The Archaeology of Wool in Early Mesopotamia:

Breniquet, Catherine

doi:10.2307/j.ctvh1djjn.8

Cited by 56 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…The selective breeding of sheep to encourage wool production began in Mesopotamia as early as 6500 BCE; this practice was well-established in the Near East by the 3rd millennium BCE (Breniquet, 2014;Vila and Helmer, 2014). Mouflon, the wild progenitor of domestic sheep, has a brown coat of coarse kemps (hair-like fibers) interspersed with fine underwool (Ryder, 1987a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hoofprints in the sand: A study on domestic sheep (Ovis aries) from Iron Age southern Phoenicia using traditional biometric methods

Harding

Vermeersch

Ujma

et al. 2023

Quaternary International

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hoofprints in the sand: A study on domestic sheep (Ovis aries) from Iron Age southern Phoenicia using traditional biometric methods

Harding

Vermeersch

Ujma

et al. 2023

Quaternary International

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“…Although the origins of wool-bearing sheep are currently poorly understood, caprine demographic profiles and the proliferation of material culture associated with textile production suggest the emergence of increasingly complex secondary products economies focused on animal fiber in the fifth millennium (Sudo 2010). By the third millennium, sheep breeding had progressed to the point that specific localities were known for both the quality and color of the wool their herds produced, and both urban and rural economies involved wool production (Breniquet 2014;Michel 2014).…”

Section: Discussion/summarymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although wooly sheep likely have their origins earlier in the Chalcolithic (Sudo 2010), wool was certainly used to produce textiles by the fourth millennium, as revealed by the first archaeological remains of woolen textiles (Frangipane et al 2009;Shishlina et al 2003). Late fourth millennium texts from the site of Uruk refer to the production, storage, and distribution of wool and woolen textiles, and artifacts associated with spinning and weaving proliferated at that time (Breniquet 2014;Charvat 2014).…”

Section: Late Chalcolithic Pastoralism: 4000-3000 Bcmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In central Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia, Old Assyrian texts of the Middle Bronze Age provide indirect evidence of pastoralism integrated into urban states through documentation of the wool and woolen textile trade (Breniquet 2014;Michel and Veenhof 2010). Kültepe-Kanesh and a number of other sites in central Anatolia were the location of trade colonies established by merchants from the northern Mesopotamian city of Assur, capital of the Old Assyrian polity.…”

Section: Middle and Late Bronze Age Pastoralismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Rise of Pastoralism in the Ancient Near East

Arbuckle

Hammer

2018

J Archaeol Res

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In this paper, we present a history of pastoralism in the ancient Near East from the Neolithic through the Bronze Age. We describe the accretional development of pastoral technologies over eight millennia, including the productive breeding of domestic sheep, goats, and cattle in the early Neolithic and the subsequent domestication of animals used primarily for labor-donkeys, horses, and finally camels-as well as the first appearance of husbandry strategies such as penning, foddering, pasturing, young male culling, and dairy production. Despite frequent references in the literature to prehistoric pastoral nomads, pastoralism in Southwest Asia was strongly associated with sedentary communities that practiced intensive plant cultivation and was largely local in nature. There is very little evidence in prehistoric and early historic Southwest Asia to support the notion of a "dimorphic society" characterized by separate and specialized agriculturists and mobile pastoralists. Although mobile herders were present in the steppe regions of Syria by the early second millennium BC, mobile pastoralism was the exception rather than the rule at that time; its "identification" in the archaeological record frequently derives from the application of anachronistic ethnographic analogy. We conclude that pastoralism was a diverse, flexible, and dynamic adaptation in the ancient Near East and call for a reinvigorated and empirically based archaeology of pastoralism in Southwest Asia.

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“…Spinnable wool might have evolved shortly after domestication in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (mid-9th-mid-7th mill. BCE), based on mortality profiles, spindle whorls apparently used for wool, and a couple of questionable textile finds [170][171][172][173]. More definitive evidence for spinnable wool production emerges in the 5th-4th millennium BCE Chalcolithic-a period of intensification in livestock exploitation for non-meat products like milk, animal fiber, and traction, originally conceived as the 'Secondary Products Revolution' [174][175][176][177][178].…”

Section: Wool Growthmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Time to Sow, a Time to Reap: Modifications to Biological and Economic Rhythms in Southwest Asian Plant and Animal Domestication

et al. 2022

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This paper reviews changes to lifecycle temporality in Southwest Asian plant and animal domestication, exploring their relationship to long-term processes associated with ancient and contemporary globalization. We survey changes under domestication to the timing of seed dispersal, germination, vegetative growth, flowering and maturation in wheat and barley and to birth, reproduction, lactation, wool production and death in sheep, goats and cattle. Changes in biological temporality among domesticates are ultimately related to globally increasing production intensity, geographic diffusion, and agricultural diversity associated with cultivar/breed evolution. Recently, however, increasing crop production intensity and geographic diffusion are accompanied by declining agricultural diversity worldwide. Similar processes are apparent in contemporary economic and cultural globalization, suggesting that long-term agricultural developments might be viewed as a subset of globalization. Moreover, the origin of certain features of contemporary globalization may be traced back to the beginnings of plant and animal domestication. Thus, while biologists since Darwin considered domestication as a model for the study of evolution, we suggest that domestication may also offer a model for the study of globalization.

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The Archaeology of Wool in Early Mesopotamia:

Cited by 56 publications

References 0 publications

Hoofprints in the sand: A study on domestic sheep (Ovis aries) from Iron Age southern Phoenicia using traditional biometric methods

Hoofprints in the sand: A study on domestic sheep (Ovis aries) from Iron Age southern Phoenicia using traditional biometric methods

The Rise of Pastoralism in the Ancient Near East

A Time to Sow, a Time to Reap: Modifications to Biological and Economic Rhythms in Southwest Asian Plant and Animal Domestication

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