and pottery technology. It also implies direct and prolonged involvement of farmer-herders, either through visiting specialists or intermarriage, which follows recent genetic evidence demonstrating much more hunter-gatherer ancestry in early farmer's genes in western Europe compared to central and SE Europe.

The earliest domestic cat on the Silk Road.

We present the earliest evidence for domestic cat (Felis catus L., 1758) from Kazakhstan, found as a well preserved skeleton with extensive osteological pathologies dating to 775-940 cal CE from the early medieval city of Dzhankent, Kazakhstan. This urban settlement was located on the intersection of the northern Silk Road route which linked the cities of Khorezm in the south to the trading settlements in the Volga region to the north and was known in the tenth century CE as the capital of the nomad Oghuz. The presence of this domestic cat, presented here as an osteobiography using a combination of zooarchaeological, genetic, and isotopic data, provides proxy evidence for a fundamental shift in the nature of human-animal relationships within a previously pastoral region. This illustrates the broader social, cultural, and economic changes occurring within the context of rapid urbanisation during the early medieval period along the Silk Road.

Latitudinal gradient in dairy production with the introduction of farming in Atlantic Europe.

The introduction of farming had far-reaching impacts on health, social structure and demography. Although the spread of domesticated plants and animals has been extensively tracked, it is unclear how these nascent economies developed within different environmental and cultural settings. Using molecular and isotopic analysis of lipids from pottery, here we investigate the foods prepared by the earliest farming communities of the European Atlantic seaboard. Surprisingly, we find an absence of aquatic foods, including in ceramics from coastal sites, except in the Western Baltic where this tradition continued from indigenous ceramic using hunter-gatherer-fishers. The frequency of dairy products in pottery increased as farming was progressively introduced along a northerly latitudinal gradient. This finding implies that early farming communities needed time to adapt their economic practices before expanding into more northerly areas. Latitudinal differences in the scale of dairy production might also have influenced the evolution of adult lactase persistence across Europe.

Bronze Age population dynamics and the rise of dairy pastoralism on the eastern Eurasian steppe.

Recent paleogenomic studies have shown that migrations of Western steppe herders (WSH) beginning in the Eneolithic (ca. 3300-2700 BCE) profoundly transformed the genes and cultures of Europe and central Asia. Compared with Europe, however, the eastern extent of this WSH expansion is not well defined. Here we present genomic and proteomic data from 22 directly dated Late Bronze Age burials putatively associated with early pastoralism in northern Mongolia (ca. 1380-975 BCE). Genome-wide analysis reveals that they are largely descended from a population represented by Early Bronze Age hunter-gatherers in the Baikal region, with only a limited contribution (∼7%) of WSH ancestry. At the same time, however, mass spectrometry analysis of dental calculus provides direct protein evidence of bovine, sheep, and goat milk consumption in seven of nine individuals. No individuals showed molecular evidence of lactase persistence, and only one individual exhibited evidence of >10% WSH ancestry, despite the presence of WSH populations in the nearby Altai-Sayan region for more than a millennium. Unlike the spread of Neolithic farming in Europe and the expansion of Bronze Age pastoralism on the Western steppe, our results indicate that ruminant dairy pastoralism was adopted on the Eastern steppe by local hunter-gatherers through a process of cultural transmission and minimal genetic exchange with outside groups.

Shipping amphorae and shipping sheep? Livestock mobility in the north-east Iberian peninsula during the Iron Age based on strontium isotopic analyses of sheep and goat tooth enamel.

Animal mobility is a common strategy to overcome scarcity of food and the related over-grazing of pastures. It is also essential to reduce the inbreeding rate of animal populations, which is known to have a negative impact on fertility and productivity. The present paper shows the geographic range of sheep provisioning in different phases of occupation at the Iron Age site of Turó de la Font de la Canya (7th to 3rd centuries BC). Strontium isotope ratios from 34 archaeological sheep and goat enamel, two archaeological bones and 14 modern tree leaves are presented. The isotopic results suggest that sheep and goats consumed at the site were reared locally (within a few kilometres radius) during the whole period of occupation. The paper discusses the isotopic results in light of the socio-political structure of this period, as complex, strongly territorial societies developed during the Iron Age in the north-east Iberian Peninsula.

