The evolution of caprine herding in the hyper-arid zone of the southern Levant viewed through Niche Construction Theory

Abstract

Caprine herding in the hyper-arid zone of the Southern Levant emerged in the early Holocene during a brief moist episode (∼9500 years ago) within semi-permanent Middle PPNB settlements that depended on herding, farming, and hunting/foraging, organized within a transhumant land use strategy. With the onset of much drier conditions (∼9200 years ago) these Desert Neolithic settlements were abandoned in Late PPNB times giving way to Timnian groups that followed a more mobile settlement strategy with an emphasis on herding accompanied by range expansion. Through introducing a case study of the Desert Neolithic site of Ayn Abū Nukhayla and a deep sounding in a nearby dry lake bed, climatic-environmental fluctuations, human demographics, resource availability and land use strategies are evaluated as interwoven effects relative to the progressive shifts seen between prehistoric human populations and caprine herds. And these changes are viewed in the context of cultural macroevolutionary theory, specifically in the framework of Niche Construction Theory (NCT), in weighing the differential influences of human agency and natural selection on the process.