Pre-agricultural plant management in the uplands of the central Zagros: the archaeobotanical evidence from Sheikh-e Abad

Whitlam, Jade; Bogaard, Amy; Matthews, Roger; Matthews, Wendy; Mohammadifar, Yaghoub; Ilkhani, Hengameh; Charles, Michael

doi:10.1007/s00334-018-0675-x

Cited by 19 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Ganj Dareh, in the high Zagros, has the earliest known evidence for goat domestication [7][8][9] , and the foothills of the Zagros mountains have also been argued to have been the site of early farming 3 . In addition, early sites such as Sheikh-e Abad (11.650-9,600 cal BP) provide evidence of early stages of barley cultivation 38 . Were these innovations independent of similar achievements that made up the Neolithic package that North West Anatolians brought into Europe?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The genetics of an early Neolithic pastoralist from the Zagros, Iran

Llorente

Connell

Jones

et al. 2016

Preprint

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The agricultural transition profoundly changed human societies. We sequenced and analysed the first genome (1.39x) of an early Neolithic woman from Ganj Dareh, in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, a site with early evidence for an economy based on goat herding, ca. 10,000 BP. We show that Western Iran was inhabited by a population genetically most similar to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus, but distinct from the Neolithic Anatolian people who later brought food production into Europe. The inhabitants of Ganj Dareh made little direct genetic contribution to modern European populations, suggesting those of the Central Zagros were somewhat isolated from other populations of the Fertile Crescent. Runs of homozygosity are of a similar length to those from Neolithic farmers, and shorter than those of Caucasus and Western Hunter-Gatherers, suggesting that the inhabitants of Ganj Dareh did not undergo the large population bottleneck suffered by their northern neighbours. While some degree of cultural diffusion between Anatolia, Western Iran and other neighbouring regions is possible, the genetic dissimilarity between early Anatolian farmers and the inhabitants of Ganj Dareh supports a model in which Neolithic societies in these areas were distinct.The agricultural transition started in a region comprising the Ancient Near East and Anatolia ~12,000 years ago with the first Pre-Pottery Neolithic villages and the first domestication of cereals and legumes 1,2 . Archaeological evidence suggests a complex scenario of multiple domestications in a number of areas 3 , coupled with examples of trade 4 . Ancient DNA (aDNA) has revealed that this cultural package was later brought into Europe by dispersing farmers from Anatolia (so called 'demic' diffusion, as opposed to non-demic cultural diffusion 5,6 ) ~8,400 years ago. However a lack of aDNA from early Neolithic individuals from the Near East leaves a key question unanswered: was the agricultural transition developed by one major population group spanning the Near East, including Anatolia and the Central Zagros Mountains; or was the region inhabited by genetically diverse populations, as is suggested by the heterogeneous mode and timing of the appearance of early domesticates at different localities?To answer this question, we sequenced the genome of an early Neolithic female from Ganj Dareh, GD13a, from the Central Zagros (Western Iran), dated to 10000-9700 cal BP 7 , a region located at the eastern edge of the Near East. Ganj Dareh is well known for providing the earliest evidence of herd management of goats beginning at 9,900 BP [7][8][9] . It is a classic mound site at an altitude of ~1400 m in the Gamas-Ab Valley of the High Zagros zone in Kermanshah Province, Western Iran. It was discovered in the 1960s during survey work and excavated over four seasons between 1967 and 1974. The mound, ~40 m in diameter, shows 7 to 8 m of early Neolithic cultural deposits. Five major levels were found, labelled A through E from top to bottom. Extended evidence showed a

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The genetics of an early Neolithic pastoralist from the Zagros, Iran

Llorente

Connell

Jones

et al. 2016

Preprint

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“…Elements of the steppe vegetation like Adonis, Stipa and Nesslia occur 907 regularly in the archaeobotanical assemblages and indicate that this habitat 908 was common in the surrounding of the site. Adonis and Nesslia are known as 909 a weed species incorporated in cultivated field systems in later periods 910 (Whitlam et al, 2018). Stipa is usually avoided by animals because its awns 911 and whole florets are dangerous when swallowed by causing damage to the 912 intestines.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Malva spp., Medicago/Trifolium and Rumex spp. ), are indicators for the use of dung as fuel at archaeological sites (Van Zeist et al, 1984;Charles, 1996;Whitlam et al, 2018) and thus indirectly suggest increasing intensity of animal management at Komishani Tappeh.…”

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confidence: 99%

Human responses to environmental change on the southern coastal plain of the Caspian Sea during the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods

Leroy

Amini

Gregg

et al. 2019

Quaternary Science Reviews

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This paper presents results of a multidisciplinary research initiative examining human responses to environmental change at the intersection of the southern coastal plain of the Caspian Sea and the foothills of the Alborz Mountains during the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene. Our palaeoenvironmental analysis of two sedimentary cores obtained from a lagoon in close proximity to four caves, occupied by human groups during the transition from hunting and gathering to food-producing ways of life in this region, confirms Charles McBurney's 1968 hypothesis that when Caspian Sea levels were high, Mesolithic hunters were reliant on seal and deer, but as water levels receded and a wide coastal plain emerged, hunters consumed a different range of herbivorous mammalian species. Palynological evidence obtained from these two cores also demonstrates that the cool and dry climatic conditions often associated with the Younger Dryas stadial do not appear to have been extreme in this region. Thus, increasingly sedentary hunting and gathering groups could have drawn 19/07/2019 2 on plant and animal resources from multiple ecological niches without suffering significant resource stress or reduced population levels that may have been encountered in neighbouring regions. Our analyses of botanical, faunal and archaeological remains from a recently-discovered open-air Mesolithic and aceramic Neolithic site also shows an early process of Neolithization in the southern Caspian basin, which was a very gradual, lowcost adaptation to new ways of life, with neither the abandonment of hunting and gathering, nor a climatic trigger event for the emergence of a low-level, food-producing society.

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“…The available data, however, are insufficient to establish whether the inhabitants of Tapeh Mahtaj cultivated domesticated crops, or relied on the exploitation of wild species. The presence of feathergrass may require additional studies, as the economic role of this taxon has recently been highlighted at several Early Neolithic sites in South-west Asia (Colledge et al 2018;Whitlam et al 2018). Overall, further data are required to characterise any plant-based subsistence strategies at Tapeh Mahtaj.…”

Section: Floramentioning

confidence: 99%