Origins of Agriculture in Western Central Asia Professor V. M. Masson introducing school children from Ashgabat to the excavations at the Neolithic site of Jeitun, Turkmenistan, April 1990. David R. Harris

Origins of Agriculture in Western Central Asia An Environmental-Archaeological Study

with contributions from: Eleni Asouti, Amy Bogaard, Michael Charles, James Conolly, Jennifer Coolidge, Keith Dobney, Chris Gosden, Jen Heathcote, Deborah Jaques, Mary Larkum, Susan Limbrey, John Meadows, Nathan Schlanger, and Keith Wilkinson

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Philadelphia © 2010 University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Philadelphia, PA 19104-6324

Published for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

All rights reserved. Published 2010.

Production of this book was supported by a publication grant from the Academic Committee of the Iran Heritage Foundation (London) and an award from the Stein-Arnold Expedition Fund of the British Academy.

The drawing on p. 304 of the head of a wild bezoar goat is from Harris 1962, Fig. 3a.

librar y o f c o n g r e s s c ata l o g i n g -in-publication d ata

Harris, David R. Origins of agriculture in western central Asia : an environmental-archaeological study / David R. Harris. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-934536-16-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-934536-16-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Agriculture—Turkmenistan—Origin. 2. Agriculture—Asia, Central—Origin. 3. Agriculture, Prehistoric—Turkmenistan. 4. Agriculture, Prehistoric—Asia, Central. 5. Excavations (Archaeology)— Turkmenistan. 6. Excavations (Archaeology)—Asia, Central. 7. Turkmenistan—Antiquities. 8. Asia, Central—Antiquities. I. Title. GN855.T85H37 2010 306.3’4909585--dc22 2010009780

This book was printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper. Contents

Illustrations vii

Tables x

Contributors xi

Preface and Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1

PART I: Physical Environment and Ecology 3 1. The Present Environment 5 2. Environmental Changes in the Pleistocene and Holocene 19 3. The Local Environment of Jeitun, with Susan Limbrey 27 4. The Local Environment of the Bolshoi Balkhan Sites, with Jen Heathcote 35

PART II: Prehistoric Archaeology 41 5. History of Archaeological Research, with Jennifer Coolidge 43 6. The Mesolithic and Neolithic Periods: Sites, Sequences, and Subsistence, with Jennifer Coolidge 53

PART III: Neolithic Crop Plants and Domestic Animals 71 7. Areas of Origin of the Crops and Domestic Animals 73

PART IV: Archaeological-Environmental Investigations in Turkmenistan 1989–98 93 8. Jeitun, the Sumbar and Chandyr Valleys, and the Bolshoi Balkhan Region: Excavation and Survey, with Chris Gosden 95 9. Jeitun: Dating and Analysis of Excavated Materials 119 9.1 Dating the Site: Radiocarbon Chronology, with Chris Gosden and John Meadows 119 9.2 Yard Deposits and Building Materials at Jeitun, Susan Limbrey 125 9.3 Buried Soils at Jeitun, Susan Limbrey 131 9.4 Investigation of a Palaeosol Sequence at Jeitun: Excavation of a Ditch-like Feature and Measurement of Magnetic Susceptibility, Keith Wilkinson 137 9.5 Phytolith Analysis of Samples from On- and Off-Site Deposits at Jeitun, Mary Larkum 142 9.6 Charred Plant Macro-Remains from Jeitun: Implications for Early Cultivation and Herding Practices in Western Central Asia, Michael Charles and Amy Bogaard 150 9.7 Remains of Wood Charcoal from Jeitun: Identification and Analysis, Eleni Asouti 166 c o n t e n t s

9.8 Pollen and Charcoal-particle Analysis: Sampling Off-Site Deposits at Jeitun, David Harris 171 9.9 The Vertebrate Assemblage from Excavations at Jeitun, 1993 and 1994, Keith Dobney and Deborah Jaques 174 9.10 The 1994 Knapped-Stone Assemblage from Jeitun, James Conolly 180 9.11 The Pottery from Jeitun, Jennifer Coolidge 186 9.12 Summary Discussion of the Excavation Evidence from Jeitun, with Chris Gosden 190 10. The Bolshoi Balkhan Sites: Analysis of Excavated Materials 197 10.1 Charred Seeds from the Dam Dam Cheshme Rockshelters, Michael Charles 197 10.2 Wood Charcoal from the Dam Dam Cheshme Rockshelters, Eleni Asouti 199 10.3 Animal Remains from the Dam Dam Cheshme Rockshelters, Keith Dobney and Deborah Jaques 201 10.4 Stone Tools from the Dam Dam Cheshme Rockshelters, James Conolly and Nathan Schlanger 203 10.5 Pottery from the Dam Dam Cheshme Rockshelters and Other Sites in the Bolshoi Balkhan Region, Jennifer Coolidge 206

PART V: Synthesis and Conclusions 209 11. Neolithic Settlement and Subsistence 211 12. The Beginnings of Agriculture in Western Central Asia 225

Appendices 237 Appendix 3.1, Susan Limbrey 237 Appendices 8.1–-8.5, Chris Gosden 239 Appendices 9.1–9.2, Susan Limbrey 244 Appendices 9.3–9.5, Mary Larkum 250 Appendix 9.6, Michael Charles and Amy Bogaard 256 Appendices 9.7–9.10, Keith Dobney and Deborah Jaques 260 Appendix 9.11, James Conolly 266

Bibliography 269

Author Note 297

Index 299

vi Illustrations

Professor V. M. Masson introducing school children to the excavations at Jeitun, 1990 Frontispiece

figures

1.1 The Central Asian arid zone 4 1.2 Turkmenistan and adjacent areas 4 1.3 The Kopetdag mountains and piedmont Color figure I 1.4 Takyrs on the Kopetdag piedmont 6 1.5 A takyr in the Central Karakum 6 1.6 Pentagonal cracks on a takyr surface 6 1.7 Turkmenistan: mean annual precipitation 8 1.8 Riparian tugai forest Color figure I 1.9 Groves of pistachio trees, Badghyz Reserve Color figure I 1.10 Pistachio tree with wild barley, Badghyz Reserve Color figure I 1.11 Steppe grassland on the Kopetdag piedmont Color figure I 1.12 White saksaul, Central Karakum Color figure II 1.13 Black saksauls, Trans-Unguz Karakum Color figure II 1.14 Ancient black saksaul, Repetek Reserve Color figure II 1.15 Distribution of wild Asiatic mouflon, urial, and argali sheep 12 1.16 Distribution of wild bezoar, ibex, and markhor goats 13 3.1 Location of Jeitun and the Kara Su 28 3.2 Kara Su gorge near Jeitun Color figure II 3.3 Solonetz soil in the Kara Su gorge Color figure II 3.4 Overgrazed semi-shrub vegetation at Jeitun Color figure II 3.5 Tamarisk and reeds beside the Kara Su Color figure III 3.6 Reed-tamarisk swamp near Jeitun Color figure III 4.1 Bolshoi and Maly Balkhan massifs and the Uzboi lowland 36 4.2 Escarpment and piedmont of the Bolshoi Balkhan massif Color figure III 4.3 View from the DDC 1 rockshelter Color figure III 4.4 Southern Bolshoi Balkhan, piedmont, and lower Uzboi 37 4.5 Bedded sands and gravels below the DDC rockshelters 38 4.6 Downstream view of the Uzboi channel Color figure III 4.7 Scattered juniper trees above the DDC 4 rockshelter 39 4.8 Grove of fig trees at the head of the DDC 4 canyon Color figure III 6.1 Distribution of Neolithic and Mesolithic sites 56 illustrations

6.2 Distribution of Keltiminar and other Neolithic sites 65 8.1 Jeitun: plan of Masson’s second level 96 8.2 Jeitun: locations of 1989–94 excavations 97 8.3 Jeitun: plan of the central area excavation 98 8.4 Jeitun: part of the central area excavated 1989–90 99 8.5 Jeitun: section in trench 1991a 101 8.6 Jeitun: northern face of section in trench 1991a Color figure IV 8.7 Jeitun: plan of 1993 House A excavation 103 8.8 Jeitun: excavated House A oven Color figure IV 8.9 Jeitun: dog-like figurine and truncated cone from House A Color figure IV 8.10 Jeitun: plan of 1994 House B excavation 105 8.11 Jeitun: House B from the west Color figure IV 8.12 Jeitun: incomplete tortoise carapace from House B Color figure IV 8.13 Southwestern Turkmenistan 108 8.14 Sumbar and Chandyr valleys: location of archaeological sites 109 8.15 Approach to the Jebel rockshelter Color figure V 8.16 DDC 1 from the Bolshoi Balkhan piedmont Color figure V 8.17 Entrance of DDC 1 Color figure V 8.18 Interior of DDC 1 Color figure V 8.19 Entrance of DDC 2 Color figure V 8.20 Plan of DDC 2 114 8.21 Section of Area 1 in DDC 2 115 8.22 Entrance of DDC 3 during excavation Color figure V 9.1 Jeitun: calibration of radiocarbon results 120 9.2 Jeitun: Bayesian model of on-site radiocarbon dates 121 9.3 Jeitun: duration of occupation 122 9.4a,b Micromorphology: silica skeletons Color figure VI 9.5 Micromorphology: residual plant structure in yellow organic matter Color figure VI 9.6 Micromorphology: spherulitic fabric Color figure VI 9.7 Jeitun: excavation of buried-soil section 131 9.8 Jeitun: ditch-like feature in buried-soil section Color figure VI 9.9 Micromorphology: framboids in limpid yellow coatings Color figure VI 9.10 Jeitun: excavated ditch-like feature 137 9.11 Jeitun: buried-soil section and magnetic susceptibility 138 9.12 Jeitun: section through buried-soil sequence 139 9.13 SEM micrographs of Jeitun phytoliths and spherulites 143

viii illustrations

9.14 Jeitun: glume wheat spikelet forks 152 9.15 Jeitun: glume wheat grain 152 9.16 Jeitun: barley material 153 9.17 Triangular plot of Jeitun barley and wheat samples 154 9.18a,b Scatter plots of samples from Jeitun and Amorgos 156 9.19a,b Correspondence analysis of samples and taxa 159 9.20 Correspondence analysis of taxa by seasonality 161 9.21 Correspondence analysis of samples by seasonality, crop material, and taxa 161 9.22 Correspondence analysis of samples by context type 161 9.23 SEM micrographs of Jeitun charcoal specimens 169 9.24 Jeitun: evidence of bone bead production Color figure VII 9.25 Jeitun: representative stone artifacts 180 9.26 Stone tools from Jeitun, 1994 Color figure VIII 9.27 Jeitun blade widths 182 9.28 Jeitun flake lengths 182 9.29 SEM micrograph of edge wear on a Jeitun blade 184 9.30 Jeitun pottery: vessel forms and types of ware 187 10.1 SEM micrographs of DDC charcoal specimens 200 10.2 Stone tools from DDC 2, 1997 203 Color figures are located after p. 208

