Stable isotopic (δ13C and δ18O) and zooarchaeological insights into vertical transhumance of early Neolithic domesticated sheep and goats in southern Jordan

Summary

Vertical transhumance provides livestock with consistent access to quality graze throughout the year and likely contributed to the intensification of livestock husbandry in the Near East over ten thousand

years ago. Here, carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotopic time series obtained from sequentially sampled domesticated and wild herbivore teeth recovered from late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (ninth millennium cal BP) settlements, each located in the sharply divergent elevations of southern Jordan, were measured. Inverse cyclical variation visible in the carbon and oxygen isotopes of sequentially sampled sheep and goat teeth, and further calibration of sheep and goat δ18O values against those from aurochsen and gazelle, which track the oxygen isotopic composition of meteoric water and leaf water, respectively, reveal use of complex livestock husbandry systems that included vertical transhumance, stationary flock-keeping, and winter foddering. These isotopic data are then used to further inform zooarchaeological data sets from late PPNB settlements located in the Jordanian highlands and steppic margins.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Methodological Advances in Isotopic Zooarchaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17244