Early pastoral economies along the Ancient Silk Road: Biomolecular evidence from the Alay Valley, Kyrgyzstan.

The Silk Road was an important trade route that channeled trade goods, people, plants, animals, and ideas across the continental interior of Eurasia, fueling biotic exchange and key social developments across the Old World. Nestled between the Pamir and Alay ranges at a baseline elevation of nearly 3000m, Kyrgyzstan's high Alay Valley forms a wide geographic corridor that comprised one of the primary channels of the ancient Silk Road. Recent archaeological survey reveals a millennia-long history of pastoral occupation of Alay from the early Bronze Age through the Medieval period, and a stratified Holocene sequence at the site of Chegirtke Cave. Faunal remains were recovered from test excavations as well as surface collection of material from recent marmot activity. Although recovered specimens were highly fragmented and mostly unidentifiable using traditional zooarchaeological methods, species identification via collagen mass fingerprinting (ZooMS) coupled with sex and first-generation hybrid identification through ancient DNA enabled preliminary characterization of the animal economy of Alay herders. Our new results indicate primary reliance on sheep at Chegirtke Cave (ca. 2200 BCE), with cattle and goat also present. The discovery of a large grinding stone at a spatially associated Bronze or Iron Age habitation structure suggests a mixed agropastoral economic strategy, rather than a unique reliance on domestic animals. Radiocarbon-dated faunal assemblages from habitation structures at nearby localities in the Alay Valley demonstrate the presence of domestic horse, as well as Bactrian camel during later periods. The current study reveals that agropastoral occupation of the high-mountain Alay corridor started millennia before the formal establishment of the Silk Road, and posits that ZooMS, when paired with radiocarbon dates and ancient DNA, is a powerful and cost-effective tool for investigating shifts in the use of animal domesticates in early pastoral economies.

Transhumance pastoralism of Roccapelago (Modena, Italy) early-modern individuals: Inferences from Sr isotopes of hair strands.

OBJECTIVES: In this work, we use Sr isotopes to analyze human hair and determine short-term movements of a contemporary human traveler and of early-modern individuals from an archaeological site (Roccapelago, Modena, Italy, 16th-18th century). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Analyses were performed using a Neptune MC-ICP-MS. We first set up and tested the procedure on scalp hair of a contemporary human, who spent some time between Brazil and Italy. We then analyzed the 87 Sr/86 Sr ratios of eight exceptionally well-preserved archaeological hair specimens associated with human mummies from Roccapelago. Trace elements were analyzed by LA-ICP-MS on single-hair specimens to check the preservation of the archaeological samples. RESULTS: The strontium isotope composition of modern human hair varies from 0.7087 to 0.7093. The 87 Sr/86 Sr ratios of the Roccapelago hair strands range from 0.7082 to 0.7137, with an average of 0.7093 ± 0.0031 (2σ), revealing also intra-individual differences in isotopic composition along the length of the hair shaft. Data were compared with local archaeological rodent bones and teeth and with published isotopic values of water and outcropping rocks. Trace element abundances of archaeological and modern human hair are similarly low in terms of Rare Earth Element (REE) and metal contents, in particular after HNO3 leaching. DISCUSSION: The variable modern human hair 87 Sr/86 Sr ratios show that high-resolution hair sampling tracks the movements of this individual between the two continents. The Sr isotope composition of the mummy hair is consistent with sub-annual human movements from Roccapelago to an area with different 87 Sr/86 Sr ratios. Historical sources indicate that individuals from Roccapelago travelled with their herds to Tuscany for transhumance pastoralism practices. The high radiogenic 87 Sr/86 Sr ratios (>0.71) found in some of the hair are possibly consistent with the Tuscan Magmatic Province and the Tuscan Metamorphic Complex isotope signature. To our knowledge, this is the first study in an archaeological context where the Sr isotope evidence of mobility is corroborated by historical documents.

