Hunter-gatherers kept animals for food before they farmed crops

Ancient dung hints that 12,000 years ago, a colonisation of hunter-gatherers successful what is present Syria kept animals similar sheep oregon gazelles astir – astir apt for food

Humans 14 September 2022

By Christa Lesté-Lasserre

Dung spherulites were recovered successful samples of archaeological sediment from Abu Hureyra successful Syria

Andrew Moore (CC-BY 4.0)

Some hunter-gatherers astir apt kept sheep, oregon perchance gazelles, extracurricular their huts earlier they adjacent started farming crops, according to traces of past carnal dung.

Alexia Smith astatine the University of Connecticut and her colleagues person recovered spherulites – tiny spheres of calcium recovered chiefly successful the faeces of grass-eating ruminants similar cattle, sheep and antelopes – extracurricular groups of huts belonging to humans who lived successful what is present Syria much than 12,000 years ago.

They besides recovered charred spherulites successful fireplaces. This suggests that humans lived with herbivores, similar sheep, successful this portion astir 2000 years earlier than antecedently thought and were utilizing their dung arsenic a substance source, says Smith.

“They’re inactive hunters and gatherers, and they’re inactive relying connected hunted gazelle, but present they’re starting to bring unrecorded animals to the tract and support them for nevertheless agelong they request them,” says Smith. “And this effect is simply a spot surprising, due to the fact that it’s earlier than agriculture, and earlier than what we spot successful adjacent regions.”

Ruminants merchandise important quantities of spherulites successful their faeces, whereas omnivores, including humans, merchandise precise tiny amounts, and carnivores and horses – which are herbivores but not ruminants – merchandise adjacent fewer, says Smith.

Smith was primitively funny astir erstwhile past populations archetypal started burning carnal dung arsenic fuel, which is done due to the fact that it tin support a precise precocious heat. So, she started looking for spherulites – which are astir 5 to 20 micrometres crossed – successful the particulate astatine a quality colony astatine Abu Hureyra – successful modern-day Syria adjacent the Euphrates stream – which was inhabited betwixt astir 7800 and 13,300 years ago.

In particulate from arsenic acold backmost arsenic 12,300 to 12,800 years ago, she recovered darkened spherulites suggesting that dung had been burned astatine precocious temperatures, astir apt arsenic a vigor source, she says. But to her surprise, she besides recovered undarkened spherulites each astir the extracurricular of huts, suggesting these radical were tending to sheep, goats, cows oregon gazelles conscionable extracurricular their beforehand doors. The earliest grounds we person for harvest farming successful the portion dates backmost to astir 11,000 years ago.

“Very quickly, I realised, ‘Oh, my goodness, we person an accidental present to really see the antiquity of unrecorded animals connected the site’,” she says.

By the precocious Neolithic period, astir 8000 years ago, though, spherulites started to vanish from astir the huts, says Smith. That whitethorn beryllium due to the fact that the herds had go truthful ample that radical were tending to them connected pastures further distant from the settlement. “It seems similar benignant of the other of what you’d expect,” she says. “But then, it makes sense, due to the fact that if you person a immense fig of animals, it’s not sustainable to support them connected site.”

This doesn’t mean the animals were domesticated, though, adds Smith. Nor does it bespeak which ruminants were surviving extracurricular the huts. What is much apt is that humans tethered chaotic animals and fed them to support them live arsenic a aboriginal nutrient source. “At the extremity of the day, these animals were dinner,” she says.

Journal reference: PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272947

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