Wool they, won’t they: Zooarchaeological perspectives on the political and subsistence economies of wool in northern Mesopotamia

An important facet in the study of complex societies involves documenting how the extraction of resources to support political structures (the political economy) impacted the subsistence economy of everyday life. Caprine production was a central feature of ancient Mesopotamian subsistence, while ancient texts reveal that wool was centrally important to the region’s political economies. It has long been thought that at some point in the Chalcolithic or Bronze Age (c. 4500–1500 BC) caprine husbandry was reorganized at the regional level to support the wool industry that was so dear to state finance and elite wealth. Here, we use kill-off patterns and biometrics to test whether caprine husbandry patterns across northern Mesopotamia underwent a regionwide transformation. We synthesize existing data and use Bayesian modeling to estimate average sheep size, male–female ratio, and harvesting patterns targeting older sheep. We confirm previous assessments that document an increase in sheep size in the 4th millennium BC. We find no pattern in male–female ratios. Diachronic kill-off data from across the region show subtle and local shifts in the slaughter of older caprines. While ambiguities in the data persist, there is no evidence of a dramatic shift toward intensive wool production at the regional level

Identifying seaweed consumption by sheep using isotope analysis of their bones and teeth : Modern reference δ13C and δ15N values and their archaeological implications

This research was funded by the British Natural Environment Research Council (NERC; NER/B/S/2003/00223) and the European Social Fund and Scottish Funding Council as part of Developing Scotland’s Workforce in the Scotland 2014-2020 European Structural and Investment Fund Programme. Stable isotope values in tooth enamel were measured at the SSMIM (Paris, MNHN) with technical support of Joël Ughetto. Modern sheep mandibles and/or information on sheep herding practices on Orkney were kindly provided by Robert Mainland (Rousay), Linda Haganand Una Gordon (Holm of Aikerness), Billy Muir, Dr Kevin Woodbridge and the North Ronaldsay Sheep Court (North Ronaldsay). We would like to thank Anne Brundle, Tankerness House Museum, Orkney (Point of Cott), Dr Colleen Batey, University of Glasgow (Earl’s Bu) and ProfJane Downes and Nick Card, Orkney College, UHI (Mine Howe) for providing access to the archaeological mandibles. The authors would also like to thank Jane Outram and Mandy Jay for assistance in preparation and isotopic measurement of the vegetation samples, which were kindly collected by Robert Craigie, and Karen Chapman for preparing the mandibles. Lastly, the authors are also grateful for the constructive comments of the editors and anonymous reviewers.Peer reviewedPostprin

Presenting the AfriArch Isotopic Database

AfriArch is an archaeological and paleoenvironmental data community designed to integrate datasets related to human-environmental interactions in Holocene Africa. Here we present a dataset of bioarchaeological stable isotope (C/N/O) and radiocarbon measurements from African archaeological sites spanning the Holocene. Modern measurements, when reported together with archaeological data in original publications, are also included. The dataset consists of 5568 entries and covers the entirety of Africa, though most isotopic research has been concentrated in southern Africa. The AfriArch isotopic dataset can be used in paleodietary, paleodemography, paleoclimatic, and paleoenvironmental studies. It can also be employed to highlight data gaps across space and time and set future research agendas

Re-Examining the Use of the LSI Technique in Zooarchaeology

The code here underlies the paper "Re-examing the use of the LSI technique in Zooarchaeology", published in Journal of Archaeological Science (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2020.105254) focused on re-examining three central tenets of LSI analyses in zooarchaeology: (1) the logarithm base for these analyes, (2) critiques based on the distribution of LSI values and their relationship to original measurements, and (3) arguments cerntering on aggregation choices. The code is designed to reproduce all findings and figures from the paper as well as provide code for applying multilevel LSI models to other zooarchaeological datasets. The dataset used in this project comes the Supplemental Information of Popkin, et al. (2012): Popkin, Peter R.W., Polydora Baker, Fay Worley, Sebastian Payne, and Andy Hammond 2012. The Sheep Project (1): determining skeletal growth, timing of epiphyseal fusion and morphometric variation in unimproved Shetland sheep of known age, sex, castration status and nutrition. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(6): 1775-1792. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2012.01.01

