The past decade has witnessed a quantum leap in our understanding of the origins, diffusion, and impact of early agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin. In large measure these advances are attributable to new methods for documenting domestication in plants and animals. The initial steps toward plant and animal domestication in the Eastern Mediterranean can now be pushed back to the 12th millennium cal B.P. Evidence for herd management and crop cultivation appears at least 1,000 years earlier than the morphological changes traditionally used to document domestication. Different species seem to have been domesticated in different parts of the Fertile Crescent, with genetic analyses detecting multiple domestic lineages for each species. Recent evidence suggests that the expansion of domesticates and agricultural economies across the Mediterranean was accomplished by several waves of seafaring colonists who established coastal farming enclaves around the Mediterranean Basin. This process also involved the adoption of domesticates and domestic technologies by indigenous populations and the local domestication of some endemic species. Human environmental impacts are seen in the complete replacement of endemic island faunas by imported mainland fauna and in today's anthropogenic, but threatened, Mediterranean landscapes where sustainable agricultural practices have helped maintain high biodiversity since the Neolithic.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/105/33/11597.full.pdf

Domestication and early agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin: Origins, diffusion, and impact

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences from 686 wild and domestic pig specimens place the origin of wild boar in island Southeast Asia (ISEA), where they dispersed across Eurasia. Previous morphological and genetic evidence suggested pig domestication took place in a limited number of locations (principally the Near East and Far East). In contrast, new genetic data reveal multiple centers of domestication across Eurasia and that European, rather than Near Eastern, wild boar are the principal source of modern European domestic pigs.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/307/5715/1618.full.pdf

Worldwide Phylogeography of Wild Boar Reveals Multiple Centers of Pig Domestication

About 12,000 years ago, humans began the transition from hunter-gathering to a sedentary, agriculture-based society. From its origins in the Near East, farming expanded throughout Europe, Asia and Africa, together with various domesticated plants and animals. Where, how and why agriculture originated is still debated. But newer findings, on the basis of genome-wide measures of genetic similarity, have traced the origins of some domesticated cereals to wild populations of naturally occurring grasses that persist in the Near East. A better understanding of the genetic differences between wild grasses and domesticated crops adds important facets to the continuing debate on the origin of Western agriculture and the societies to which it gave rise.

/pdf/genetics-and-geography-of-wild-cereal-domestication-in-the-4ef5zllibe.pdf

Genetics and geography of wild cereal domestication in the near east

It is difficult to overstate the cultural and biological impacts that the domestication of plants and animals has had on our species. Fundamental questions regarding where, when, and how many times domestication took place have been of primary interest within a wide range of academic disciplines. Within the last two decades, the advent of new archaeological and genetic techniques has revolutionized our understanding of the pattern and process of domestication and agricultural origins that led to our modern way of life. In the spring of 2011, 25 scholars with a central interest in domestication representing the fields of genetics, archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, geoarchaeology, and archaeology met at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center to discuss recent domestication research progress and identify challenges for the future. In this introduction to the resulting Special Feature, we present the state of the art in the field by discussing what is known about the spatial and temporal patterns of domestication, and controversies surrounding the speed, intentionality, and evolutionary aspects of the domestication process. We then highlight three key challenges for future research. We conclude by arguing that although recent progress has been impressive, the next decade will yield even more substantial insights not only into how domestication took place, but also when and where it did, and where and why it did not.

/pdf/current-perspectives-and-the-future-of-domestication-studies-1k2zua6l88.pdf

Current perspectives and the future of domestication studies

Domestic animals have played a key role in human history. Despite their importance, however, the origins of most domestic species remain poorly understood. We assessed the phylogenetic history and population structure of domestic goats by sequencing a hypervariable segment (481 bp) of the mtDNA control region from 406 goats representing 88 breeds distributed across the Old World. Phylogeographic analysis revealed three highly divergent goat lineages (estimated divergence >200,000 years ago), with one lineage occurring only in eastern and southern Asia. A remarkably similar pattern exists in cattle, sheep, and pigs. These results, combined with recent archaeological findings, suggest that goats and other farm animals have multiple maternal origins with a possible center of origin in Asia, as well as in the Fertile Crescent. The pattern of goat mtDNA diversity suggests that all three lineages have undergone population expansions, but that the expansion was relatively recent for two of the lineages (including the Asian lineage). Goat populations are surprisingly less genetically structured than cattle populations. In goats only ≈10% of the mtDNA variation is partitioned among continents. In cattle the amount is ≥50%. This weak structuring suggests extensive intercontinental transportation of goats and has intriguing implications about the importance of goats in historical human migrations and commerce.

