Finding Fodder and Tracking Transhumance: Isotopic Detection of Goat Domestication Processes in the Near East

Abstract

The domestication of several animal taxa in the Near East approximately 10,000 years ago marked a fundamental shift in human-animal interactions that irrevocably transformed the subsistence base of prehistoric societies. Domesticates eventually provided humans with an easily accessible source of animal products including meat, milk, and hair, but the mechanisms by which humans first experimented with and domesticated their animals remain poorly understood. Early animal management strategies included the selective harvesting of juvenile males while promoting female survivorship, but other husbandry practices that contributed to the domestication of animals have proven elusive in the archaeological record. Here we apply a novel multistable isotopic approach (δ13C, δ15N, and δ18O) to bone collagens recovered from goats—one of the first animal domesticates—and wild gazelles from two Early Neolithic sites in the Near East. We show that humans provisioned goats with fodder and mobilized herds to different pastu...