Reconstruction of human subsistence and husbandry strategies from the Iberian Early Neolithic: A stable isotope approach.

OBJECTIVES: The Early Neolithic involved an important social and economic shift that can be tested not only with the material culture, but also through biomolecular approaches. The Iberian Peninsula presents few Early Neolithic sites where fauna and humans can be analyzed together from an isotopic perspective. Here we present an isotopic study on the site of Cueva de Chaves as an example for understanding the dietary and economical changes that took place during Early Neolithic in Iberia. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Here we apply carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis to bone collagen from 4 humans and 64 faunal samples from 14 different species. The large dataset belongs to the same unique chrono-cultural context secured by 20 radiocarbon dates. Three direct new radiocarbon dates were carried out on the human remains analyzed. RESULTS: Faunal isotope values show no significant differences between wild and domestic herbivores, although the latter have more homogeneous values. Domestic pigs, potentially considered omnivorous, also show signatures of a herbivore diet. Human isotopic results show a diet mainly based on terrestrial C3 resources and possibly high meat consumption. The only individual found buried with a special funerary treatment presents a slightly different protein intake, when taking into account the long contemporaneous baseline analyzed. DISCUSSION: Similar values between wild and domestic species could be the result of common feeding resources and/or grazing on the same parts of the landscape. The herbivore diet seen amongst domestic pigs rules out feeding on household leftovers. High meat consumption by humans would support the hypothesis of the existence of a specialized animal husbandry management community in which agriculture was not intensively developed. Our results suggest that the development of agricultural practices and animal husbandry were not necessarily associated together in the early stages of the Western Mediterranean Neolithic.

Pre-Roman improvements to agricultural production: Evidence from livestock husbandry in late prehistoric Italy.

Domestication of wild cattle, sheep, and pigs began a process of body size diminution. In most of Western Europe this process continued across prehistory and was not reversed until the Roman period. However, in Italy, an increase in livestock body size occurred during the Iron Age, earlier than the Western provinces. In order to better understand the nature and timing of this early increase in animal size, this paper presents a detailed regional study of taxonomic abundance and biometric data from zooarchaeological assemblages recovered from the Po and Venetian-Friulian Plains in northern Italy. Our results demonstrate a high level of regionality in the choice of species exploited, with husbandry systems focused on different domesticates, as well as regional differences in animal size. However, despite significant variation in species frequencies, settlement structure, and epigraphic tradition, all areas with sufficient data demonstrate similar significant changes in livestock body size. Cattle and sheep increased incrementally in size prior to the Roman conquest in all regions considered; surprisingly, pigs continued to decrease in size throughout later prehistory. The incremental pace and pan-regional character of the size change in cattle and sheep suggests an internally motivated phenomenon rather than herd replacement with a new larger population, as might follow colonisation or conquest. The divergence in size trends for bovids and suids suggests a noteworthy change in cattle and sheep herding practices during the Iron Age or final centuries of the Bronze Age, in contrast with greater continuity in pig management. Our analysis provides a thorough zooarchaeological synthesis for northern Italy and, for the first time, demonstrates that both cattle and sheep increased in size outside of Roman territory well before the conquest of this area. This study offers a basis for future chemical analyses (DNA, isotopes), which will further investigate the cause(s) of livestock size changes in northern Italy.

Earliest expansion of animal husbandry beyond the Mediterranean zone in the sixth millennium BC.

