Where did the herds go? Combining zooarchaeological and isotopic data to examine animal management in ancient Thessaly (Greece).

Historians and archaeologists have been debating the scale of animal husbandry in ancient Greece for decades. This study contributes to the debate by examining Classical and Hellenistic faunal assemblages from Magoula Plataniotki, New Halos, and Pherae through non-destructive zooarchaeological methods and a multi-isotopic (87Sr/86Sr, δ13C, and δ18O) approach. Zooarchaeological data suggest that small-scale sedentary animal husbandry focused on caprine production in Magoula Plataniotiki and New Halos, and small-scale and semi-specialised animal husbandry was practised in Pherae.

Grouping groupers in the Mediterranean: Ecological baselines revealed by ancient proteins.

Marine historical ecology provides a means to establish baselines to inform current fisheries management. Groupers (Epinephelidae) are key species for fisheries in the Mediterranean, which have been heavily overfished. Species abundance and distribution prior to the 20th century in the Mediterranean remains poorly known.

Threatened North African seagrass meadows have supported green turtle populations for millennia.

is the second official aim of the current UN Ocean Decade (2021 to 2030) calling for the identification and protection of critical marine habitats. However, data to inform policy are often lacking altogether or confined to recent times, preventing the establishment of long-term baselines. The unique insights gained from combining bioarchaeology (palaeoproteomics, stable isotope analysis) with contemporary data (from satellite tracking) identified habitats which sea turtles have been using in the Eastern Mediterranean over five millennia.

Hunting before herding: A zooarchaeological and stable isotopic study of suids (Sus sp.) at Hardinxveld-Giessendam, the Netherlands (5450-4250 cal BC).

Suids (Sus sp.) played a crucial role in the transition to farming in northern Europe and, like in many regions, in the Netherlands pig husbandry became an important subsistence activity at Neolithic sites. Yet little is known about wild boar palaeoecology and hunting in the Late Mesolithic Netherlands with which to contextualize this transition.

Judging a reindeer by its teeth: A user-friendly tooth wear and eruption pattern recording scheme to estimate age-at-death in reindeer ().

Reindeer () have shaped the cultures and provided livelihood to peoples of the Northern Hemisphere for thousands of years. They are still the socio-economic cornerstone of many northern cultures. Insight into reindeer mortality patterns is important for understanding past human-reindeer interactions and reindeer population fluctuations in relation to climatic and environmental change.

Specialized cattle farming in the Neolithic Rhine-Meuse Delta: Results from zooarchaeological and stable isotope (δ18O, δ13C, δ15N) analyses.

Schipluiden (3630-3380 cal BC), the earliest known year-round settlement in the Rhine-Meuse Delta in the Netherlands, is a key site for addressing the nature of Neolithic subsistence in the wetlands of northwestern Europe. A preliminary zooarchaeological study suggested that cattle husbandry was a major activity at Schipluiden. In contrast, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of human remains from the site indicated a marine-oriented diet, implying that the Mesolithic-Neolithic dietary transition continued well into the mid-4th Millennium BC in this region.

Ancient pigs reveal a near-complete genomic turnover following their introduction to Europe.

Archaeological evidence indicates that pig domestication had begun by ∼10,500 y before the present (BP) in the Near East, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggests that pigs arrived in Europe alongside farmers ∼8,500 y BP. A few thousand years after the introduction of Near Eastern pigs into Europe, however, their characteristic mtDNA signature disappeared and was replaced by haplotypes associated with European wild boars. This turnover could be accounted for by substantial gene flow from local European wild boars, although it is also possible that European wild boars were domesticated independently without any genetic contribution from the Near East.

Ancient goat genomes reveal mosaic domestication in the Fertile Crescent.

Current genetic data are equivocal as to whether goat domestication occurred multiple times or was a singular process. We generated genomic data from 83 ancient goats (51 with genome-wide coverage) from Paleolithic to Medieval contexts throughout the Near East. Our findings demonstrate that multiple divergent ancient wild goat sources were domesticated in a dispersed process that resulted in genetically and geographically distinct Neolithic goat populations, echoing contemporaneous human divergence across the region.

The genetic prehistory of domesticated cattle from their origin to the spread across Europe.

Background: Cattle domestication started in the 9(th) millennium BC in Southwest Asia. Domesticated cattle were then introduced into Europe during the Neolithic transition. However, the scarcity of palaeogenetic data from the first European domesticated cattle still inhibits the accurate reconstruction of their early demography.

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.

Pig domestication and human-mediated dispersal in western Eurasia revealed through ancient DNA and geometric morphometrics.

Zooarcheological evidence suggests that pigs were domesticated in Southwest Asia ~8,500 BC. They then spread across the Middle and Near East and westward into Europe alongside early agriculturalists. European pigs were either domesticated independently or more likely appeared so as a result of admixture between introduced pigs and European wild boar.