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      Provisioning the Ritual Neolithic Site of Kfar HaHoresh, Israel at the Dawn of Animal Management

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          Abstract

          It is widely agreed that a pivotal shift from wild animal hunting to herd animal management, at least of goats, began in the southern Levant by the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period (10,000–9,500 cal. BP) when evidence of ritual activities flourished in the region. As our knowledge of this critical change grows, sites that represent different functions and multiple time periods are needed to refine the timing, pace and character of changing human-animal relationships within the geographically variable southern Levant. In particular, we investigate how a ritual site was provisioned with animals at the time when herd management first began in the region. We utilize fauna from the 2010–2012 excavations at the mortuary site of Kfar HaHoresh—the longest continuous Pre-Pottery Neolithic B faunal sequence in the south Levantine Mediterranean Hills (Early–Late periods, 10,600–8,700 cal. BP). We investigate the trade-off between wild and domestic progenitor taxa and classic demographic indicators of management to detect changes in hunted animal selection and control over herd animal movement and reproduction. We find that ungulate selection at Kfar HaHoresh differs from neighboring sites, although changes in dietary breadth, herd demographics and body-size data fit the regional pattern of emerging management. Notably, wild ungulates including aurochs and gazelle are preferentially selected to provision Kfar HaHoresh in the PPNB, despite evidence that goat management was underway in the Mediterranean Hills. The preference for wild animals at this important site likely reflects their symbolic significance in ritual and mortuary practice.

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          Most cited references7

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          Thirty years on the "broad spectrum revolution" and paleolithic demography.

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            The Tortoise and the Hare. Small-Game Use, the Broad-Spectrum Revolution, and Paleolithic Demography.

            This study illustrates the potential of small-game data for identifying and dating Paleolithic demographic pulses such as those associated with modern human origins and the later evolution of food-producing economies. Archaeofaunal series from Israel and Italy serve as our examples. Three important implications of this study are that (1) early Middle Paleolithic populations were exceptionally small and highly dispersed, (2) the first major population growth pulse in the eastern Mediterranean probably occurred before the end of the Middle Paleolithic, and (3) subsequent demographic pulses in the Upper and Epi-Paleolithic greatly reshaped the conditions of selection that operated on human subsistence ecology, technology, and society. The findings of this study are consistent with the main premise of Flannery's broad-spectrum-revolution hypothesis. However, ranking small prey in terms of work of capture (in the absence of special harvesting tools) proved far more effective in this investigation of human diet breadth than have the taxonomic-diversity analyses published previously.
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              The Prey Pathway: A Regional History of Cattle (Bos taurus) and Pig (Sus scrofa) Domestication in the Northern Jordan Valley, Israel

              The faunal assemblage from the 9th-8th millennium BP site at Sha'ar Hagolan, Israel, is used to study human interaction with wild suids and cattle in a time period just before the appearance of domesticated animals of these species in the Jordan Valley. Our results, based on demographic and osteometric data, indicate that full domestication of both cattle and suids occurred at the site during the 8th millennium. Importantly, domestication was preceded in both taxa by demographic and metric population parameters indicating severe overhunting. The possible role of overhunting in shaping the characteristics of domesticated animals and the social infrastructure to ownership of herds is then explored.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                30 November 2016
                2016
                : 11
                : 11
                : e0166573
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States of America
                [2 ]Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
                Chinese Academy of Sciences, CHINA
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                • Conceptualization: JM NM ANG-M.

                • Formal analysis: JM.

                • Funding acquisition: JM NM ANG-M.

                • Investigation: JM NM.

                • Resources: ANG-M.

                • Writing – original draft: JM NM ANG-M.

                • Writing – review & editing: JM NM ANG-M.

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2003-9482
                Article
                PONE-D-16-28200
                10.1371/journal.pone.0166573
                5130218
                27902736
                e3b58442-f0c0-4c00-8457-0b6d1b78c4e7
                © 2016 Meier et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 14 July 2016
                : 31 October 2016
                Page count
                Figures: 11, Tables: 1, Pages: 27
                Funding
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000169, Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences;
                Award ID: 1355608
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: The Irene Levi Sala CARE Archaeological Foundation
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003973, Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities;
                Award ID: 840/01, 558/04, 755/07, and 1161/10
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: The Irene Levi Sala CARE Archaeological Foundation
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100006363, National Geographic Society;
                Award ID: 8625/09
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: University of Connecticut Department of Anthropology Summer Research Fellowship
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: University of Connecticut Department of Anthropology Dissertation Writing Fellowship
                Award Recipient :
                This research was completed as part of a dissertation project supported by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant to JM (Award 1355608, PI-NM) [ http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14566/nsf14566.htm]. Preliminary data collection was funded by the The Irene Levi Sala CARE Foundation (Awarded to NM) [ http://prehistory.org.il/?page_id=894]. Fieldwork of JM was supported by the University of Connecticut Department of Anthropology Summer Research Fellowships. Analysis and writing was made possible by the University of Connecticut Department of Anthropology Dissertation Writing Fellowship. Investigations at Kfar HaHoresh have been supported by generous grants (to ANG-M) from the Israel Science Foundation funded by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Grants 840/01, 558/04, 755/07, and 1161/10) [ http://www.academy.ac.il/english.htm], The National Geographic Society (Grant 8625/09) [ http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/be-an-explorer/] and The Irene Levi Sala CARE Foundation (grant to ANG-M).
                Categories
                Research Article
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Animals
                Vertebrates
                Amniotes
                Mammals
                Ruminants
                Goats
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Agriculture
                Animal Management
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Animals
                Animal Types
                Domestic Animals
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Zoology
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                Domestic Animals
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Animals
                Vertebrates
                Amniotes
                Mammals
                Bovines
                Cattle
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Agriculture
                Livestock
                Cattle
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Animals
                Vertebrates
                Amniotes
                Mammals
                Ruminants
                Cattle
                People and Places
                Demography
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                Physiology
                Physiological Parameters
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Physiology
                Physiological Parameters
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                Agriculture
                Livestock
                Swine
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Animals
                Vertebrates
                Amniotes
                Mammals
                Swine
                Earth Sciences
                Geology
                Geologic Time
                Stone Age
                Neolithic Period
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