Wealth in Livestock, Wealth in People, and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Jordan

Within archaeology, the value of livestock is usually presented in terms of use values, the calories and products animals provide humans. Yet domestic animals are also sources of wealth that accrue symbolic and social values, tying livestock production to the reproduction of human social relations. Taking a Marxist perspective that recognizes dialectical relations between forms of value, we develop a model based on ethnographic examples in which the cycling between use value and social/symbolic values adhering to wealth in livestock are mobilized for the reproduction of ‘wealth in people’, or the accumulation of rights stemming from relationships between people. This model of cycling between forms of value can be applied to many ethnohistorical agropastoral political economies. We apply it to Pre-Pottery Neolithic B societies (c. 8500–7000 BC) in Jordan. During this time, the mode of production shifted from one grounded in the community to one centered on extended households. We suggest wealth in people was a key asset for LPPNB households and that wealth in livestock served as a major component of, and a particular ‘moment’ within, its reproduction. This might help explain the accelerated pace by which livestock production overtook hunting in the southern Levant in the eighth millennium BC

Onkraj Jordana: Raznolikosti predkeramičnega neolitika

Recent excavations in Jordan have demonstrated a long sequence of development from the late Pleistocene Epipalaeolithic through the early Holocene Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Superficially, the growing body of social and subsistence evidence suggests Neolithic communities emerged from traditions rooted in the early Epipalaeolithic. However, while developments such as the construction of shelters, population aggregation, and subsistence intensification may be essential for the emergence of a Southwest Asian Neolithic, they are typical of contemporary hunter-gatherer societies and not inherently Neolithic. Notably, the Neolithic in Southwest Asia was not a homogenous entity, but instead supported diverse expressions of subsistence, symbolic behaviours, and cultural trajectories across the region. To understand the emergence and development of the Neolithic, we need to examine this richly diverse history and its many constituent pathways.Nedavna izkopavanja v Jordanski dolini so pokazala dolgo sekvenco razvoja od pozno pleistocenskega epipaleolitika do zgodnje holocenskega predkeramičnega neolitika. Na prvi pogled vedno več podatkov o družbi in eksistenci kaže na to, da so se neolitske skupnosti razvile iz tradicij, ki imajo korenine v zgodnjem epipaleolitiku. Medtem ko so pojavi, kot je postavitev zavetij, združevanje ljudi in okrepitev načinov preživetja, ključni za pojav neolitika v jugozahodni Aziji, gre vendarle za tipične vzorce sodobnih združb lovcev in nabiralcev in ti pojavi sami po sebi niso neolitski. Neolitik v jugozahodni Aziji ne predstavlja homogene entitete, ampak vključuje raznolike izraze preživetja, simbolnega vedenja in kulturnih poti na tem območju. Za razumevanje pojava in razvoja neolitika moramo preučiti to bogato raznoliko zgodovino in njene številne sestavne poti

Beyond the Jordan: Multiformities of the pre-pottery neolithic

Recent excavations in Jordan have demonstrated a long sequence of development from the late Pleistocene Epipalaeolithic through the early Holocene Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Superficially, the growing body of social and subsistence evidence suggests Neolithic communities emerged from traditions rooted in the early Epipalaeolithic. However, while developments such as the construction of shelters, population aggregation, and subsistence intensification may be essential for the emergence of a southwest Asian Neolithic, they are typical of contemporary hunter-gatherer societies and not inherently Neolithic. Notably, the Neolithic in Southwest Asia was not a homogenous entity, but instead supported diverse expressions of subsistence, symbolic behaviors, and cultural trajectories across the region. To understand the emergence and development of the Neolithic, we need to examine this richly diverse history and its many constituent pathways

Early integration of pastoralism and millet cultivation in Bronze Age Eurasia

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.1273Mobile pastoralists are thought to have facilitated the first trans-Eurasian dispersals of domesticated plants during the Early Bronze Age (ca 2500–2300 BC). Problematically, the earliest seeds of wheat, barley and millet in Inner Asia were recovered from human mortuary contexts and do not inform on local cultivation or subsistence use, while contemporaneous evidence for the use and management of domesticated livestock in the region remains ambiguous. We analysed mitochondrial DNA and multi-stable isotopic ratios (δ13C, δ15N and δ18O) of faunal remains from key pastoralist sites in the Dzhungar Mountains of southeastern Kazakhstan. At ca 2700 BC, Near Eastern domesticated sheep and goat were present at the settlement of Dali, which were also winter foddered with the region's earliest cultivated millet spreading from its centre of domestication in northern China. In the following centuries, millet cultivation and caprine management became increasingly intertwined at the nearby site of Begash. Cattle, on the other hand, received low levels of millet fodder at the sites for millennia. By primarily examining livestock dietary intake, this study reveals that the initial transmission of millet across the mountains of Inner Asia coincided with a substantial connection between pastoralism and plant cultivation, suggesting that pastoralist livestock herding was integral for the westward dispersal of millet from farming societies in China

