Pathways to plant domestication in Southeast Anatolia based on new data from aceramic Neolithic Gusir H\xf6y\xfck

Ceren Kabukcu,Joris Peters,Eleni Asouti,Necmi Karul,Nadja Pöllath

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-81757-9

Abstract

Southeast Anatolia is home to some of the earliest and most spectacular Neolithic sites associated with the beginning of cultivation and herding in the Old World. In this article we present new archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data from Gusir Höyük, an aceramic Neolithic habitation dating to the 12th-late 11th millennia cal BP. Our results show selective use of legume crop progenitors and nuts during the earlier part of this period, followed by the management of cereal and legume crop progenitors from the mid-11th millennium cal BP. This contrasts with data available from other Anatolian habitations indicating broad spectrum plant use with low crop progenitor inputs. Early aceramic Neolithic Anatolian plant and animal exploitation strategies were site-specific, reflecting distinctive identities and culinary choices rather than environmental constraints. A multivariate evaluation of wheat grain metrics alongside botanical and radiometric data indicate that early wheat domestication in southeast Anatolia occurred at a faster pace than predicted by current hypotheses for a protracted transition to farming in Southwest Asia. We argue that this phenomenon is best explained as a corollary of the increasing importance of cereals in feasting at southeast Anatolian sites characterised by increasing architectural complexity and elaboration during the 11th millennium cal BP.

Highlights

Southeast Anatolia is home to some of the earliest Neolithic sites associated with the transition from foraging to farming in the Old World
This evidence brings to the fore two key questions: Could the low proportions of crop progenitors found at southeast Anatolian Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) sites be explained as the result of incomplete sampling and/or archaeobotanically under-explored variation in the regional vegetation ecologies? Was the early use of cereal and legume crop progenitors linked to wider socio-cultural shifts manifested in the emergence of large and architecturally more complex sites straddling the PPNA-Early PPNB (EPPNB) horizon? In turn, these questions have wider significance, extending beyond the interpretation of the southeast Anatolian record, for understanding the historical process, context and proximate causes of the development of the earliest agricultural economies in Southwest Asia during the early Holocene[11]
Gusir Höyük is one of only three excavated aceramic Neolithic sites in southeast Anatolia that preserve archaeological deposits dated from the PPNA through to the EPPNB horizons, the other two being Göbeklitepe and Çayönü

Summary

Introduction

Cereal and legume crop progenitors are far more abundant at EPPNB sites characterised by architectural complexity and symbolic/ritual elaboration (e.g., Çayönü, Nevali Çori) These sites contain some of the earliest evidence in Southwest Asia for intensified caprine and cattle management during this p eriod[17]. Gusir Höyük is one of only three excavated aceramic Neolithic sites in southeast Anatolia that preserve archaeological deposits dated from the PPNA through to the EPPNB horizons, the other two being Göbeklitepe and Çayönü To date, it is the only site of the three from which archaeobotanical remains have been retrieved from radiometrically dated archaeological contexts with the use of machine-assisted water flotation. Gusir Höyük provides a unique opportunity to explore these questions on the cultural and ecological context of crop progenitor use in early PPN southeast Anatolia through the analysis of primary archaeobotanical data obtained from adequately sampled archaeological contexts

Methods

Results

Conclusion