Data sharing reveals complexity in the westward spread of domestic animals across Neolithic Turkey

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 9; no. 6; p. e99845
• Main Authors: Arbuckle, Benjamin S, Kansa, Sarah Whitcher, Kansa, Eric, Orton, David, Çakırlar, Canan, Gourichon, Lionel, Atici, Levent, Galik, Alfred, Marciniak, Arkadiusz, Mulville, Jacqui, Buitenhuis, Hijlke, Carruthers, Denise, De Cupere, Bea, Demirergi, Arzu, Frame, Sheelagh, Helmer, Daniel, Martin, Louise, Peters, Joris, Pöllath, Nadja, Pawłowska, Kamilla, Russell, Nerissa, Twiss, Katheryn, Würtenberger, Doris
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 13.06.2014; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Animals; Animals, Domestic; Archaeology; Archaeology - methods; Archaeology and Prehistory; Archives & records; Biology and Life Sciences; Cattle; Data integration; Data retrieval; Datasets; Domestic animals; Domestication; Fauna; Geography; Humanities and Social Sciences; Information Dissemination; Information sharing; Iron Age; Livestock; Neolithic; Ovis aries; Sheep; Social Sciences; Stone Age; Swine; Turkey; Veterinary medicine; Turkey; New York; San Francisco California; California; United States > US; Turkey; archaeozoological data; Domestic animals; Neolithic period
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0099845

This study presents the results of a major data integration project bringing together primary archaeozoological data for over 200,000 faunal specimens excavated from seventeen sites in Turkey spanning the Epipaleolithic through Chalcolithic periods, c. 18,000-4,000 cal BC, in order to document the initial westward spread of domestic livestock across Neolithic central and western Turkey. From these shared datasets we demonstrate that the westward expansion of Neolithic subsistence technologies combined multiple routes and pulses but did not involve a set 'package' comprising all four livestock species including sheep, goat, cattle and pig. Instead, Neolithic animal economies in the study regions are shown to be more diverse than deduced previously using quantitatively more limited datasets. Moreover, during the transition to agro-pastoral economies interactions between domestic stock and local wild fauna continued. Through publication of datasets with Open Context (opencontext.org), this project emphasizes the benefits of data sharing and web-based dissemination of large primary data sets for exploring major questions in archaeology (Alternative Language Abstract S1).