Ancient mitogenomes from Pre-Pottery Neolithic Central Anatolia and the effects of a Late Neolithic bottleneck in sheep (Ovis aries).

Occupied between ~10,300 and 9300 years ago, the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Asikli Höyük in Central Anatolia went through early phases of sheep domestication. Analysis of 629 mitochondrial genomes from this and numerous sites in Anatolia, southwest Asia, Europe, and Africa produced a phylogenetic tree with excessive coalescences (nodes) around the Neolithic, a potential signature of a domestication bottleneck. This is consistent with archeological evidence of sheep management at Asikli Höyük which transitioned from residential stabling to open pasturing over a millennium of site occupation. However, unexpectedly, we detected high genetic diversity throughout Asikli Höyük's occupation rather than a bottleneck. Instead, we detected a tenfold demographic bottleneck later in the Neolithic, which caused the fixation of mitochondrial haplogroup B in southwestern Anatolia. The mitochondrial genetic makeup that emerged was carried from the core region of early Neolithic sheep management into Europe and dominates the matrilineal diversity of both its ancient and the billion-strong modern sheep populations.

The 10,000-year biocultural history of fallow deer and its implications for conservation policy.

Over the last 10,000 y, humans have manipulated fallow deer populations with varying outcomes. Persian fallow deer (Dama mesopotamica) are now endangered. European fallow deer (Dama dama) are globally widespread and are simultaneously considered wild, domestic, endangered, invasive and are even the national animal of Barbuda and Antigua. Despite their close association with people, there is no consensus regarding their natural ranges or the timing and circumstances of their human-mediated translocations and extirpations. Our mitochondrial analyses of modern and archaeological specimens revealed two distinct clades of European fallow deer present in Anatolia and the Balkans. Zooarchaeological evidence suggests these regions were their sole glacial refugia. By combining biomolecular analyses with archaeological and textual evidence, we chart the declining distribution of Persian fallow deer and demonstrate that humans repeatedly translocated European fallow deer, sourced from the most geographically distant populations. Deer taken to Neolithic Chios and Rhodes derived not from nearby Anatolia, but from the Balkans. Though fallow deer were translocated throughout the Mediterranean as part of their association with the Greco-Roman goddesses Artemis and Diana, deer taken to Roman Mallorca were not locally available Dama dama, but Dama mesopotamica. Romans also initially introduced fallow deer to Northern Europe but the species became extinct and was reintroduced in the medieval period, this time from Anatolia. European colonial powers then transported deer populations across the globe. The biocultural histories of fallow deer challenge preconceptions about the divisions between wild and domestic species and provide information that should underpin modern management strategies.

A novel lineage of the Capra genus discovered in the Taurus Mountains of Turkey using ancient genomics.

Direkli Cave, located in the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey, was occupied by Late Epipaleolithic hunters-gatherers for the seasonal hunting and processing of game including large numbers of wild goats. We report genomic data from new and published Capra specimens from Direkli Cave and, supplemented with historic genomes from multiple Capra species, find a novel lineage best represented by a ~14,000 year old 2.59 X genome sequenced from specimen Direkli4. This newly discovered Capra lineage is a sister clade to the Caucasian tur species (Capra cylindricornis and Capra caucasica), both now limited to the Caucasus region. We identify genomic regions introgressed in domestic goats with high affinity to Direkli4, and find that West Eurasian domestic goats in the past, but not those today, appear enriched for Direkli4-specific alleles at a genome-wide level. This forgotten 'Taurasian tur' likely survived Late Pleistocene climatic change in a Taurus Mountain refuge and its genomic fate is unknown.

Spread of domestic animals across Neolithic western Anatolia: New stable isotope evidence from Ugurlu Höyük, the island of Gökçeada, Turkey.

The origins of agriculture in Southwest Asia over 10,000 years ago and its subsequent spread into Europe during the Neolithic have been the focus of much archaeological research over the past several decades. Increasingly more sophisticated analytical techniques have allowed for better understanding of the complex interactions that occurred amongst humans, animals, and their environments during this transition. The Aegean Islands are critically situated where Anatolia and the mainland Greece meet, making the region pivotal for understanding the movement of the Neolithic into Europe. Located on the largest Turkish Aegean island of Gökçeada, the site of Ugurlu Höyük dates to the early Neolithic and has been the subject of ongoing excavations and research integrating a rigorous dating program with comprehensive zooarchaeological research. This paper focuses on the combination of bone collagen and tooth enamel stable isotope data with existing archaeological data to develop a fine-resolution picture of the spread of the Neolithic, particularly the importation and management of domestic fauna on Gökçeada, with broader relevance for understanding Aegean-Anatolian interactions. The stable isotope values from the fauna at Ugurlu have been used for both diachronic intrasite analyses and intersite comparisons between contemporaneous mainland sites. Integrating stable isotope and zooarchaeological datasets makes Ugurlu one of the first island sites to provide a comprehensive understanding of the geographic origin of Neolithic livestock populations and the timing of their spread from Anatolia into Europe during the process of Neolithization.

