Zooarchaeological Evidence for Early Neolithic Colonization at Franchthi Cave (Peloponnese, Greece)

The impact of environmental change on Palaeolithic and Mesolithic plant use and the transition to agriculture at Franchthi Cave, Greece

“…It also presents a poor fit with a pattern of long familiarity with the exploitation of large-seeded legumes that can be traced as far back as the Lateglacial. The non-wood botanical record thus appears to be in full agreement with the results of faunal analyses indicating the wholesale replacement of Mesolithic broad-spectrum prey choice by a domestic animal economy focused on caprine meat production [ 19 ]. However, unresolved discrepancies remain between the (botanical and faunal) subsistence archaeology records and at least some material culture data categories (including chipped stone, marine mollusks and personal ornaments).…”

“…Somewhat paradoxically, SLR was not considered to have exerted appreciable impacts on the distribution of plant-food resources. Furthermore, the introduction of domesticated cereal crops and animals in the early 9th millennium cal BP has been widely interpreted as a manifestation of the displacement of local Mesolithic forager-fisher-hunter lifeways by an ex oriente arrived mature agricultural economy [ 14 , 19 ]. However, radiocarbon dates recently obtained on crop seeds have also pinpointed the possibility that domesticated cereal crops were adopted in the first instance by indigenous Mesolithic groups [ 20 ].…”

Spread of domestic animals across Neolithic western Anatolia: New zooarchaeological evidence from Uğurlu Höyük, the island of Gökçeada, Turkey

“…The lack of or underrepresentation of marine resource exploitation during the Neolithic on the Aegean islands is archaeologically well-documented, as sites from Crete and Cyprus show the same pattern. Munro and Stiner [ 76 ] have more recently reported the same pattern during the Neolithic at Franchthi Cave on mainland Greece. In this vein, Uğurlu adds another data point to the same subsistence trend with a focus on livestock, crops, and other terrestrial taxa on the Aegean islands during the Neolithic and early Chalcolithic.…”

“…This, in turn, may be reflecting an increased young male slaughter which is the hallmark of more intensive management and herding of caprines that came to represent specialized pastoral economies of southwest Asia [ 5 ]. The fact that mean sheep LSI values for the Marmara and western sites are similar to that of Gökçeada may indicate that the first Neolithic inhabitants of the island may have selected their animals from the same colonizing stock that was dispersing across western Anatolia and into mainland Greece as evidenced by similar LSI values documented at Franchthi Cave [ 76 ]. In contrast, caprine populations during the ensuing Chalcolithic phase must have gone through a selective process locally on the island that led to further size reduction to the extent that they sit at the lowest end of the size distribution.…”

Newsround

“…The publication of analyses undertaken on the Final Mesolithic to Initial Neolithic faunal sequence at Franchthi Cave (Munro and Stiner 2015) offers an important zooarchaeological perspective on the Mesolithic to Neolithic transition in the southern Argolid. As previously reported (AR 59 [2012(AR 59 [ -2013 25), the site witnesses a near-wholesale replacement of red deer (Cervus elaphus) with caprines (sheep outnumbering goats) across the Final Mesolithic to Initial Neolithic transition (Munro and Stiner 2015: 597), as well as a rapid decline in the exploitation of small game and marine resources.…”