ix Tables

2.1 Late Pleistocene/Holocene fluctuations of the Caspian Sea and glacial-postglacial sequence 21 2.2 Lateglacial fluctuations of the Caspian Sea 21 6.1 Mesolithic rockshelter and cave sites 55 6.2 Periods and principal sites of the Jeitun Culture in Turkmenistan 60 9.1 Jeitun: on-site AMS radiocarbon results 120 9.2 Jeitun: off-site AMS radiocarbon dates from three palaeosols 124 9.3 Jeitun: phytolith samples 128 9.4 Jeitun: particle-size analysis of mudbrick and mortar 129 9.5 Jeitun: pH determinations 129 9.6 Jeitun: samples from 1993 buried-soils section 132 9.7 Jeitun: chemical and particle-size analysis of 1993 samples 134 9.8 Jeitun: AMS radiocarbon dates from three off-site palaeosols 139 9.9 Jeitun: phytolith samples 146 9.10 Relative frequency of glume-wheat grain and glume bases 155 911 Classification of wild plant taxa 155 9.12a,b Amorgos and Jeitun: discriminant function of samples 156, 157 9.13a,b Taxa used in correspondence analysis 158 9.14 Seasonality of Jeitun wild plants 160 9.15 Ecological data for Jeitun wild plants 163 9.16 Jeitun: charcoal samples 168 9.17 Jeitun: pollen types and charcoal particles 172 9.18 Jeitun: vertebrate taxa identified 176 9.19 Jeitun: skeletal elements with traces of bone working 178 9.20 Jeitun: stone-tool color variability 181 9.21 Jeitun: lithic categories 181 9.22 Jeitun: dimensions of stone-tool types 183 10.1 Charred seeds from DDC 2 and 3 198 10.2 Charcoal samples from DDC 1, 2 and 3 199 10.3 Animal remains from DDC 2 and 3 202 10.4 Stone artifacts from DDC 2 205 Contributors

Eleni Asouti, School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, UK Amy Bogaard, School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, UK Michael Charles, Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, UK James Conolly, Department of Anthropology, Trent University, CANADA Jennifer Coolidge, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, University of Oxford, UK Keith Dobney, Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen, UK Chris Gosden, School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, UK David Harris, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, UK Jen Heathcote, Head of Research Policy (Freshwater and Wetlands), English Heritage, London, UK Deborah Jaques, Palaeoecology Research Services, Hull, County Durham, UK Mary Larkum, Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA Susan Limbrey, Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham, UK John Meadows, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, UK Nathan Schlanger, INRAP (Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives), Paris, FRANCE Keith Wilkinson, Department of Archaeology, University of Winchester, Winchester, UK

Preface and Acknowledgments

oday the products of domesticated plants and They discussed the idea of developing collaborative Tanimals sustain—however precariously—over six field projects in the Soviet Union, and the following billion people, predicted to rise to over nine billion year Peter Ucko, accompanied by his Southampton by 2050, but dependence on agriculture is a recent colleague Tim Champion, visited Russia at the invita- phenomenon in the 100,000-year evolution of ana- tion of Professor Masson. He showed them a series of tomically modern humans. The question of how this archaeological sites, including Jeitun (Djeitun, Dzhei- innovation came about has puzzled scholars in many tun) at the southern edge of the Karakum desert, disciplines since the early 19th century, and although which he had partially excavated in the late 1950s and there have been great advances in our understanding early 1960s. Although not radiocarbon dated, Jeitun of agricultural origins in a few regions of the world, was interpreted as the earliest site of the Neolithic particularly the Southwest Asian “Fertile Crescent,” “Jeitun Culture” of southern Turkmenistan and—on there are many gaps in our knowledge of how agricul- the basis of finds of charred wheat and barley grains ture began in other regions. One such region is the and their impressions in mudbrick, and of the bones vast arid zone of Central Asia, where, with the notable of domestic goats and sheep—it came to be regarded exception of southern Turkmenistan and parts of as the oldest agricultural settlement in Central Asia. northeastern Iran and northwestern China, there has Masson recognized that this interpretation of Jei- been little archaeological investigation of prehistoric tun’s significance should be tested by undertaking agricultural settlement. The purpose of this book is new excavations at the site using modern methods to help fill this gap by adding new data to the earlier of retrieving, analyzing, and directly dating plant research undertaken in Turkmenistan and adjacent and animal remains. He therefore invited me to co- areas and by synthesizing what is currently known organize a collaboration in which a group of British about when, how, and why agricultural settlements environmental archaeologists would work at Jeitun originated in western Central Asia. with him, several of his colleagues from Leningrad, Much of the new data presented in this book and a Turkmen archaeologist from Ashgabat, Dr. K. was generated under the auspices of an interna- K. Kurbansakhatov, who had been one of his doctoral tional project carried out between 1989 and 1998 in students. Turkmenistan by a team of British archaeologists in In April 1989 I visited Jeitun with my colleague collaboration with Russian and Turkmen colleagues. from the Institute of Archaeology in London, Gordon The seeds of the project were sown at the first meet- Hillman, to assess the potential of the site for archaeo- ing of the World Archaeological Congress that took botanical work. The deposits we sampled proved to place in England, at the University of Southampton, contain abundant charred cereal grains and chaff in 1986. During the Congress its National Secretary, and numerous animal bones. Gordon and I therefore the late Professor Peter J. Ucko, had a series of meet- returned the following year, accompanied by Michael ings with one of the Russian participants, Professor V. Charles, then one of our doctoral students in archaeo- M. Masson, Director of the Institute of the History of botany at the London Institute, Susan Limbrey, a Material Culture in Leningrad and a Corresponding geoarchaeologist from the University of Birmingham, Member of the Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan. andTony Legge, a zooarchaeologist from the extra- p r e fac e a n d acknowledgments mural department of the University of London. Our Kurbansakhatov, and we recall with gratitude the gen- initial results encouraged us to try to continue the erous assistance we received from the directors and project after Turkmenistan became an independent other members of the Desert Research Institute, the nation in 1991. This proved possible, but participation Central Botanic Garden, and the Institutes of Botany, by our Russian colleagues from (the now re-named) Geology, History, and Zoology in Ashgabat. St. Petersburg was perforce gradually reduced. In Not all the individuals who helped can be listed subsequent years the project became almost entirely a here, but particular thanks for their major contribu- British venture, dependent on the help of Dr. Kurban- tions during the excavations are due to Yuri Berez- sakhatov who continued to provide essential logistic kin, Natasha Solovyova, Sasha Maretin, Vladimir support from Ashgabat and participate in our later Timofeyev, Nikolai Savvanidi, Vladimir Zavyalov, surveys and excavations at Jeitun and elsewhere. In Patrick Blackman, Jane Kaye, Colin Merrony, Nathan 1991 the team was joined by Chris Gosden (then at Schlanger, and Jane Sidell. In addition to Professor La Trobe University in Australia, now Professor of Eu- Masson himself, the initial team at Jeitun included ropean Archaeology at the University of Oxford). He Russian colleagues Galina Korobkova, Ogulsona became co-director of the project with me after Mas- Lollekova, and Tamara Sharovskaya who worked on son’s withdrawal, directed our excavations at Jeitun the lithic and ceramic finds, and Alexei Kasparov using modern methods of fine-grain excavation, led who analyzed the animal bones recovered in 1989 a reconnaissance survey in the Sumbar and Chandyr and 1990. The environmental team from Britain was valleys in 1996, and oversaw our excavations at sites in joined in the later years of the project by zooarchae- the Bolshoi Balkhan massif in western Turkmenistan ologist Keith Dobney, and geoarchaeologists Keith in 1997 (see Chapter 8). Wilkinson, Jen Heathcote, and Sarah O’Hara, while After ten years of co-operative effort in Turk- Michael Charles took over as principal archaeobota- menistan, and despite many logistical, administrative, nist from Gordon Hillman after the 1992 season. For and financial challenges along the way, the fieldwork the final excavation season in 1997, in the Bolshoi phase of the environmental-archaeological project we Balkhan, we were joined by Saïd Khamrakuliev from started in 1989 was completed. Thereafter, analytical Ashgabat, Amy Bogaard, then a doctoral student work on the organic and inorganic materials from our in archaeobotany at Sheffield, Jennifer Coolidge, excavations continued—necessarily intermittently— then a doctoral student at Oxford who specialized in several laboratories in England, and other circum- in ceramic analysis and who in 1997 and 1998 visited stances delayed full publication of all the results. But many of the Jeitun-Culture sites on the Kopetdag this unintended prolongation of the post-excavation piedmont with Dr. Kurbansakhatov, Simeon Mel- phase of the project was, in the event, beneficial be- lalieu, a doctoral student from London who assisted cause it enabled me, in this book, to relate its results Jen Heathcote with geoarchaeological survey, and more closely to relevant archaeological, environmen- Greger Larson, an American student who was then tal, and genetic research published since 1998, and visiting Turkmenistan. to complete a more comprehensive account of the Several long-distance field excursions, under- origins of agriculture in western Central Asia than taken to enhance our understanding of the ecology originally envisaged. of other regions of Turkmenistan, were made possible by Russian and Turkmen colleagues, particularly the Director and Deputy Director of the Desert Research Acknowledgments Institute in Ashgabat, Dr. A. G. Babaev and Dr. N. S. Orlovsky. Their generous assistance enabled some of The project would not have been possible with- us to visit four areas of particular ecological inter- out the permission and support of various govern- est: the Natural Reserve of Badghyz southeast of the ment departments in Ashgabat, which we gratefully Kopetdag, established in 1941 and inhabited by the acknowledge and which enabled many Russian and largest surviving population of the goitered gazelle, British archaeologists to participate in the excavations as well as onagers and wild sheep, where we were and field surveys. We are especially indebted to the expertly guided by V. I. Kuznetsov and K. P. Popov; late Professor Masson and the Turkmenistan Academy Repetek Sand Desert Reserve in the Southeast Kara- of Sciences, to the late Dr. G. F. Korobkova and to Dr. kum, established in 1912, where we gained valuable