The relationship between the phosphate and structural carbonate fractionation of fallow deer bioapatite in tooth enamel.

RATIONALE: The species-specific relationship between phosphate (δ18 OP values) and structural carbonate (δ18 OC values) oxygen isotope ratios has been established for several modern and fossil animal species but until now it has not been investigated in European fallow deer (Dama dama dama). This study describes the relationship between phosphate and structural carbonate bioapatite in tooth enamel of extant fallow deer, which will help us further understand the species' unique environmental and cultural history. METHODS: The oxygen isotope composition of phosphate (δ18 OP value) and structural carbonate (δ18 OC value) of hydroxylapatite was determined in 51 modern fallow deer tooth enamel samples from across Europe and West Asia. The δ18 OC values were measured on a GV IsoPrime dual-inlet mass spectrometer and the δ18 OP values on a temperature-controlled elemental analyser (TC/EA) coupled to a DeltaPlus XL isotope ratio mass spectrometer via a ConFlo III interface. RESULTS: This study establishes a direct and linear relationship between the δ18 OC and δ18 OP values from fallow deer tooth enamel (δ18 OC = +9.244(±0.216) + 0.958 * δ18 OP (±0.013)). Despite the successful regression, the variation in δ18 O values from samples collected in the same geographical area is greater than expected, although the results cluster in broad climatic groupings when Koppen-Geiger classifications are taken into account for the individuals' locations. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first comprehensive study of the relationship between ionic forms of oxygen (phosphate oxygen and structural carbonate) in fallow deer dental enamel. The new equation will allow direct comparison with other herbivore data. Variable δ18 O values within populations of fallow deer broadly reflect the ecological zones they are found in which may explain this pattern of results in other euryphagic species.

Spread of domestic animals across Neolithic western Anatolia: New zooarchaeological evidence from Ugurlu Höyük, the island of Gökçeada, Turkey.

The zooarchaeological research presented here investigates Neolithic and Chalcolithic (ca. 6500-5000 cal. BC) animal exploitation strategies at Ugurlu Höyük on the Turkish island of Gökçeada in the northeastern Aegean Sea. Toward this end, we first discuss the results of our analysis of the zooarchaeological assemblages from Ugurlu Höyük and then consider the data within a wider regional explanatory framework using a diachronic approach, comparing them with those from western and northwestern Anatolian sites. The first settlers of Gökçeada were farmers who introduced domestic sheep, goats, cattle and pigs to the island as early as 6500 years BC. Our results align well with recently published zooarchaeological data on the westward spread of domestic animals across Turkey and the Neolithization of southeast Europe. Using an island site as a case study, we independently confirm that the dispersal of early farming was a polynucleated and multidirectional phenomenon that did not sweep across the land, replace everything on its way, and deliver the same "Neolithic package" everywhere. Instead, this complex process generated a diversity of human-animal interactions. Thus, studying the dispersal of early farmers from southwest Asia into southeast Europe via Anatolia requires a rigorous methodological approach to develop a fine-resolution picture of the variability seen in human adaptations and dispersals within complex and rapidly changing environmental and cultural settings. For this, the whole spectrum of human-animal interactions must be fully documented for each sub-region of southwest Asia and the circum-Mediterranean.

Data sharing reveals complexity in the westward spread of domestic animals across Neolithic Turkey.

This study presents the results of a major data integration project bringing together primary archaeozoological data for over 200,000 faunal specimens excavated from seventeen sites in Turkey spanning the Epipaleolithic through Chalcolithic periods, c. 18,000-4,000 cal BC, in order to document the initial westward spread of domestic livestock across Neolithic central and western Turkey. From these shared datasets we demonstrate that the westward expansion of Neolithic subsistence technologies combined multiple routes and pulses but did not involve a set 'package' comprising all four livestock species including sheep, goat, cattle and pig. Instead, Neolithic animal economies in the study regions are shown to be more diverse than deduced previously using quantitatively more limited datasets. Moreover, during the transition to agro-pastoral economies interactions between domestic stock and local wild fauna continued. Through publication of datasets with Open Context (opencontext.org), this project emphasizes the benefits of data sharing and web-based dissemination of large primary data sets for exploring major questions in archaeology (Alternative Language Abstract S1).