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AbstractPigs are one of the earliest domesticated livestock species, first domesticated at least 10,000 years ago. The domestication of wild boar, including associated morphological changes, is a long process over several millennia. Across Southwest Asia, management, domestication, and the adaption of the different livestock species was a highly localized process, influenced by both cultural and environmental factors.This paper explores the size, age, and diet of the suids of the Pre‐Pottery Neolithic sites of Bestansur and Shimshara in order to further our understanding of the origins of suid management in the Neolithic Eastern Fertile Crescent. Our data suggest that the relationship between wild boar and humans was more complex than a strict hunter–prey relationship. This study demonstrates that the Neolithic in the Zagros was not uniform in the adaption and exploitation of different animals.

The emergence of pottery in Europe is associated with two distinct traditions: hunter-gatherers in the east of the continent during the early 6th millennium BC and early agricultural communities in the south-west in the late 7th millennium BC. Here we investigate the function of pottery from the site of Rakushechny Yar, located at the Southern fringe of Eastern Europe, in this putative contact zone between these two economic 'worlds'. To investigate, organic residue analysis was conducted on 120 samples from the Early Neolithic phase (ca. mid-6th millennium BC) along with microscopic and SEM analysis of associated foodcrusts. The results showed that the earliest phase of pottery use was predominantly used to process riverine resources. Many of the vessels have molecular and isotopic characteristics consistent with migratory fish, such as sturgeon, confirmed by the identification of sturgeon bony structures embedded in the charred surface deposits. There was no evidence of dairy products in any of the vessels, despite the fact these have been routinely identified in coeval sites to the south. Further analysis of some of the mammalian bones using ZooMS failed to demonstrate that domesticated animals were present in the Early Neolithic. Nevertheless, we argue that intensive exploitation of seasonally migratory fish, accompanied by large-scale pottery production, created storable surpluses that led to similar socio-economic outcomes as documented in early agricultural societies. Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M

Abstract Cereals and pulses have formed staple foods for the populations of the European continent ever since the emergence of agriculture, yet the ways in which they have been processed were by no means homogeneous in time and space. This study deals with use-wear analysis of prehistoric grinding stones from a series of Neolithic (7th-4th millennium BC) and Bronze Age (late 4th-2nd millennium BC) sites in mainland Greece focusing in particular on cereal-processing and the action of cereal dehusking. Optical observations through a stereomicroscope and a metallographic microscope have been combined with surface measurements (laser scanning confocal microscopy) and characterization (method of continuous wavelet transform and SMa coefficient that indicates the arithmetic mean value of the multi-scale decomposition of a surface). Comparison between experimental surfaces (from replicated tools used to grind various plant-foods) and archaeological ones permitted to distinguish archaeological tools used for cereal processing from those employed for processing other plant-foods. Furthermore, it was possible to determine the formation of different use-wear signatures depending on whether the cereals were processed in their husked or dehusked form. The tools used to process husked cereals produced higher SMa values compared to those related to dehusked cereals. Husks seem to function as an abrasive agent which creates less extended plateaus of more rough texture on the tools' surfaces. These results show that grinding tools may have been (occasionally) implemented in the dehusking process or that dehusking was not always conducted prior to grinding, at least in the Neolithic period, or both. Nevertheless, variations have been detected even within the same chronological period attesting to the diversity of food processing and cereal meals.

The Aceramic Neolithic (∼9600 to 7000 cal BC) period in the Zagros Mountains, western Iran, provides some of the earliest archaeological evidence of goat (Capra hircus) management and husbandry by circa 8200 cal BC, with detectable morphological change appearing ∼1,000 y later. To examine the genomic imprint of initial management and its implications for the goat domestication process, we analyzed 14 novel nuclear genomes (mean coverage 1.13X) and 32 mitochondrial (mtDNA) genomes (mean coverage 143X) from two such sites, Ganj Dareh and Tepe Abdul Hosein. These genomes show two distinct clusters: those with domestic affinity and a minority group with stronger wild affinity, indicating that managed goats were genetically distinct from wild goats at this early horizon. This genetic duality, the presence of long runs of homozygosity, shared ancestry with later Neolithic populations, a sex bias in archaeozoological remains, and demographic profiles from across all layers of Ganj Dareh support management of genetically domestic goat by circa 8200 cal BC, and represent the oldest to-this-date reported livestock genomes. In these sites a combination of high autosomal and mtDNA diversity, contrasting limited Y chromosomal lineage diversity, an absence of reported selection signatures for pigmentation, and the wild morphology of bone remains illustrates domestication as an extended process lacking a strong initial bottleneck, beginning with spatial control, demographic manipulation via biased male culling, captive breeding, and subsequently phenotypic and genomic selection. Significance Goats were among the first domestic animals and today are an important livestock species; archaeozoological evidence from the Zagros Mountains of western Iran indicates that goats were managed by the late ninth/early eighth millennium. We assess goat assemblages from Ganj Dareh and Tepe Abdul Hosein, two Aceramic Neolithic Zagros sites, using complementary archaeozoological and archaeogenomic approaches. Nuclear and mitochondrial genomes indicate that these goats were genetically diverse and ancestral to later domestic goats and already distinct from wild goats. Demographic profiles from bone remains, differential diversity patterns of uniparental markers, and presence of long runs of homozygosity reveal the practicing and consequences of management, thus expanding our understanding of the beginnings of animal husbandry.

The reconstruction of land use practices in hyper-arid Saharan Africa is often hampered by the accuracy of the available tools and by unconscious biases that see these areas as marginal and inhospitable. Considered that this has been for a long time the living space of pastoral mobile communities, new research is showing that agriculture might have been more important in these areas than previously thought. In this paper, after a review of present-day land use strategies in Saharan Africa, we show how ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological data can offer us a different point of view and help in better defining land use and food production strategies in this area. Ultimately, these insights can be integrated into the ongoing efforts to reconstruct past land use globally. This research and the APC were funded by the European Research Council, grant number ERC-Stg-2017 759800, RAINDROPS project.

Historical sources describe irrigation and intensive agriculture being practiced in lowland Yunnan from at least the first century AD, but so far archaeobotanical remains allowing investigation of this issue have been scarce. Here, we present new archaeobotanical evidence, including macro-botanical and phytoliths results, from the Dian settlement site of Dayingzhuang, with direct AMS radiocarbon dates on two wheat grains falling between 750 and 390 BC. We compare these results with contemporary Dian sites and analyse the agricultural systems in Central Yunnan between the eight and fourth centuries BC. We propose that agriculture was intensified toward the end of the Dian through both multiple cropping seasons and increased evidence for irrigated rice fields. Introduction The site of Dayingzhuang - Environment and excavation - Chronometric results: dates and sequences - Site description and material culture -- Features -- Ceramics -- Stone and other implements -- Metal objects -- Faunal remains Materials and methods - Macro-botanical remains - Phytolith remains Results - Macro-botanical remains -- General features of the assemblage and key economic taxa -- Cereal crops -- Wheat and barley -- Rice -- Millets -- Chenopodium -- Other possible cultigens -- Seeds of field weed species - Phytoliths remains: general features - Rice cultivation ecology: inferences from phytoliths Discussion: characterizing Dian agriculture Conclusion