Animal representations and animal remains at Çatalhöyük

This book chapter is from “Çatalhöyük Perspectives: Reports From The 1995–99 Seasons, By Members Of The Çatalhöyük Teams”. Ed. By Ian Hodder. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/London: British Institute at Ankara, BIAA Monograph No. 40. Çatalhöyük Research Project Volume 6, 2006. 245 pp, 61 figs, 30 tables, hb ISBN 1-902937-29-5

Agricultural origins on the Anatolian plateau

This paper explores the explanations for, and consequences of, the early appearance of food production outside the Fertile Crescent of Southwest Asia, where it originated in the 10th/9th millennia cal BC. We present evidence that cultivation appeared in Central Anatolia through adoption by indigenous foragers in the mid ninth millennium cal BC, but also demonstrate that uptake was not uniform, and that some communities chose to actively disregard cultivation. Adoption of cultivation was accompanied by experimentation with sheep/goat herding in a system of low-level food production that was integrated into foraging practices rather than used to replace them. Furthermore, rather than being a short-lived transitional state, low-level food production formed part of a subsistence strategy that lasted for several centuries, although its adoption had significant long-term social consequences for the adopting community at Boncuklu. Material continuities suggest that Boncuklu’s community was ancestral to that seen at the much larger settlement of Çatalhöyük East from 7100 cal BC, by which time a modest involvement with food production had been transformed into a major commitment to mixed farming, allowing the sustenance of a very large sedentary community. This evidence from Central Anatolia illustrates that polarized positions explaining the early spread of farming, opposing indigenous adoption to farmer colonization, are unsuited to understanding local sequences of subsistence and related social change. We go beyond identifying the mechanisms for the spread of farming by investigating the shorter- and longer-term implications of rejecting or adopting farming practices.</p

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)

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Wild Meets Domestic in the Near Eastern Neolithic

The categories of wild and domestic are one of the classic ways the nature/culture dichotomy manifests itself in human interactions with the environment. Some argue that this distinction is not helpful and a projection of modern thought, and certainly the boundaries are complicated. However, we should try to determine in each case whether it was meaningful to particular people in the past. Here I explore whether wild and domestic were relevant concepts to the inhabitants of the Neolithic Near East in their relations with animals around the time when livestock herding began. Drawing on depictions of animals and the treatment of living animals and their remains, I examine three case studies (Cyprus, Upper Mesopotamia, and &Ccedil;atalh&ouml;y&uuml;k in central Anatolia) to evaluate whether emic distinctions between wild and domestic existed. I conclude that this was in fact a crucial distinction that shaped economic choices as well as ritual activities. Differential treatment of wild and domestic animals indicates that they were accorded different forms of personhood. The particular nature of human relations with wild animals helped shape the spread of both wild and domestic animals

The exploitation of fish at Çatalhöyük

status: publishe

Severe traumatic lesions in the Late Neolithic cattle from the site of At-Vršac, Serbia

This paper aims to assess the etiology and differential diagnosis of severe pathological lesions in wild and domestic cattle from the Late Neolithic site of At-Vršac in the northeast part of the present-day Serbia. Excavations of this multilayered site revealed the remains of a Late Neolithic settlement belonging to the Vinča culture network of the Central Balkans. An aurochs metacarpal bone, two domestic cattle fragments of fused ulna and radius and of tibia, all with massive bone proliferations were recovered during the archaeological excavations in 1976. Paleopathological study was undertaken using an interdisciplinary approach, including AMS dating, radiography, computed tomography (CT), and histopathology. The results show severe oblique healed fracture with secondary pronounced bone reaction in the aurochs metacarpal bone and in the domestic cattle ulna–radius, while traumatic alteration infected with disseminated osteomyelitis was found in the domestic cattle tibia. These pathologies of wild and domestic cattle are discussed to reveal the level of environmental and human influence on the origin and development of the lesions in the Late Neolithic cattle