xiv p r e fac e a n d acknowledgments insights from the director and his colleagues into the photographs and some of the drawings. All the photo- geobotany and ecology of this area of desert long pro- graphs were taken by David Harris, with the exception tected from intensive grazing and wood cutting; the of those individually attributed in their captions. Southwest Kopetdag Reserve at Kara-Kala in the Sum- Without financial support from many sources bar valley where, courtesy of its director, we visited the the project would have been impossible. Research local experimental station of the N. I Vavilov Institute and travel grants were received from the British Acad- of Plant Industry in the wooded environment of the emy, the British Institute for Persian Studies, the Sumbar valley; and a south-north transect across the British-Soviet Archaeological Committee, the Gordon Karakum from Ashgabat to Tashauz, Urgench, and Childe Fund of the University of London Institute of Khiva organized for us and led by Nicolai Orlovsky. Archaeology, the Dean’s Fund of University College These excursions added greatly to our understanding London, the University of Birmingham, the University of the diverse landscapes of Turkmenistan and have of Oxford, and La Trobe University (Melbourne), all of informed the interpretation of environmental and which are gratefully acknowledged, as are publication ecological changes offered in this book. So too has grants received from the Iran Heritage Foundation the work of the many 20th century Russian naturalists (London), and the British Academy’s Stein-Arnold who made detailed studies of the flora and fauna of Expedition Fund. Financial and logistic support was Turkmenistan, to which V. Fet’s and K. I. Atamura- also generously provided by the Institute of the His- dov’s 1994 volume on the biogeography and ecology tory of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of of the country provides an invaluable introduction. Sciences (St. Petersburg), the South Turkmenistan In addition to all the practical and intellectual Multi-disciplinary Archaeological Expedition of the support we received, we are especially indebted to those Turkmenistan Academy of Sciences (Ashgabat), and who made the project possible by acting as skillful and the Desert Research Institute (Ashgabat). I am es- patient interpreters, principally Irina Annisimova, pecially grateful to the Leverhulme Trust (London) Yuri Berezkin, Isabella Moskalyeva, Liya Orlovskaya, for awarding me an Emeritus Fellowship in 2001 to and Natasha Solovyova. I also want particularly to help finance the final analyses and dating of organic thank Katharine Judelson who has always been will- samples from our excavations and the preparation of ing to translate crucial passages in Russian academic this volume. Without this support I would have been papers, who has ensured accuracy and consistency in unable to complete the project. the transliteration of the titles of Russian publications I also wish to thank the Iranian archaeolo- cited in the Bibliography, and who, in the course of gists (mentioned in Chapters 5 and 6) who kindly her frequent visits to Turkmenistan and helped by Dr. provided information about their recent surveys and Kurbansakhatov, tracked down several obscure refer- excavations in northern Iran; the Polish and Uzbek ences. Jennifer Coolidge, too, made a major contribu- archaeologists (also mentioned in Chapters 5 and 6) tion by translating many of the earlier publications on who generously allowed me to refer to the prelimi- Jeitun and other aspects of the prehistory of Turkmeni- nary results of their excavations at Ayakagytma in the stan (reflected particularly in Chapter 5). Kyzylkum desert; Dr. Michael Gregg of the University I am most grateful to the following for drawing of Pennsylvania Museum for information about his the maps, plans, and sections: Catherine D’Alton and research on unpublished materials from two rockshel- Miles Irving, UCL Department of Geography Draw- ters in northern Iran excavated by C. S. Coon in 1949 ing Office (Figs. 1.1, 1.2, 1.7, 1.15, 1.16, 6.1, 6.2); Colin and 1951; Dr. Richard Meadow of Harvard University Merrony, Department of Archaeology, University of for commenting on a draft of the section on domestic Sheffield (Figs. 3.1, 8.2); Alison Wilkins, Institute of animals in Chapter 7; and my colleague Dr. Dorian Archaeology, University of Oxford (Figs. 8.1, 8.3, 8.5, Fuller of the UCL Institute of Archaeology for com- 8.7, 8.10, 8.20); and Keith Wilkinson, Department of menting likewise on the section on crops in Chapter Archaeology, University of Winchester (Figs. 4.1, 4.4, 7 and for helping me to keep up to date with the bur- 8.13, 8.14). Other figures were prepared by the authors geoning genetic literature on plant and animal domes- of the chapters and sections in which they appear. tication. Lastly, and most warmly, I thank my daughter Special thanks are also due to Stuart Laidlaw and Ash Zoë, who participated in four of our field seasons (and Rennie of the UCL Institute of Archaeology for their learned a good deal of archaeology in the process!), help with the preparation of digital files of most of the and my wife Helen, who accompanied me on our first

xv p r e fac e a n d acknowledgments visit to Jeitun in 1989 and came again in 1994, and But the majestic River floated on, who has for many years kept the home fires burning Out of the mist and hum of that low land during my frequent periods of absence on fieldwork in Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, Turkmenistan and elsewhere in the world. Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian It has been a great privilege to undertake field waste, research with Russian and Turkmenian colleagues, Under the solitary moon: he flowed and I hope this book will add to knowledge and Right for the Polar Star, past Orgunjè, international awareness of the role the region has Brimming, and bright, and large: then sands played in the prehistory of Eurasia. The desert lands begin of Central Asia, with their dramatic landscapes and To stem his watery march, and dam his fabled history, have long excited the imagination of streams, Western scholars and travelers, and I cherish personal And split his currents; that for many a league memories of poring over a world atlas as a schoolboy The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along and being fascinated by the mysteriously named Kara- Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles— kum and Kyzylkum deserts, separated by the valley of Oxus forgetting the bright speed he had the Amudarya—the ‘Oxus’ of Alexander the Great. At In his high mountain cradle in Pamere, school, too, my imagination was fuelled by the lyrical A foiled circuitous wanderer:—till at last description of the Oxus in the final lines of Matthew The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and Arnold’s epic poem Sohrab and Rustum (1853). It has wide stayed with me ever since, and though the Aral Sea is His luminous home of waters opens, bright no longer the “luminous home of waters” of Arnold’s And tranquil, from whose floor the new- imagination, those lines may still serve as a fitting bathed stars preface to this book: Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.

xvi Introduction

he term “western Central Asia” denotes the geo- decades has been undertaken in Turkmenistan, in- Tgraphical scope of this book, but how much of cluding the environmental-archaeological project the vast Central Asian arid zone it encompasses is not described in detail in Chapters 8, 9, and 10; second, self-evident. In English usage Central Asia comprises because the climate, vegetation, and animal life of its the entire area of deserts, plateaus, and mountains deserts, plateaus, and mountains is replicated in much from the Caspian Sea through the Karakum, Kyzyl- of the rest of western Central Asia; and third, because kum, Takla Makan, and Gobi deserts to Mongolia and its physical geography and ecology have been very northwest China, whereas Russian authors have tradi- thoroughly studied, particularly under the auspices of tionally divided the area into a western sector, from the Desert Research Institute in Ashgabat. the Caspian to the western Tien Shan mountains, As explained in the Preface, a large part of this known as Middle Asia, and an eastern sector from book is devoted to an account of the fieldwork and the eastern Tien Shan to Mongolia and northwest analytical results of the surveys and excavations under- China, referred to as Central Asia. Some Russian au- taken in Turkmenistan between 1989 and 1998, but its thors also include southern Kazakhstan, northeastern broader aims are to set the results of this new research Iran, and northern Afghanistan in Middle Asia, and in the chronological and geographical context of the that slightly broader connotation equates closely with Neolithic period in western Central Asia as a whole, what is meant here by western Central Asia. Thus, as and to provide an introduction to the region for read- defined in this book, the region is bounded in the ers unfamiliar with its environments, ecology, and west by the Caspian Sea and in the south by the Ira- early prehistory. These aims determine the sequence nian plateau, the mountain systems of Hindu Kush of chapters and the overall division of the volume into and Pamir, and the southwestern ranges of the Tien five parts. Shan, while in the north it extends beyond the valley Present and past environmental and ecological of the Syrdarya river into the southern steppes of conditions are described in Part I. The physiography, Kazakhstan. Most of the region consists of lowlands climate, vegetation, and animal life of the region are less than 200 m above mean sea level that include outlined in Chapter 1, and what is currently known the Karakum and Kyzylkum deserts, the valleys of about changes in the region’s hydrology, climate, and the Amudarya and Syrdarya rivers, and the Aral Sea vegetation during the Pleistocene and Holocene ep- basin (Fig. 1.1). ochs is summarized in Chapter 2. In Chapters 3 and 4 Although western Central Asia encompasses attention shifts from the regional to the local scale to the whole of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and parts examine the environmental settings of the two main of five other nation states, this study is concerned areas in Turkmenistan where we undertook surveys mainly with the environments and prehistory of Turk- and excavations: near Ashgabat where the early Neo- menistan and adjacent areas of Iran, Afghanistan, and lithic site of Jeitun is located at the junction of the Uzbekistan, with a particular focus on Turkmenistan. Kopetdag piedmont and the Karakum desert, and in There are several reasons for this focus: first, because the Bolshoi Balkhan massif close to the eastern coast a great deal of archaeological research over many of the Caspian. 2 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Part II is concerned with the prehistoric archae- spectrometric) radiocarbon chronology, sediments ology of the region with, in Chapter 5, an outline of and soils, phytoliths and pollen, macro plant and the history of archaeological research from the late animal remains, stone tools, and pottery. 19th century to the present, and in Chapter 6 an ac- Part V brings the book to a close with a syn- count of the main sites, archaeological sequences, and thesis, and general conclusions, presented in two subsistence economies of the Mesolithic and Neolithic chapters. Chapter 11 offers a model of Neolithic settle- periods. Part III (Chapter 7) focuses more specifically ment and subsistence. The occupation and economy on the crop plants and domestic animals known to of Jeitun is considered first, then the Jeitun Culture have been present in the region during the Neolithic. as a whole, and, third, connections between it and In it, the question of whether any of them might have other Neolithic sites in adjacent parts of Uzbekistan, been domesticated locally from their wild progenitors Iran, and Afghanistan—a topic that raises interest- is discussed in the light of current biogeographical, ing questions about possible interactions between genetic, and archaeological evidence from within and agro-pastoral settlements and hunter-fisher-gatherer beyond western Central Asia. groups who may also have herded domestic livestock. Having described the physical environments, Finally, in Chapter 12, the fundamental questions of ecology, and prehistoric archaeology of the region, a how and why agriculture began in western Central comprehensive account is given in Part IV of the in- Asia are debated, in relation to four themes: the vestigations we undertook in Turkmenistan. Chapter biogeography of the Neolithic crops and domestic 8 provides detailed descriptions of our excavations at animals, the overall Neolithic settlement pattern and the site of Jeitun, which was occupied by 6000 (cali- economy, and the roles of environmental changes and brated) BCE (Before the Common Era), and which cultural processes in the establishment of settlements gave its name to the other Neolithic Jeitun-Culture mainly dependent on cereal cultivation and livestock settlements of the Kopetdag piedmont zone. This herding. section of the chapter is followed by short accounts The book brings together and interprets a wide of the surveys and test excavations we carried out at array of evidence from several disciplines to inves- several sites in the Sumbar and Chandyr valleys in the tigate the origins of agriculture in part of the “dry Kopetdag range, and in the Bolshoi Balkhan massif, heart” of Asia, between the more thoroughly studied where we hoped (but failed) to find Mesolithic or early areas of early agriculture in Southwest and East Asia. Neolithic antecedents of the Jeitun-Culture settle- It does so in the hope that it will make a valuable ments. In Chapters 9 and 10 the results of analyses contribution to the comparative worldwide study of of the materials we excavated at Jeitun and at three agricultural origins, as well as reporting fully the rockshelters in the Bolshoi Balkhan are described by results of the environmental-archaeological project the members of the team who undertook them. These undertaken in Turkmenistan by the British-Russian- chapters include sections on AMS (accelerator mass- Turkmen team. 1 The Present Environment