Examining Young Male Culling with Bayesian Multilevel Mixture Models

The “Young Male Culling” model of early domestic animal herd management describes early herders as slaughtering excess males before they reached sexual maturity to maintain larger herds of adult females. Importantly for zooarchaeologists, this management system should produce distinctive patterns in the age and sex structure of the zooarchaeological assemblages, consisting of large-sized unfused specimens and smaller-sized fused specimens, particularly for elements with later-fusing epiphyseal ends (Zeder and Hesse 2000). While this pattern has been explored using log-standard index (LSI) values from archaeological sites to identify general biometric patterns, supplemented with mixture modeling (e.g., Arbuckle and Atici 2013), multilevel modeling of LSI values addresses biometric variation across different elements that can obscure patterns (Wolfhagen 2020). This poster combines multilevel LSI modeling with mixture modeling to estimate the age and sex structure of ten zooarchaeological assemblages of measured sheep (Ovis aries) remains from Neolithic sites in Anatolia. By using the parametric results of the biometric model to estimate the age and sex of unmeasured specimens, sex-specific age profiles can be constructed for different age stages. Comparisons of these sex-specific age profiles provides a framework to evaluate the probability that these assemblages suggest the presence of “young male culling” in Neolithic Anatolia. This project contains the code necessary to undertake the analyses in this poster. The poster was presented at the 2022 Society of American Archaeology conference in Chicago

Zooarchaeological Bayesian Multilevel Mixture Models: Estimating the Age and Sex Composition of Faunal Assemblages

This OSF Project contains the code necessary to reproduce the analyses in the preprint "Estimating the Age and Sex Composition of Faunal Assemblages with Bayesian Multilevel Mixture Models" by Jesse Wolfhagen, intended for submission to the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. It also contains code to apply the method to new faunal assemblages. For the most part, this code is held in the associated GitHub repository, though the Wiki here contains some of the same information and links to the original data sources of the data used in the manuscript and application code

Bayesian Modeling of Animal δ13C and δ18O Enamel Isotopic Profiles to Explore Seasonal Aspects of Past Herding Systems

Intra-tooth samples of enamel δ18O and δ13C isotopic values produce isotopic profiles that reflect seasonal fluctuations in temperature, precipitation, and dietary composition an animal experienced while its tooth was mineralizing. Archaeologists have interpreted trends found in isotopic profiles to estimate birth seasonality, to elucidate past management strategies (e.g., seasonal foddering), and to examine variability in management strategies related to other economic activities. These research aims rely on comparisons of isotopic profiles; Balasse, et al. (2012) developed parametric summaries of isotopic profiles that can help standardize comparisons across teeth. However, these summaries typically work best with an intensive intra-tooth sampling strategy, which is not always feasible due to preservation or budgetary constraints. This poster describes a Bayesian model for fitting a seasonal regression model to isotopic profiles of enamel δ18O and δ13C values in cattle teeth. Reasonable parameter estimates of the isotopic profile can be recovered from teeth sampled as few as 5-6 times, allowing for comparisons of relevant parameters within an assemblage. Comparisons of the profile parameters relate to different aspects of past herding systems and past ecology, such as seasonal dietary differences, strength of seasonality, and the spread of seasonal births

Generalized Additive Model (GAM) Plots for Pollen Core Data

This project includes the underlying data and analytical scripts necessary to replicate the figures in Hamilton, et al. (2021). Non-uniform tropical forest responses to the 'Columbian Exchange' in the Neotropics and Asia-Pacific. Nature Ecology & Evolution https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01474-4 The script produces individual GAMs for a single set of pollen core data over a specific period of time, including an uncertainty band corresponding to the parameter of interest. In the paper, the parameter of interest was NAP:AP (non-arboreal pollen:arboreal pollen) and other proxies for burning frequency