Domestication of Urus and Cattle Origin through Stable isotope analyses

Animal domestication is a key topic in Neolithic archaeological research since the early 1960s. The earliest steps of this phenomenon are, still today, very difficult to achieve. Traditional zooarchaeological analyses used to date domestication rely on detecting the appearance of genetically-driven morphological changes in animals. These morphological markers, however, if they occur at all, only appear after the process is well underway, after hundreds, if not thousands, of years, making it difficult to study them. The DUCOS project will build an alternative approach to detect early evidences of cattle management. The project will investigate the historical life-traits of the animals with a high-resolution time analysis by performing biogeochemical analyses on fossil teeth. Scientific approaches employed are not all highly innovative but their combination together with the themes addressed will involve a high-gain. In addition to common methods, the project will use new frontier research methods (Ca isotopes and Sr/Ca, Ba/Ca analyses) to reconstruct bovine management and address the main aim and research objectives. This will allow reconstructing the three clue mechanisms that were pivotal in the lead up to domestication: the control of the animals reproductive cycles; the induced changes to their feeding habits; and the interruption of migratory-seasonal movements. The presence of even one of these mechanisms would provide direct evidence for the behavioural manipulation, and therefore the domestication, of urus. This project will focus in the area where cattle domestication is thought to have started: the Northern Levant region in the Fertile Crescent, and the Upper and Middle Euphrates Valley area in particular; and includes, for first time, the whole analysis of a set of the most important and iconic faunal assemblages (e.g., Abu Hureyra, Göbekli tepe, Tell Mureybet). Further, the project will also study modern populations of feral cattle aiming to build a referential isotopic data-set of key life-conditions which will be also explored in the archaeological specimens. At the end, the project will unravel the current unresolved paradigms on the origin of domestic cattle not relying on how the animals changed but rather what the human societies did to change the animals; revealing how early bovine management was done and where and when processes of animal domestication were initiated.