Jordan Abell
Doctoral student in Geochemistry, DEES

Urinating in the Neolithic: Geochemical perspectives on early animal domestication

Domestication of caprines (sheep and goats) is thought to have first emerged approximately 10-11 ka in the Fertile Crescent or its surrounding areas. Aceramic Neolithic mounds found throughout Central Anatolia are possible sites where the primitive management of wild caprines could have developed. Asikli Hoyuk, which was occupied from ~9.4 to >10.3 ka BP, is the earliest of these Pre-Pottery Neolithic mounds. Previous work at Asikli Hoyuk provides evidence of early animal management, such as culling by age and sex and use of enclosures inside the settlement. People’s strategies for managing caprines evolved at this site over a period of 1000 years, but reconstructing variability in the scale of the practices are difficult to measure. To address this issue, we recently developed a novel, holistic geochemical approach that determined the soluble-salt chemistry of Aşıklı Höyük, and used the data in a mass balance model to estimate the timing and scale of animal management. We find that soluble salt concentrations are ~10-1000x greater in archaeological sediments compared to underlying natural alluvium, and that the nitrogen isotopic composition of the anthropogenic material indicates this enrichment is likely due to urine. The largest change in soluble salts occurred during the interval of ~9.7-10 ka. Our model estimates it would take ~1400-2400 organisms at any point during occupation to account for the soluble salt anomaly. This methodology can be applied to other archaeological sites in arid regions to aid in understanding the timing and/or scale of animal domestication or human occupation.

Please contact Rose Oelkers for Zoom details
roelkers@ldeo.columbia.edu