High mitochondrial diversity of domesticated goats persisted among Bronze and Iron Age pastoralists in the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor

Goats were initially managed in the Near East approximately 10,000 years ago and spread across Eurasia as economically productive and environmentally resilient herd animals. While the geographic origins of domesticated goats (Capra hircus) in the Near East have been long-established in the zooarchaeological record and, more recently, further revealed in ancient genomes, the precise pathways by which goats spread across Asia during the early Bronze Age (ca. 3000 to 2500 cal BC) and later remain unclear. We analyzed sequences of hypervariable region 1 and cytochrome b gene in the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) of goats from archaeological sites along two proposed transmission pathways as well as geographically intermediary sites. Unexpectedly high genetic diversity was present in the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor (IAMC), indicated by mtDNA haplotypes representing common A lineages and rarer C and D lineages. High mtDNA diversity was also present in central Kazakhstan, while only mtDNA haplotypes of lineage A were observed from sites in the Northern Eurasian Steppe (NES). These findings suggest that herding communities living in montane ecosystems were drawing from genetically diverse goat populations, likely sourced from communities in the Iranian Plateau, that were sustained by repeated interaction and exchange. Notably, the mitochondrial genetic diversity associated with goats of the IAMC also extended into the semi-arid region of central Kazakhstan, while NES communities had goats reflecting an isolated founder population, possibly sourced via eastern Europe or the Caucasus region

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

The origins and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes

This is the final version. Available on open access from Nature Research via the DOI in this recordData availability: All collapsed and paired-end sequence data for samples sequenced in this study are available in compressed fastq format through the European Nucleotide Archive under accession number PRJEB44430, together with rescaled and trimmed bam sequence alignments against both the nuclear and mitochondrial horse reference genomes. Previously published ancient data used in this study are available under accession numbers PRJEB7537, PRJEB10098, PRJEB10854, PRJEB22390 and PRJEB31613, and detailed in Supplementary Table 1. The genomes of ten modern horses, publicly available, were also accessed as indicated in their corresponding original publications57,61,85-87.NOTE: see the published version available via the DOI in this record for the full list of authorsDomestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare. However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 BC. Other longstanding candidate regions for horse domestication, such as Iberia and Anatolia, have also recently been challenged. Thus, the genetic, geographic and temporal origins of modern domestic horses have remained unknown. Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses. Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded rapidly across Eurasia from about 2000 BC, synchronously with equestrian material culture, including Sintashta spoke-wheeled chariots. We find that equestrianism involved strong selection for critical locomotor and behavioural adaptations at the GSDMC and ZFPM1 genes. Our results reject the commonly held association between horseback riding and the massive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists into Europe around 3000 BC driving the spread of Indo-European languages. This contrasts with the scenario in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium BC Sintashta culture

Constructing community in the Neolithic of southern Jordan: Quotidian practice in communal architecture.

The emergence of food production during the earliest Neolithic of the Near East was accompanied by profound changes in the ways in which societies were organized. Elaborate and multi-stage mortuary practices involving the removal, caching, and plastering of symbolically charged skulls are thought to have played an important role in cross-cutting household lines to integrate communities and maintain social cohesion during the late tenth to ninth millennium cal BP, particularly in Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B settlements located in the southern Levant. While the ritual and mortuary activities associated with skull manipulation were dramatic and high impact occasions that drew people and households together, it is likely they were highly episodic and, consequently, attendant community cohesion susceptible to decay over time. Recent research in southern Jordan, where skull plastering was not practiced as seen elsewhere in the southern Levant, has revealed that non-residential building structures were a common feature of early Pre-Pottery Neolithic settlements. Renewed excavations at Beidha, a Middle PPNB settlement located in the Shara'a mountains, have revealed a large, easily accessible communal structure that provided a focal point in which mundane, informal daily activities could regularly take place. The routine and repeated interactions fostered by such non-domestic structures facilitated highly durable modes of community cohesion and was part of a temporally deep ethos of community that first emerged a thousand years earlier when people first began to experiment with plant cultivation. It appears that in southern Jordan, a distinctive social cohesion pathway developed that engaged community daily practice within non-residential buildings to maintain and strengthen social structures, rather than occasional and dramatic ritual and mortuary practices used elsewhere in the southern Levant

Pratiques complexes d’exploitation des Caprinés et stratégies de chasse multiples : systèmes d'exploitation intégrés des animaux au PPN B récent à ‘Ain Jammam