he purpose of this chapter is to set the scene for of the Tedzhen and Murghab rivers cross the more Tthose that follow by describing the main features extensive break in the mountain barrier between the of the physiography, climate, vegetation, and animal eastern Kopetdag and the western Hindu Kush; and life of western Central Asia. the upper valley of the Amudarya separates the Hindu Kush-Pamir from the southwestern ranges of the Tien Shan (the Turkestan, Alay, and Hissar mountains). Physiography In southern Turkmenistan the northernmost range of the Kopetdag forms the abrupt down-faulted The principal features of the physical geography edge of the Iranian plateau and overlooks a submon- of Turkmenistan and the neighboring parts of Iran, tane zone that varies in width from 10 to 40 km. The Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan are shown in Figures 1.1 zone consists of an upper piedmont made up of co- and 1.2. The dominant structural contrast is between alesced alluvial fans, and a more gently sloping lower the high mountains and plateaus that enclose the piedmont plain that merges northward into the sands region in the south, and the extensive lowlands of of the Karakum (Fig. 1.3, color). The north-facing the Karakum and Kyzylkum deserts that occupy the slopes of the Kopetdag are drained by some 30 rivers central area. The southern highlands are part of the that cross the piedmont, most of which formerly dis- great chain of mountains formed in the late Meso- sipated in the sands of the southern Karakum. Today, zoic to early Tertiary that stretches from west to east however, the flow of many of them is interrupted by across Eurasia. They consist of series of folded parallel the Karakum Canal and diverted for irrigation and ranges and valleys composed of varying combinations to supply water to the capital, Ashgabat, and other of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks. piedmont towns. The rivers are fed by groundwater, as Four major mountain systems form the southern well as rainfall, and are less prone to extreme flooding boundary zone of western Central Asia: the Elburz than longer rivers such as the Tedzhen and Murghab (Alborz) south of the Caspian, the Kopetdag south of that rise in the mountains much farther south in Iran the Karakum, and the northern ranges of the Hindu and Afghanistan. The piedmont rivers flood after Kush-Pamir and southwestern ranges of the Tien spring rains, and they have deeply dissected the coarse Shan south and east of the Kyzylkum. The Elburz, sediments of the upper piedmont, but because they northern Hindu Kush-Pamir, and western Tien Shan are partly fed by groundwater their flow remains more reach elevations of over 5,000 m and the highest peaks stable through the year, with maximum discharges of the Kopetdag exceed 2,500 m. Areas of lower pla- between March and May and minimum from June to teaus and foothills separate the four major mountain October (Dolukhanov 1981:366, 375). The channel of systems and form transitional zones between the high one of the rivers, the Kara Su, passes close to the site ranges and the deserts to the north. The lower valleys of Jeitun (this volume, pp. 28–29). of the Gorgan and Atrek rivers occupy the gap in the To the northwest, closer to the eastern shore of mountain barrier between the eastern end of the El- the Caspian, the Bolshoi (“great”) and Maly (“little”) burz and the western end of the Kopetdag; the valleys Balkhan massifs are isolated outliers of the Kopetdag 6 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

1.4 Aerial view of takyrs on the lower Kopetdag piedmont west of Ashgabat, April 1994.

1.6 Pentagonal cracks formed following evaporation of standing water on the clay surface of the takyr shown in Figure 1.5.

1.5 A takyr north of Erbent in the Central Karakum, April 1993. t h e present environment 7

mountain system (this volume, pp. 35–36). They are separated by enclosed depressions containing takyrs, separated from the Caspian Sea by the Caspian or solonchaks, and even salt lakes, two of which occur West Turkmen lowland and the Krasnovodsk plateau, in the largest depression, Yeroyulanduz. The Karabil and from each other by the valley of the former Uzboi plateau is lower, its hilly relief is more uniform, and river which in the past flowed from the Sarykamysh it contains fewer depressions than Badghyz. In the depression to the Caspian (Fig. 1.2). North of the Kras- southeastern corner of Turkmenistan, east of the novodsk plateau and the Kara-Bogaz Gol bay, the hilly, Amudarya valley, the Kugitang mountains rise to c. dissected Ustyurt plateau extends into southwestern 3,000 m. They are part of the higher Hissar range, one Kazakhstan and northwestern Uzbekistan. of the westernmost spurs of the Tien Shan in western The Karakum desert stretches from the Uzboi Tajikistan and southern Uzbekistan east of the Kyzyl- channel in the northwest to the valley of the Amudarya kum lowland. in the east, and from the Kopetdag mountains in the The Kyzylkum desert is much smaller (c. 200,000 south to the oasis of Kwarazam (or Khiva) in the north. km2) than the Karakum. No rivers debouch into it It has a total area of c. 500,000 km2 and is divided by a today, but in the past the Zeravshan, which rises in chain of large depressions known as the Unguz into a the ranges of the western Tien Shan, flows though northern area of dissected terrain (the Trans-Unguz Samarkand, and forms a deltaic zone at Bokhara, was Karakum) from the more extensive sand desert of the a tributary of the Amudarya, which it joined close to Lowland Karakum to the south, which is itself divided the present city of Chardzhou (Fig. 1.2). In the south- into the Central Karakum between the Unguz and ern Kyzylkum there are many now-dry lake beds and the Kopetdag piedmont, and the Southeast Karakum watercourses, such as the ancient Lake Lyavlyakan (Fig. 1.2; Walter and Box 1983, and see Babaev 1994 and right-bank tributaries of the Zeravshan. Neolithic for more detailed descriptions of the Karakum and sites exist in the vicinity of these former water bodies, other landscapes of Turkmenistan). as they do also around lake beds and wind-deflated The Central Karakum increases in height from depressions among a group of isolated low mountain 20 m above mean sea level (msl) in the west to 200 m ridges in the central Kyzylkum (Dolukhanov 1986: Fig. in the east, and its topography consists mainly of sand 2, and this volume, pp. 64–65). ridges, often interspersed with takyrs: level or very The Amudarya and Syrdarya—the Oxus and gently sloping areas of saline clayey soils on which Jaxartes of Classical authors—are the longest rivers water accumulates and gradually evaporates. Algae of western Central Asia. They rise in the Pamir and and lichens often grow on takyrs, and they are most ex- western Tien Shan respectively and flow northwest, tensively developed in the southern half of the desert parallel with each other, to their deltas in the Aral and on the adjoining lower Kopetdag piedmont (Figs. Sea basin. Under natural conditions, before their 1.4 1.5, 1.6, and this volume, p. 29). Takyrs are valued flow regimes were altered for irrigation, they flooded as sources of surface and subsurface water and culti- in spring and early summer after winter-spring rain- vable land. During rains they can become temporary fall and the melting of snow and glacier ice in the lakes, often used for watering livestock, and crops are mountains. They discharged large quantities of sedi- grown on them, irrigated from wells and pits dug into ment into their lower valleys, forming shifting islands their smooth surfaces. Where superficial deposits are and actively eroding their banks. Southwest of the saturated, seasonally or for longer periods, solonchak Amudarya, the Murghab and the Tedzhen likewise soils occur (cf. Bridges 1997:120–22). The Southeast rise in the mountains to the south and are subject Karakum, which reaches elevations of 350 m in the to variable annual floods, but they are shorter, less south, consists mainly of sand ridges, interrupted powerful, and dissipate in the sands of the Southeast only by the lower valleys and cultivated oases of the Karakum after feeding irrigation systems around the Tedzhen and Murghab rivers and the clay plains that cities of Mary (ancient Merv) and Tedzhen. stretch between them. The only other large river system in western Cen- Farther south, approaching the border with Af- tral Asia is formed by the Atrek and its main tributaries, ghanistan, the sands of the Karakum give way to the the Sumbar and the Chandyr, which drain the western plateaus of Badghyz east of the Tedzhen and Karabil Kopetdag. The Atrek rises east of Quchan in northeast- east of the Murghab (Fig. 1.2). The Badghyz plateau ern Iran, flows through a broad intermontane valley, rises to 1,255 m and its surface is broken by hills often and after its junction with the Sumbar crosses the Cas- 8 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia pian lowland where, together with the Gorgan, it has eastern shore. It is only in the deep valleys and at lower formed a broad deltaic plain (Fig. 1.2). Today the Atrek elevations in the southern mountains and plateaus that seldom reaches the Caspian because most of its flow is more moderate conditions prevail. There, summer diverted for irrigation, and, for the same reason, the and winter temperatures are less extreme and annual Sumbar does not now connect with the Atrek, except precipitation is higher. For example, in Turkmenistan when exceptionally high spring floods occur. average annual precipitation exceeds 300 mm in parts of the central Kopetdag, while the piedmont and south- eastern plateaus receive between 200 mm and 300 mm, Climate and precipitation diminishes north across the Karakum to less than 100 mm (Fig. 1.7). The climate of western Central Asia is character- This contrast between aridity in the desert and ized by the extreme aridity, with very hot summers and somewhat higher precipitation and less extreme tem- cold winters, that is typical of mid-latitude continental peratures in the mountains to the south is duplicated interiors distant from the moderating influence of the in Uzbekistan and southwestern Tajikistan by the ocean. The dryness of the climate is accentuated by the contrast between very low rainfall in the Kyzylkum and “rain-shadow” effect of the massive mountain ranges more humid conditions and more moderate tempera- and plateaus to the south that act as barriers to the tures in the southern plateaus and mid-altitude moun- influx of humid air generated by the Indian monsoon, tain ranges. Throughout western Central Asia most and even the effect of the Caspian Sea is limited to slight of the annual precipitation occurs in the form of rain increases in summer humidity and breeziness along its and snow between October and April, with maxima in

