Perinatal Remains of Livestock: An Under-utilised Line of Evidence for Animal Penning in the Neolithic of Southwest Asia

ABSTRACT

Archaeological evidence for penned animals is increasingly used to indicate managed livestock. Advances in techniques allowing the identification of dung and urine-derived components in sediments have enabled the expansion of this line of enquiry. Corralling animals into settlements protected them from predators at night and provided more control over their breeding. Deposits associated with livestock management at Neolithic settlements across Southwest Asia sometimes contain bones of perinatal animals. Reviewing the literature, it is evident that these faunal remains are not systematically reported or preserved in all burial environments. However, their distribution may reflect different patterns of livestock integration into human settlements. The presence of perinatal remains at sites where early livestock herding took place has important implications. Not only are they compelling evidence for herd management, particularly if there is also evidence for penning deposits, but also death of livestock during the perinatal phase of life informs us about the health of animals in early herds. This in turn, provides information about the skills needed by early pastoralists as they developed animal management strategies and the possible effect of transmissible diseases as animals were kept together in closer proximity.

KEYWORDS:

• Perinatal livestock
• Penning
• Animal management
• Neolithic
• Southwest Asia
• Ganj Dareh

Acknowledgements

We thank Peder Mortensen, Tobias Richer and Hojjat Darabi for providing permission to study faunal and phytolith assemblages from Ganj Dareh excavated as part of the Tracking Cultural and Environmental Change Project funded by the CL Davids Fond og Samling.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Yeomans

Lisa Yeomans is an Associate Professor in Near Eastern Archaeology at the Department of Cross- Cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University. She has extensively worked across Southwest Asia and the UK as a zooarchaeologist and field archaeologist.

Pernille Bangsgaard

Pernille Bangsgaard is coordinator of ArchaeoScience at the Globe Institute, Copenhagen University. She holds a PhD in Near Eastern Archaeology and has worked extensively in the Middle East and more recently in Denmark with zooarchaeological research from early prehistory to late historic times, focusing on the human-animal relationship.

Golnaz Ahadi

Golnaz Ahadi is currently a PhD student at the University of Tübingen (Germany) and the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). She holds an MSc in Archaeological Sciences. Her research focuses on human-environment interaction and plant-use by early Neolithic communities in Southwest Asia, through the analysis of botanical remains and livestock dung.