L’élevage des moutons et des chèvres fut un élément essentiel de la composante animale de l’économie de subsistance au PPN final dans le Levant méridional, mais une compréhension précise de la diversité des systèmes d\u27exploitation des animaux et de la diffusion des pratiques liées à l’exploitation des caprinés pendant le PPNB récent – une période culturelle dynamique qui se distingue par des variations spectaculaires des fondements de l’organisation des systèmes et des sociétés — manque cruellement. L’abondance des données nouvelles métriques et démographiques recueillies à ‘Ain Jammam — un vaste site du PPNB récent situé en Jordanie méridionale — indique qu\u27un système d\u27exploitation animale complexe était établi sur ce site et qu’il a nécessité la gestion intensive des caprinés domestiques, l\u27exploitation soutenue des ongulés sauvages et la pratique d’une nouvelle technologie liée à l’animal. La variété des stratégies complémentaires d’élevage des caprinés à ‘Ain Jammam, incluant l’abattage contrôlé des jeunes moutons et le contrôle tardif, mais intensif, des boucs en faveur de la sélection des femelles, suggèrent la gestion programmée et l\u27exploitation des ressources animales, mortes ou vivantes. L\u27abondance relativement élevée de la gazelle dans l\u27assemblage d’‘Ain Jammam de indique que cet animal était une importante, et sans doute saisonnière, ressource de viande qui a complété les produits alimentaires obtenus à partir des caprinés domestiqués. La variation élevée de la dimension des individus du troupeau et des groupes démographiques représentés, comme la surreprésentation des parties du corps les moins utilisées, suggère l\u27exploitation conjointe des bovins sauvages et domestiqués sur le site. Les données archéozoologiques de ‘Ain Jammam suggèrent, qu’au PPNB récent, l’élevage et la chasse ont conjointement constitué un nouveau système de subsistance intégrant le développement des stratégies de gestion de Caprinés et des Bovins, incluant eux-mêmes les systèmes préexistants d’élevage et de chasse, afin de satisfaire la demande accrue des ressources animales générée par le changement des types de peuplements humains, du dispersement à la densification.Sheep and goat herding formed the central component of the animal-based portion of late Pre-Pottery Neolithic subsistence economies in the southern Levant, but a detailed understanding of the diversity of animal exploitation systems and the array of caprine management practices employed during the Late PPNB, a dynamic cultural period distinguished by dramatic shifts in settlement systems and social organization, is remarkably lacking. New species abundance, metrical, and demographic data from ‘Ain Jammam, a large Late PPNB settlement located in southern Jordan, indicate a complex animal exploitation system was in use at the site and entailed intensive management of domestic caprines, sustained exploitation of wild ungulates, and use of new animal technologies. The variety of complementary caprine harvesting strategies employed at ‘Ain Jammam, including moderate kill-off of young male sheep and delayed, but extensive, harvesting of male goats while promoting female survivorship, suggest scheduled use and extraction of ante- and post-mortem animal resources. The relatively high abundance of gazelle in the ‘Ain Jammam assemblage indicates that the animal served as an important, perhaps seasonal, meat resource that supplemented foodstuffs obtained from domesticated caprines. High variation in cattle body size and represented demographic groups, as well as over-representation of low-utility body parts, suggests exploitation of both wild and managed taurines at the site. These zooarchaeological data from ‘Ain Jammam suggest that Late PPNB herding and hunting activities comprised a completely new animal subsistence package that integrated new developments in caprine and taurine management strategies with pre-existing animal husbandry and hunting systems in order to meet increased demand for animal resources spurred by shifts in human settlement patterns toward dense inhabitation of aggregate settlements. Sheep and goat herding formed the central component of the animal-based portion of late Pre-Pottery Neolithic subsistence economies in the southern Levant, but a detailed understanding of the diversity of animal exploitation systems and the array of caprine management practices employed during the Late PPNB, a dynamic cultural period distinguished by dramatic shifts in settlement systems and social organization, is remarkably lacking. New species abundance, metrical, and demographic data from ‘Ain Jammam, a large Late PPNB settlement located in southern Jordan, indicate a complex animal exploitation system was in use at the site and entailed intensive management of domestic caprines, sustained exploitation of wild ungulates, and use of new animal technologies. The variety of complementary caprine harvesting strategies employed at ‘Ain Jammam, including moderate kill-off of young male sheep and delayed, but extensive, harvesting of male goats while promoting female survivorship, suggest scheduled use and extraction of ante- and post-mortem animal resources. The relatively high abundance of gazelle in the ‘Ain Jammam assemblage indicates that the animal served as an important, perhaps seasonal, meat resource that supplemented foodstuffs obtained from domesticated caprines. High variation in cattle body size and represented demographic groups, as well as over-representation of low-utility body parts, suggests exploitation of both wild and managed taurines at the site. These zooarchaeological data from ‘Ain Jammam suggest that Late PPNB herding and hunting activities comprised a completely new animal subsistence package that integrated new developments in caprine and taurine management strategies with pre-existing animal husbandry and hunting systems in order to meet increased demand for animal resources spurred by shifts in human settlement patterns toward dense inhabitation of aggregate settlements.</p