1.7 Turkmenistan: mean annual precipitation (based on data in the Atlas of the Turkmenian SSR, Moscow: Main Agency for Geodesy and Cartography affiliated to the Council of Ministers of the USSR, 1982, p. 11). t h e present environment 9 late winter/early spring. There is very little or no rain tems of the Elburz, Kopetdag, northern Hindu Kush, in the summer months, and annual and monthly totals and southwestern Tien Shan, which acted as refugia of precipitation vary greatly from year to year. for mesophytic taxa as the climate became more arid In most of the region, particularly in the low- and continental from the late Tertiary through the lands, severe drought prevails during the summer Quaternary period. There is palaeobotanical evidence (June–August). It is accentuated by very high air tem- that some broadleaf trees, such as oak (Quercus spp.), peratures that, for example, reach average maxima of became extinct in the Kopetdag (this volume, p. 33), 35–40o C in June and July in the Central and South- and today fragments of forest containing Turkmen east Karakum. In autumn (September–November) maple (Acer turcomanicum), Syrian ash (Fraxinus syriaca), average monthly air temperatures decrease rapidly, cornel (Thelycrania meyeri), elm (Ulmus carpinifolia), and, associated with some precipitation, and in the winter less commonly, oriental plane (Platanus orientalis) per- (December–February) average monthly maxima fall sist in deep valleys on north-facing slopes of the western to between 0o C and 10o C, with minima generally and central Kopetdag. They are associated with smaller below 0o C. In the spring (March–May) average trees, shrubs, climbers, and herbs that include many monthly temperature increases very rapidly, reaching wild species with edible nuts and fruits such as walnut 25o C in May in the Karakum, and in March and April (Juglans regia), almond (Amygdalus spp.), apple (Malus the monthly maxima of precipitation are also reached. spp.), apricot (Armeniaca vulgaris), cherry (Cerasus spp.), Spring is thus the optimal season for plant growth. fig (Ficus carica), pear (Pyrus spp.), plum (Prunus spp.), The high temperatures and drought of summer hawthorns (Crataegus spp.), blackberries (Rubus spp.), are associated with low relative humidity of the air and grape (Vitis sylvestris). The survival of many nut and (20–30% in the Karakum) and high annual rates of fruit trees is now threatened by over-exploitation and evaporation from water surfaces (e.g., 2,000–2,300 habitat destruction, and several are included in the mm in the Karakum, falling to c. 1,500 mm on the Red List of Trees of Central Asia (Eastwood, Lazkov, and Kopetdag piedmont and 1,000 mm along the Caspian Newton 2009) where their status is recorded, according shore). Soil surfaces also reach very high temperatures to the IUCN Red List categories, as Endangered (e.g., during the summer, with correspondingly high rates almond, apricot, pear), Vulnerable (e.g., apple), and of evaporation of soil moisture that severely curtail the Near Threatened (e.g., walnut). growth of most plants other than very deep-rooting Broadleaf deciduous trees also occur at lower desert shrubs (Orlovsky 1994:30–37). altitudes along some of the rivers and streams of the Kopetdag, in the Atrek, Sumbar and Chandyr val- leys, and farther east in the valleys of the Tedzhen, Vegetation Murghab, Amudarya, and Syrdarya. They form nar- row riparian forests known as tugai (Fig. 1.8, color) The vegetation of western Central Asia consists that are dominated by tamarisks (Tamarix spp.), pop- mainly of xerophytic communities of woody and herba- lars (Populus spp.), willows (Salix spp.), and, more ceous plants adapted to the strongly seasonal climatic rarely, oriental plane (Platanus orientalis) and Russian regime, with prolonged summer drought, cold winters, olive (Elaeagnus orientalis), associated with tall grasses and unevenly distributed rainfall. The principal types of and reeds (Erianthus ravennae, Arundo donax, and forest, woodland, grassland, and desert vegetation are Phragmites australis, syn. P. communis). described in this section, much of which is based on more Xerophytic woodlands comprise another type detailed descriptions of the vegetation of Turkmenistan of arboreal vegetation. They are characteristically by Fet (1994), Popov (1994), and Rustamov (1994). Latin dominated by one or more drought-tolerant species, binomials given for the plants referred to follow those particularly juniper and pistachio, and they occur published in Nikitin and Geldykhanov (1988). mainly at lower elevations in the mountains, foothills, and desert plateaus. For example, stands of Turkmen juniper (Juniperus turcomanica) occur in the western Forest and Woodland and central Kopetdag above 200 m and also in the Bolshoi Balkhan massif above 400 m (this volume, p. Forests of broadleaf deciduous and evergreen co- 39). Juniper wood is valued for construction as well as niferous trees are largely restricted to the mountain sys- firewood and this, combined with damage inflicted 10 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia by browsing livestock, has greatly reduced the extent systems. Undisturbed steppe grasslands are dominated of juniper woodlands in recent centuries (Kamakhina by species of Stipa and Festuca, associated with other 1994:145). Today pistachio (Pistacia vera) woodlands grasses such as Elytrigia trichophora and Poa bulbosa occur in Turkmenistan mainly on the arid Badghyz and a variety of forbs including Galium verum, Helian- plateau, with only scattered groups of trees remain- themum salicifolium, and Thymus transcaspicus, whereas ing elsewhere in the foothills of the Kopetdag and over-grazing by domestic livestock leads to the re- Kugitang mountains. Before they were reduced in placement of Stipa and Festuca species by E. trichophora extent and their regeneration prevented by browsing and other indicators of disturbance such as Hordeum livestock, logging, and the harvesting of their edible bulbosum, Convolvulus subhirsutus, Ferula oopoda, and nuts, they grew extensively on the central and eastern Perovskia abrotanoides. Much of the steppe that formerly Kopetdag piedmont, although not in the western occupied extensive areas in piedmont zones has been Kopetdag or the Balkhan mountains. In Badghyz the severely degraded by grazing or plowed up for cereal pistachio trees grow sparsely in open-canopy groves as- cultivation, but some relatively undisturbed patches sociated with wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum subsp. still exist, for example in more remote areas of the spontaneum) (Figs. 1.9, 1.10, color) and other grasses upper Kopetdag piedmont (Fig. 1.11, color). and sedges (e.g., Poa bulbosa, Carex pachystylis), in a formation sometimes referred to as pistachio semi­ savanna (Popov 1994:175). Desert Vegetation Another category of woody vegetation that oc- curs in the foothills, plateaus, and valleys of southern Desert vegetation, adapted to the extreme arid- Turkmenistan and northeastern Iran is known as ity, high rates of evaporation, and uneven seasonal shiblyak. It consists of a diverse range of small trees distribution of precipitation, occupies well over half and shrubs, many palaeobotanically of Mediterranean the land surface of western Central Asia. Shrubs that origin, and it is most highly developed in the south- range in size from small, low-growing semi-shrubs western Kopetdag. Taxa typical of shiblyak include to large tree-like forms dominate extensive areas of wild apple, almond, cherry, fig, pear, and plum, and sand, gravel, and rocky desert. They include both species of Berberis, Celtis, Colutea, Cotoneaster, Crataegus, sand-tolerant psammophytes and salt-tolerant halo- Jasminum, Lonicera, and Paliurus. In parts of the Sum- phytes, as does the associated herbaceous flora. The bar, Chandyr, and Atrek valleys, which experience a clay surfaces of takyrs lack vascular plants although summer-dry Mediterranean climate, other species they can support colonies of algae and lichens. The with edible fruit occur, such as mulberry (Morus alba), only areas devoid of vegetation are the most mobile jujube (Zizyphus jujuba), pomegranate (Punica grana- sand-dune surfaces. tum), medlar (Mespiles germanica), and quince (Cydonia The most extensive type of desert vegetation is oblonga, syn. C. vulgaris). Turkmen maple is also pres- that dominated by semi-shrubs, particularly sagebrush ent as a small tree or shrub in shiblyak in the western (Artemisia spp.) growing on rocky and sandy surfaces Kopetdag, but it has been reduced by intensive cutting in the lowlands and foothills, and halophytic species and its growth is suppressed by thickets of the invasive of Salsola, Anabasis, and other genera on more saline shrub Christ’s thorn (Paliurus spina-christi). Shiblyak surfaces among sand dunes and on alluvial soils along communities also exist in the central and eastern Ko- stream channels. Other plants commonly associated petdag, Bolshoi Balkhan, and Kugitang mountains, with the sagebrush communities include small shrubs but in these areas they are less floristically diverse and such as species of Ephedra, Astragalus, and Halotham- contain fewer species that provide edible fruits. mus, perennial herbs such as species of Stipagrostis, Iris, Carex, Allium, Tulipa, and Ferula, and a variety of annuals. Species of Salsola and Anabasis are charac- Steppe teristic of the halophytic communities, as well as the desert sedge Carex pachystylis and low-growing forms of Steppe dominated by perennial grasses, associ- tamarisk and black saksaul (Haloxylon aphyllum). ated with a variety of other herbaceous plants (forbs), A second major type of desert shrub vegetation occurs on plateaus and some of the more level, less dis- is that dominated by larger shrubs of the genera Ha- sected surfaces in the foothills of the major mountain loxylon, Ammodendron, Calligonum, Salsola, and Ephedra. t h e present environment 11