Since their domestication in the Mediterranean zone of Southwest Asia in the eighth millennium BC, sheep, goats, pigs and cattle have been remarkably successful in colonizing a broad variety of environments. The initial steps in this process can be traced back to the dispersal of farming groups into the interior of the Balkans in the early sixth millennium BC, who were the first to introduce Mediterranean livestock beyond its natural climatic range. Here, we combine analysis of biomolecular and isotopic compositions of lipids preserved in prehistoric pottery with faunal analyses of taxonomic composition from the earliest farming sites in southeast Europe to reconstruct this pivotal event in the early history of animal husbandry. We observe a marked divergence between the (sub)Mediterranean and temperate regions of Southeast Europe, and in particular a significant increase of dairying in the biochemical record coupled with a shift to cattle and wild fauna at most sites north of the Balkan mountain range. The findings strongly suggest that dairying was crucial for the expansion of the earliest farming system beyond its native bioclimatic zone.

The evolution of dual meat and milk cattle husbandry in Linearbandkeramik societies.

Cattle dominate archaeozoological assemblages from the north-central Europe between the sixth and fifth millennium BC and are frequently considered as exclusively used for their meat. Dairy products may have played a greater role than previously believed. Selective pressure on the lactase persistence mutation has been modelled to have begun between 6000 and 4000 years ago in central Europe. The discovery of milk lipids in late sixth millennium ceramic sieves in Poland may reflect an isolated regional peculiarity for cheese making or may signify more generalized milk exploitation in north-central Europe during the Early Neolithic. To investigate these issues, we analysed the mortality profiles based on age-at-death analysis of cattle tooth eruption, wear and replacement from 19 archaeological sites of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) culture (sixth to fifth millennium BC). The results indicate that cattle husbandry was similar across time and space in the LBK culture with a degree of specialization for meat exploitation in some areas. Statistical comparison with reference age-at-death profiles indicate that mixed husbandry (milk and meat) was practised, with mature animals being kept. The analysis provides a unique insight into LBK cattle husbandry and how it evolved in later cultures in central and western Europe. It also opens a new perspective on how and why the Neolithic way of life developed through continental Europe and how dairy products became a part of the human diet.

High-resolution isotopic evidence of specialised cattle herding in the European Neolithic.

Reconstructing stock herding strategies and land use is key to comprehending past human social organization and economy. We present laser-ablation strontium and carbon isotope data from 25 cattle (Bos taurus) to reconstruct mobility and infer herding management at the Swiss lakeside settlement of Arbon Bleiche 3, occupied for only 15 years (3384-3370 BC). Our results reveal three distinct isotopic patterns that likely reflect different herding strategies: 1) localized cattle herding, 2) seasonal movement, and 3) herding away from the site year-round. Different strategies of herding are not uniformly represented in various areas of the settlement, which indicates specialist modes of cattle management. The pressure on local fodder capacities and the need for alternative herding regimes must have involved diverse access to grazing resources. Consequently, the increasing importance of cattle in the local landscape was likely to have contributed to the progress of socio-economic differentiation in early agricultural societies in Europe.

Regional asynchronicity in dairy production and processing in early farming communities of the northern Mediterranean.

In the absence of any direct evidence, the relative importance of meat and dairy productions to Neolithic prehistoric Mediterranean communities has been extensively debated. Here, we combine lipid residue analysis of ceramic vessels with osteo-archaeological age-at-death analysis from 82 northern Mediterranean and Near Eastern sites dating from the seventh to fifth millennia BC to address this question. The findings show variable intensities in dairy and nondairy activities in the Mediterranean region with the slaughter profiles of domesticated ruminants mirroring the results of the organic residue analyses. The finding of milk residues in very early Neolithic pottery (seventh millennium BC) from both the east and west of the region contrasts with much lower intensities in sites of northern Greece, where pig bones are present in higher frequencies compared with other locations. In this region, the slaughter profiles of all domesticated ruminants suggest meat production predominated. Overall, it appears that milk or the by-products of milk was an important foodstuff, which may have contributed significantly to the spread of these cultural groups by providing a nourishing and sustainable product for early farming communities.