/pdf/multiple-maternal-origins-and-weak-phylogeographic-structure-11j50b4ole.pdf

Multiple maternal origins and weak phylogeographic structure in domestic goats.

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).

/pdf/data-sharing-reveals-complexity-in-the-westward-spread-of-2kgnwn1xll.pdf

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

Que ce soient les arguments morphometriques ou. d'autres plus indirects, la domestication du mouton et fort probablement celle de la chevre prend place durant, le PPNB ancien dans les piemonts sud du Taurus. Meme si l'elevage se generalise dans le Levant Nord, au cours du PPNB moyen, les frequences de chevres et de moutons ne depassent pas 30 % des restes osseux de cette periode. Ainsi, l'introduction de ces petits ruminants dans l'economie de ces sites anciens parait moins « revolutionnaire » que l'expression « Revolution Neolithique » ne l'implique. Au cours du PPNB moyen, deux autres especes acquierent un statut domestique dans deux regions differentes : Bos dans le bassin du moyen Euphrate et Sus dans le sud-est de la Turquie. A la fin du. PPNB l'elevage du betail formait une importante composante de l'economie de subsistance humaine dans tout le Levant nord. A l'exception d''Ovis qui semble avoir ete introduit dans le Levant sud a partir du Nord, les modalites du processus de diffusion des animaux de ferme depuis leur(s) centre(s) de domestication vers les regions adjacentes, ont encore besoin d'etre etudiees. Meme si nous sommes assures que les changements socioculturels du 11e et du 10e millenaire ВС calibre se complexifient et que les societes socialement stratifiees du Levant nord bâtissent l'arriere-plan culturel, dans lequel la domestication des caprines prend place, nous continuons encore a nous interroger sur les causes de l'introduction du betail dans l'economie du Neolithique preceramique. En. nous fondant sur les evidences archeozoologiques et paleobotaniques, les changements climatiques de grande amplitude et/ou les deteriorations du milieu nous paraissent maintenant improbables dans cette region. Ceci nous renforce dans l'idee que les facteurs socioculturels ont ete a l'origine du changement d'exploitation des animaux.

Early Animal Husbandry in the Northern Levant

Identifying early domestic cattle from Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites on the Middle Euphrates using sexual dimorphism

La mise en evidence de l'exploitation des produits fournis par les petits ruminants domestiques n'est seulement possible en Prehistoire que par une approche archeozoologique et ethologique, chaque type d'exploitation induisant des strategies d'abattage particulieres. Ainsi en etablissant des profils de mortalite, il est possible de deduire les produits recherches. L'avancee des techniques archeozoologiques dans l'interpretation des courbes d'abattage et dans la mise en evidence de la saisonnalite des pratiques d'elevage nous a permis d'interpreter 49 profils d'abattage de caprines allant du PPNB jusqu'au Bronze ancien. Ces profils sont repartis dans 24 sites dont 5 sont inedits. Les methodes d'estimation des âges pour etablir les profils d'abattage sont celles etablis par Helmer (1995, 2000a) et Vila (1998), et pour la distinction OvisCapra, celles de Helmer (2000b) et Halstead et al. (2002). Les interpretations s'appuient sur les statistiques (Correspondence Analysis and Cluster Analysis) ainsi que sur les donnees ethnologiques, economiques et les contraintes biologiques des caprines. Ces interpretations nous renseignent, entre autres, sur les principaux produits exploites et l'evolution diachronique de l'exploitation de ces divers produits animaux. Ainsi les taux d'exploitation de la viande tendre, du lait et des toisons varient fortement : d'une part le lait est exploite depuis le debut du PPNB moyen, d'autre part un changement majeur dans l'exploitation de la viande tendre se manifeste aux alentours de 7000 avant J.-C. calibre, accompagne par la mise en evidence de celle des toisons (apparition des groupes de consommateurs et de producteurs). Au Bronze ancien, ces pratiques s'intensifient.

The development of the exploitation of products from Capra and Ovis (meat, milk and fleece) from the PPNB to the Early Bronze in the northern Near East (8700 to 2000 BC cal.)

Daniel Helmer

Papers

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

Early Animal Husbandry in the Northern Levant

Identifying early domestic cattle from Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites on the Middle Euphrates using sexual dimorphism

The development of the exploitation of products from Capra and Ovis (meat, milk and fleece) from the PPNB to the Early Bronze in the northern Near East (8700 to 2000 BC cal.)

La domestication des animaux par les hommes préhistoriques