They grow extensively in sand deserts, clay lowlands, Turkmenistan in Badghyz and the Southeast Karakum and on the alluvial soils of modern and ancient deltas, at Repetek), the vegetation is grazed and browsed by and they are divisible into saksaul and psammophyte sheep, goats, and camels. Grazing continues through deserts. The former vary according to whether the the year, and over the past century the number of white or black saksaul (Haloxylon persicum and H. aphyl- livestock has greatly increased and overgrazing has lum) is the dominant species. intensified, as has the cutting of wood for fuel by the White saksaul typically grows on sand dunes, increased human population. These pressures have less frequently in intradune depressions and other been particularly intense in the south-central Kara- lowland areas. It is well developed on the dune sys- kum, including the zone immediately north of the tems of the Karakum where it supports a structurally Kopetdag piedmont where the site of Jeitun is located. diverse, layered community consisting of large shrubs, Today the desert vegetation in this zone is severely smaller shrubs, and a herbaceous layer of tall grasses degraded, and it is therefore very difficult to infer at such as Stipa pennata and various perennial and annual all precisely, from its present condition, the likely state forbs. White saksaul can reach 5 m in height but does of the vegetation near the site in Neolithic times (see not form dense thickets (Fig. 1.12, color). Although this volume, pp. 31–32). its leaves are bitter, it is browsed by sheep, goats, and camels, especially in autumn and winter, and this, to- gether with its exploitation for firewood, has led to its Animal Life replacement in some areas by species of Calligonum. Unlike H. persicum, black saksaul seldom grows Wild Mammals on sandy soils. It occurs principally on alluvial low- lands, where it sometimes forms a transitional belt The varied desert, plateau, and mountain envi- between desert and riparian woodland. It is found ronments of western Central Asia provide habitats for in the valleys and deltas of the Amudarya, Syrdarya, a great diversity of vertebrates and invertebrates. The Murghab, and Tedzhen rivers, along the Uzboi chan- wild mammals include large herbivorous herd animals nel and around the Sarykamysh depression, as well as such as sheep, goat, gazelle, onager, saiga, and deer, in smaller depressions in the deserts (Fig. 1.13, color). and various smaller species such as hare and a great Its root system enables it to tap ground water to great variety of rodents. Predators and scavengers including depths and it can reach 9 m in height (Fig. 1.14, color), wild pig, brown bear, hyaena, jackal, wolf, fox, leopard, but it supports less complex layered communities of tiger, cheetah, lynx, wild cats, badger, otter, marten, large and small shrubs and herbs than white saksaul. and polecat are also native to the region. However, the Black saksaul is not an important source of fodder for populations of most of these animals have been much domestic livestock although camels do browse on it, reduced in recent centuries by hunting and habitat but it provides high-quality firewood and in the past destruction, and the numbers of many wild species was extensively burned for charcoal. have continued to decline in recent years as human The second category of large-shrub desert veg- pressures on their populations have intensified. In this etation—the psammophyte deserts—is less extensive section, brief descriptions are given of the distribution and less floristically diverse than the saksaul deserts. of the principal species, especially those that have been They are restricted to stable and mobile sand dunes exploited by humans for food and other purposes. Sci- and they too are dominated by species of Ammodendron, entific nomenclature and information on geographi- Calligonum, Salsola, and Ephedra. Some species, such cal distribution is from Clutton-Brock (1999), Heptner as Ammodendron connollyi, are adapted to growth on and Naumov (1989, 1992, 1998, 2002), and Wilson and mobile sands and can reach a height of 10 m, whereas Reeder (2005). Information is also given on the recent the lower-growing species of Calligonum and Salsola are population status and distribution of threatened spe- effective sand stabilizers able to grow on both stable cies based on the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Spe- and mobile sands. Many communities dominated by cies (http//www.iucnredlist.org), with additional data Calligonum are thought to have replaced white saksaul for Turkmenistan from Rustamov and Sopyev (1994). communities destroyed by human activities. Red List categories are referred to as follows: CR (Criti- Throughout the deserts, except in areas where cally Endangered), EN (Endangered), VU (Vulner- natural reserves have been established (for example, in able), LR (Lower Risk), and NT (Near Threatened). 12 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

1.15 Generalized recent distribution of wild Asiatic mouflon, urial, and argali sheep in Southwest and western Central Asia (based on data in Clutton-Brock 1999:69–72 and Nadler et al. 1973:117–21).

Several of the wild mammals described below were (1973:118–20) the Balkhan urials belong to a steppe identified in the bone assemblages from the Neolithic subspecies, O. v. arkal, which formerly inhabited the site of Jeitun (see p. 17). Krasnovodsk plateau and the northern Karakum as far east as the delta of the Amudarya, a view previously Urial Sheep (Ovis vignei Blyth) advanced by Zeuner (1963:159–60) who suggested The range of the urial stretches eastward from that the present restriction of sheep to mountainous the Elburz mountains in northern Iran, where it over- areas was partly due to “either persecution or to the laps with the Asiatic mouflon Ovis( orientalis) at the absorption of lowland races into domesticated breeds” eastern limit of the latter’s range and where a hybrid (ibid., p. 160). race of the two species exists (Clutton-Brock 1999:72), through the mountains and plateaus of Turkmenistan, Bezoar Goat (Capra aegagrus Erxleben) southwestern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, The bezoar is native to the mountains of South- and south across Afghanistan to western Pakistan and west and western Central Asia from Turkey to Iran, Kashmir (Fig. 1.15). In Turkmenistan the urial occurs Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and southwestern Paki- in the Bolshoi Balkhan massif and through the Kopet- stan (Fig. 1.16); and in the Late Pleistocene/Early dag to Badghyz, Karabil, and Kugitang, but its total Holocene its range reached into the southern Levant population is now estimated to be below about 3,000 (Uerpmann 1987:114). It was formerly widespread (Red List category VU). According to Nadler et al. in Turkmenistan from the Krasnovodsk plateau and t h e present environment 13

A m u da rya

Tigris

E u ph ra tes

Nile

Indus

Bezoar Capra aegagrus

Markhor Capra falconeri

Ibex Capra ibex 0 km 1000

1.16 Generalized recent distribution of wild bezoar, ibex, and markhor goats in Southwest and western Central Asia (redrawn from Harris 1962: Fig. 1).

Balkhan massifs east to Badghyz, but during the 20th Markhor (Capra falconeri Wagner) century its population was greatly reduced (Red List This goat is native to the mountains of western VU). Rustamov and Sopyev (1994:210) suggested that Central Asia including southeastern Turkmenistan, the total population of wild bezoars in Turkmenistan southern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, northern Af- probably did not exceed 2,000, almost all in the cen- ghanistan, and into northern and central Pakistan tral Kopetdag with small isolated groups elsewhere (Fig. 1.16). It may formerly have been even more in the Kopetdag and the Bolshoi Balkhan, but Kor- widely distributed in the Central Asian mountains, but shunov (1994:231) estimated the total population fewer than 2,500 mature animals now exist in small as about 8,000. Although often regarded as strictly sub-populations (Red List EN). In Turkmenistan it is mountain animals, bezoars are not limited to higher now restricted to the western slopes of the Kugitang elevations. They also favor rocky slopes, cliffs, and mountains where a population of fewer than 200 of deep valleys where they can feed all year round on the subspecies C. f. heptneri recently survived. juniper and a wide variety of shrubs. In Turkmenistan they formerly ranged from the highest peaks of the Goitered Gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa Güldenstädt) Kopetdag to semidesert foothills as low as 100–200 m, This gazelle is the largest of the three western for example around the base of (as well as within) the Asiatic species. It has a more easterly distribution than Bolshoi Balkhan massif, which in the past sustained the smaller dorcas and Arabian species (G. dorcas and particularly large numbers of wild goats. G. gazella) that includes Iran, Turkmenistan, where it 14 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

is known as the geran (dzheiran), Uzbekistan, southern tion still numbered many thousand, but by 1941, when Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, and east to northwestern the Badghyz Natural Reserve was established to save China and Mongolia. In the 19th century large herds them from extinction, only 250 remained. By the early ranged widely over the lower mountain slopes, pla- 1990s there was said to be a breeding population of teaus, and desert lowlands of western Central Asia, 2,000–3,000 in Badghyz, and a few small herds had including the Kopetdag piedmont, feeding mainly on been re-established on drier parts of the eastern steppe and desert herbs and shrubs, but their popula- Kopetdag piedmont where there is little competition tion has since been drastically reduced (Red List VU). from pastoralists for the sparse grazing available (Val- In the early 1940s the total population in Turkmeni- erii Kuznetsov, pers. comm. 1992). stan was estimated as still over 100,000, but since then, despite a ban on hunting gazelles introduced in 1950, Saiga (Saiga tatarica Linnaeus) their population and range has continued to decrease. The saiga is a small bovid often referred to as Now probably fewer than 3,000 animals survive, most an antelope, although normally classified with goats of them in the Badghyz Natural Reserve where they and sheep in the subfamily Caprinae (Clutton-Brock are formally protected, although still vulnerable to il- 1999:209). Recent phylogenetic analysis of mitochon- licit hunting. Before the railway between Krasnovodsk drial DNA sequences in the family Bovinae has how- (Turkmenbashi) on the Caspian and Chardzhou ever demonstrated that the saiga is most closely related (Turkmenabat) on the Amudarya was built—a barrier to gazelles (Kuznetsova, Kholodova, and Luschekina later reinforced by construction of the Karakum Canal 2002). Saigas are native to Eurasian steppes and semi- (Fig. 1.2) which began in 1954 —gazelles migrated sea- deserts and they ranged historically from southeastern sonally from summer grazing grounds in the foothills Europe to Mongolia and western China. Today small of the Kopetdag to winter grazing in the Karakum. In populations remain only in Kazakhstan, Turkmeni- southeastern Turkmenistan these seasonal migrations stan, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia. The species is divided continued until the 1950s, with herds moving from the into western and eastern (Mongolian) subspecies: S. Paropamiz mountains in northwestern Afghanistan t. tatarica and S. t. mongolica. Large populations of the across Badghyz to the Karakum, but this pattern has western subspecies formerly inhabited extensive areas been disrupted and the surviving gazelle population in Central Asia, migrating seasonally to feed on the is now restricted to very limited seasonal movements in steppes to the north in spring and summer and the the Badghyz Reserve (Valerii Kuznetsov, pers. comm. deserts to the south in autumn and winter. Between 1992). the Caspian and Aral Seas large herds moved south annually across the Ustyurt plateau to the Karakum Onager (Equus hemionus Pallas) for winter grazing. Their winter migrations reached The onagers or hemiones are a group of Asiatic the middle Amudarya valley, and in the severe winter wild asses that formerly ranged over extensive areas of of 1946–1947 they penetrated into the southwestern steppe and desert between the Levant and Mongolia. Karakum. Single animals were observed even in the Five subspecies are generally recognized: the Syrian foothills of the western and central Kopetdag (Sapa- onager (E. h. hemippus), which is now extinct, the Ira- muradov 2005), an observation reinforced by Valerii nian onager (E. h. onager), the Turkmen kulan (E. h. Kuznetsov’s report (pers. comm. 1992) that some saiga kulan), the Indian khur (E. h. khur) of the Thar desert, herds used to migrate south in the summer from the and the Mongolian kulan (E. h. hemionus) of northern Karakum to the southern margin of the desert and Mongolia and the Gobi desert (the Gobi population the Kopetdag piedmont. These observations are par- being sometimes classified as a separate subspecies, ticularly interesting in relation to reported finds of E. h. lutens). In historical times onagers inhabited saiga bones at the Neolithic site of Jeitun on the south- most of western Central Asia but in recent centuries ern edge of the Karakum and at the Chalcolithic/ their range declined substantially, and now only small Bronze Age sites of Ilgynly-depe and Altyn-depe on isolated sub-populations exist in northern Iran, south- the eastern Kopetdag piedmont (Kasparov:1992:51, eastern Turkmenistan, southern Uzbekistan, and 61; 1994:148). (re-introduced) southern Kazakhstan (Red List EN). During the 19th and 20th centuries, overhunt- The Turkmen kulan formerly occurred throughout ing for meat, hides, and horns greatly reduced saiga Turkmenistan and in the 19th century their popula- populations. Although they recovered after 1919 when t h e present environment 15

a Soviet law was passed prohibiting their hunting (Lin- bear with cubs was encountered in the eastern Ko- nard 1963), their numbers have more recently been petdag close to the Iranian frontier (Rustamov and drastically reduced, especially by killing them for their Sopyev 1994:206). In prehistoric and historical times horns which are highly prized in Chinese traditional breeding populations probably existed throughout medicine. In 2002 the saiga was added to the Red the Kopetdag. List Critically Endangered category (Milner-Gulland 2004; Milner-Gulland et al. 2001), the total popula- Striped Hyaena (Hyaena hyaena Linnaeus) tion having fallen from 1,240,000 in the mid 1970s to This carnivorous scavenger was once widespread about 50,000, mostly in Kazakhstan. Between 2,000 from northern and eastern Africa through South- and 3,000 are believed still to winter in Turkmenistan, west Asia to Central and South Asia, and in the early and there are plans to establish a saiga sanctuary in 20th century it was still well established in northern the north of the country from the Kara-Bogaz Gol bay Iran, southern Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and to the Sarykamysh lake (Sapamuradov 2005). Tajikistan. In Turkmenistan hyaenas inhabited the Balkhan and Kopetdag mountains and the Badghyz Bokhara Deer or Khangul (Cervus elephus and Karabil plateaus until recently, but now probably bactrianus Lydekker) fewer than 100 remain in reserves in the Kopetdag and This subspecies of red deer formerly inhabited Badghyz (Red List NT). areas of tugai (riparian forest) in the valleys of the Syrdarya, Amudarya, Murghab, Tedzhen, and Atrek, Golden Jackal (Canis aureus Linnaeus) but now they survive (if at all) only in very small num- Smaller than the hyaena and closely related to bers in a reserve in the Amudarya valley (no Red List the wolf, the common jackal is, like them, a hunter category available). and scavenger. It is widely distributed across mid- and low-latitude Asia from Turkey to Indonesia, inhabit- Eurasian Wild Pig (Sus scrofa Linnaeus) ing mainly valleys, plains, and foothills. It is still well Wild pigs inhabit broadleaf forests and wood- established in western Central Asia, especially in the lands across Eurasia and in North Africa. Over 15 river valleys. It feeds on a wide variety of rodents and locally adapted subspecies have been described, two of other small mammals, and preys on domestic sheep, which are native to western Central Asia: S. s. attila and goats, and cattle. S. s. nigripes, and a third, S. S. davidi, which is marginally so, ranging from eastern Iran to Pakistan and western Gray Wolf (Canis lupus Linnaeus) India and perhaps north into Tajikistan (Clutton-Brock Before they were intensively hunted in recent 1999:91–93; Groves 1981:29–24). Wild pigs are still pres- centuries, wolves ranged right across Eurasia from ent throughout the region, where they live mainly in Ireland to Japan (and into North America). Many local tugai and other forested, wooded, and shrubby areas races evolved, but in general, northern wolves tend to where there is ground cover and access to water. be larger and more gregarious than the wolves of South- west, South, and Central Asia. Wolves still exist through- Brown Bear (Ursus arctos Linnaeus) out western Central Asia where they used to prey on Brown bears formerly occupied mountain, the formerly abundant herds of gazelle and other wild steppe, and desert habitats throughout western Cen- ungulates, as well as many smaller animals, but their tral Asia but their numbers were substantially reduced numbers have been greatly reduced by pastoralists to during historical times, and more drastically in the protect their herds of sheep and goats from predation. recent past. Isolated populations remain in northern Iran and Afghanistan, southern Kazakhstan and Uz- Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes Linnaeus) and corsac fox (V. bekistan, Tajikistan, and Kirgizstan. They no longer corsac Linnaeus) live and breed in Turkmenistan, but they occasion- The red fox occupies a wide range of habitats ally visit the western Kopetdag from northern Iran. throughout western Central Asia, whereas the corsac Records of such visits were common in the 1920s, fox is restricted to desert habitats in the region. Both but between 1961 and 1972 fewer than 10 sightings species prey on a variety of rodents and other small of bears or their footprints were reported, from the mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects, and they have Sumbar and Chandyr valleys, and in 1980 a female traditionally been hunted for their pelts. 16 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor Pocock) Eurasian Lynx (Lynx lynx Linnaeus) As recently as the late 19th and early 20th cen- The lynx was formerly widespread in western turies this subspecies occurred widely across western Central Asia, but now it only survives in isolated Central Asia, in northern Iran, including the Elburz populations in northern Iran and in some mountain mountains and the southern fringe of the Caspian Sea, habitats farther east. In Turkmenistan lynx are still Turkmenistan, and parts of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. occasionally encountered in the western and central In Turkmenistan leopards ranged from the Balkhan Kopetdag, but (like the brown bears) these animals mountains through the Kopetdag to Badghyz and are probably visitors from northern Iran. Karabil, but now probably fewer than 50 animals sur- vive in reserves in the Kopetdag and Badghyz (Red List Caracal or Sand Lynx (Caracal caracal Schreber) EN). In the past leopards preyed extensively on gazelles Smaller than the Eurasian lynx, this carnivore and were also the principal predators of bezoar goats. is widely distributed in Africa and Southwest Asia. It reaches the eastern limit of its range in the deserts and Caspian or Turanian Tiger (Panthera tigris virgata other lowland habitats of western Central Asia, where Illiger) it preys mainly on small and medium-size mammals, This subspecies formerly inhabited tugai and including the desert hare (Lepus tolai). Its populations other forest habitats in much of western Central Asia. have been severely reduced by hunting and irrigation It is now extinct, having been almost completely exter- schemes, and probably fewer than 200–300 animals minated early in the 20th century. In Turkmenistan survive in Turkmenistan. tigers formerly lived in the Atrek, Sumbar, Chandyr, Tedzhen, Murghab, Amudarya, and Syrdarya valleys, Manul or Steppe Cat (Otocolobus manul Pallas, syn. where they preyed particularly on Bohkara deer and Felis manul Pallas) wild pigs. It is interesting to note that a tiger bone was This wild cat once ranged widely in western identified in the assemblage of wild and domestic ani- Central Asia, where it lived mainly in montane and mal bones excavated at the Chalcolithic site of Ilgynly- riverine habitats. It is now rare, partly as a result of depe on the eastern Kopetdag piedmont, not far from being hunted for its fur, but small isolated popu- the Tedzhen river (Kasparov 1994:148). lations remain (Red List NT). In Turkmenistan it was formerly present in the Kopetdag, the Bolshoi Asiatic Lion (Panthera leo persica Meyer) Balkhan, Badghyz, Karabil, and parts of northern This subspecies formerly ranged from Southwest Turkmenistan, but it now survives only in very small into western Central Asia, but it is now extinct in the numbers in the Kopetdag, the Bolshoi Balkhan, and region. There are a few historical references to lions possibly Badghyz. being killed in southern Turkmenistan, where their main prey would have been gazelles and onagers (Val- Sand Cat (Felis margarita Loche) erii Kuznetsov, pers. comm. 1992). This cat, which is thought to be closely related to the manul, has a wide distribution from North Africa Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus Griffith, syn. to Southwest and Central Asia. It inhabits desert areas A. j. raddei Hilzheimer) east of the Caspian in northern Iran, Turkmenistan, This Asian subspecies formerly ranged widely in Uzbekistan, and southeastern Kazakhstan as far east desert, steppe, and woodland habitats in Southwest and as the Syrdarya valley. Kasparov (1992:51, 56) identi- Central Asia, including Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, fied it in the bone assemblage from Neolithic Jeitun, and Afghanistan, but its numbers were drastically re- but records of the present status of the sand cat popu- duced in recent centuries by depletion of their wild prey, lation in western Central Asia are not available (Red especially gazelles, loss of habitat, and overhunting. Chee- List NT). tahs remained fairly abundant in Badghyz and Karabil until the late 1950s and some survived in northwestern Wild or Yellow Cat (Felis silvestris ornata Gray) Turkmenistan until the early 1970s, but this swiftest of The distribution of this subspecies of the Af- all land mammals is now extinct throughout western rican and Eurasian wild cat extends from east and Central Asia, except in north-central Iran where 60–100 south of the Caspian through Iran, Turkmenistan, animals are estimated still to survive (Red List CR). Uzbekistan, southern Kazakhstan, and northern Af- t h e present environment 17

ghanistan, east to northwestern China and Mongolia, Red List VU), also occur across Eurasia, but in western and south into western India. It inhabits deserts, Central Asia their numbers are declining as a result of semi-deserts, woodlands, and riparian forests, and it hunting and habitat loss. preys mainly on small mammals, chiefly rodents. It is sometimes trapped for its fur, and its populations are Other Small Mammals decreasing. Many other small mammals occur in western Central Asia, especially in the Karakum, Kyzylkum, Jungle or Swamp Cat (Felis chaus Schreber) and other arid lowlands. They include the long-eared The jungle cat is larger than the wild cat and hedgehog (Hemiechinus auritus Gmelin) and a wide ranges from Egypt through Southwest and Central variety of rodents, among which are the desert hare Asia into India, Southeast Asia, and southern China. (Lepus tolai Pallas); the long-clawed ground squirrel In western Central Asia it inhabits mainly densely veg- (Spermophilopsis leptodactylus Lichtenstein); jerboas etated wetlands in river valleys and coastal lowlands (e.g., Dipus sagitta Pallas and Jaculus blanfordi Murray); close to the Caspian and Aral Seas, but desertification gerbils (e.g., Meriones libycus Lichtenstein, M. meridi- and agricultural development, especially reclamation anus Pallas, and the larger Rhombomys opimus Lichten- of wetlands, have caused its populations to decline and stein); voles (e.g., Blanfordimys afghanus Thomas and it is now largely restricted to the southern Caspian Microtus transcaspicus Satunin); a porcupine (Hystrix lowland and the valleys of the Atrek, Amudarya, and indica Kerr); a hamster (Calomyscus mystax Kashkarov); Syrdarya. and a rare dormouse (Myomimus personatus Ognev, Red List 2006 VU, 2008 data deficient). Mustelideae Many members of this family of small carnivores, Wild Mammals Identified at the Neolithic Site of which includes badgers, otters, martens, and polecats, Jeitun are native to western Central Asia. The distribution of The following were identified in the bone as- the Asian badger (Meles leucurus Hodgson), which is semblages excavated at Jeitun by Shevchenko (1960), now classified as a species distinct from the European Kasparov (1992), and Dobney and Jaques (this volume, badger (Meles meles Linnaeus), extends from east of the pp. 174–79). The initials S, K, and D/J denote these lower Volga river to China, Mongolia, and Korea and authors and are preceded by a question mark if the includes most of western Central Asia, except for Iran, author regarded the identification as uncertain. Turkmenistan, and northern Afghanistan which are Urial sheep S, K, D/J; bezoar goat S, K; goitered within the range of the European badger. Both spe- gazelle S, K, D/J; saiga K; wild boar S, K; wolf S; red cies remain abundant. The honey badger (Mellivora fox S, K; corsac fox K, ?D/J; wild (yellow) cat S, K, ?D/J; capensis Schreber) is distributed from Africa through manul (steppe) cat ?D/J; sand cat K; rock marten K; Southwest and Central Asia to the Indian peninsula, tolai (desert) hare S, K, D/J; long-eared hedgehog K, but it is now rare across most of its range. It is legally D/J; long-clawed ground squirrel ?D/J. protected in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakh- stan. All three badger species are opportunistic forag- ers that live in a wide variety of habitats from deserts Domestic Animals to dense woodlands. Eurasian otters (Lutra lutra Linnaeus) inhabit Sheep and goats are the most numerous and river systems from western Europe to eastern Asia, widely raised domestic animals, providing milk, meat, but their numbers are declining in most areas (Red skins, hair, and wool. They are usually managed in List NT), and in Central Asia they are endangered. mixed herds that combine the propensity of goats They still live in the catchments of the Atrek, Sumbar, to browse woody vegetation and of sheep to graze Tedzhen, Murghab, Amudarya, and Syrdarya, but herbaceous plants. In some parts of western Central hunting for their pelts has greatly reduced the total Asia, such as the Bolshoi Balkhan, they still sustain population, which, in Turkmenistan, probably now systems of transhumance in which people move with numbers fewer than 200. The rock or stone marten their flocks and herds between summer pastures in (Martes foina Erxleben), which is hunted for its fur, and the mountains and winter pastures in the lowlands. the marbled polecat (Vormela peregusna Güldenstädt, Local breeds are well adapted to aridity and seasonal 18 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia extremes of heat and cold, being protected by thick, Other Animals hairy coats, and, in the sheep, also by the ability to lay down fatty deposits in the rump and the tail. Most The varied environments of western Central domestic sheep are of the fat-rumped type, although Asia provide habitats for a diverse non-mammalian the Karakul, which is kept to produce lambs’ skins, is fauna of birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish, and inverte- a fat-tailed breed. The goats are mostly of the screw- brates, most of which are not described here because horned, lop-eared type characteristic of Southwest they contribute little or nothing to human subsistence. Asia, but the Central Asian cashmere or pashmina Several hundred species of resident and migratory goat is also raised for its fine woolly undercoat or birds have been recorded in the region. Avian diversity down. Large sheep dogs are employed both to control is higher in the mountains and foothills and along the herd movements and to ward off predators, and some major river valleys than in the desert lowlands, but still wear spiked collars for protection against wolves. only a few species, such as the pheasant (Phasianus Smaller domestic dogs are also commonly kept in colchicus Linnaeus) and various ducks, geese, and villages and towns. Horses, mules, and asses are used other waterfowl, have been regularly hunted. for a wide variety of agricultural tasks, and there is a Many species of reptiles also inhabit the region. long history of breeding slender-limbed racing horses For example, some 80 species are known in Turkmeni- of Arabian type, such as the famous Akhal-Teke breed stan. They include 50 species of snakes, 27 species of in Turkmenistan. geckos and other lizards, 2 water turtles, and 1 tor- The only other domestic herd animals that toise (Ataev, Rustamov, and Shammakov 1994:330–31; have important roles in the agro-pastoral economy Shcherbak 1994:307). Many are adapted to desert are cattle and both the one-humped and the two- conditions, while others occupy mountain and riverine humped camel. Cattle are raised in less arid areas, habitats. Few reptiles are hunted or gathered, but both mainly in cultivated zones in the river valleys and the steppe tortoise (Agrionemys horsfieldii Gray [syn. better-watered piedmont areas, where they are used Testudo horsfieldii Gray], Red List VU), which hibernates as draft animals as well as for milk and meat produc- from late May/early June to late March, and the largest tion. Both species of camel are highly adapted to lizard, the gray monitor (Varanus griseus Daudin), which life in the deserts as a result of being able to store occurs mainly in the desert lowlands and foothills and fat in their humps and go without drinking water can attain 1.5 m in length, are sometimes exploited for for several days. The two-humped or Bactrian camel food. Remains of both species have been found at Jeitun (Camelus bactrianus Linnaeus) is native to Central (Kasparov 1992:51; this volume, Table 9.18). Asia and was present in Turkmenistan as a domes- Historically, fish populations large enough to tic animal in prehistoric times (this volume, pp. contribute significantly to human food supplies were 81–83), but from the 2nd century BCE it began to restricted to the Caspian and Aral Seas and the river be replaced by a long-haired, cold-resistant breed of systems of the Syrdarya, Amudarya, Murghab, Ted- the one-humped Arabian camel or dromedary (Cam- zhen, Atrek, Gorgan, and their tributaries. However, elus dromedarius Linnaeus). Dromedaries, which are since the 1950s large-scale irrigation schemes, such valued principally for their milk and their capacity as those in Turkmenistan prompted by the construc- to subsist in very dry, sparsely vegetated areas, now tion from 1954 of the Karakum Canal and the filling greatly outnumber two-humped camels and play in 1963 of the Sarykamysh depression to form Lake an important part in the pastoral economy of the Sarykamysh, coupled with the introduction and natu- Karakum desert. In addition to dogs and the herd ralization of many new species of fish from eastern animals, cats, chicken, ducks, and geese are kept, Russia and China, have transformed the composition mainly in the larger settlements. and ecology of the ichthyofauna (Salnikov 1994). 2 Environmental Changes in the Pleistocene and Holocene

aving outlined the present physical environment desertic (Atamuradov 1994:56–60; Boomer et al. Hof western Central Asia, and in order to make 2000:1260–66). Then, during the Pleistocene and sound inferences about prehistoric settlement and Holocene, the climate, drainage pattern, and plant subsistence in the region, we need next to consider and animal communities underwent a series of further environmental changes that occurred during the changes that led to the present-day configuration and Pleistocene and Holocene, the two epochs of the Qua- ecology of the region. ternary period.1 At present there is little local evidence available of such changes, with the exception of data derived from two main sources: studies of the palaeo- Pleistocene–Holocene Changes in hydrology of the Caspian and Aral Sea basins, and of Hydrology palaeosol (buried soil) sequences in the Tajik-Afghan basin. These studies provide the basis for much of the The alternation of glacial and interglacial cli- following description of major Pleistocene-Holocene mates that occurred across the mid and high latitudes environmental changes in the region. of the northern hemisphere during the Pleistocene was Studies of Tertiary geography, climate, and biota manifested in Central Asia in alternating phases of ice (e.g., Atamuradov 1994:52–61; Kurbanov 1994:124–27) accumulation and wastage in the higher mountains, indicate that the climate became progressively more associated respectively with cold-arid and warmer continental and the flora more xerophytic through semi-arid conditions in the lowlands. The glacial/ the Pliocene (the final epoch of the Tertiary). There is interglacial succession was also linked to changes fossil evidence that broadleaf trees such as oak and liq- in river flow and the levels of the Caspian and Aral uidambar were components of mesophytic forests in Seas. the Kopetdag mountains, but they became extinct as During the Early Pleistocene the proto- the trend toward a more continental climate, coupled Amudarya flowed west to the Caspian and built a with tectonic uplift, continued through the Quater- large alluvial plain in the Lowland Karakum, before nary. This trend caused the vegetation to become it shifted northward, later in the Pleistocene, and differentiated into lowland desert forms and more began flowing via the Sarykamysh depression into mesic communities in the mountains and along the the Aral Sea basin, which had previously been largely main river valleys. By the end of the Pliocene tectonic dry. There is uncertainty about when in the Late activity had created the major mountain ranges and Pleistocene this major change of direction occurred lowlands, including the Aral and Caspian Sea basins (Aladin et al. 1996:34), but it caused the Lowland and the Sarykamysh depression; the ancestral (proto-) Karakum, in which the Murghab and Tedzhen rivers Syrdarya, Zeravshan, Amudarya, Uzboi, Murghab, built deep series of deltaic deposits, to be gradually Tedzhen, Atrek, and Gorgan river systems were in transformed by wind action into a sand desert (Ata- existence; and the lowlands had become generally muradov 1994:62). 20 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

In the Pleistocene and Holocene the extent and and should not be regarded as definitive, but it pro- levels of the Caspian and Aral Seas fluctuated repeat- vides an appropriate framework for the summary that edly. Their palaeogeography has been extensively stud- follows of environmental changes associated with Late ied, but the question of how their fluctuations related Pleistocene–Holocene fluctuations of the Caspian. to the succession of glacial, interglacial, and postgla- The Early Khvalynian transgression was pre- cial periods has been difficult to resolve, partly for lack ceded in the Late Pleistocene by the Atelian regressive of radiometric dating of diagnostic deposits. In recent and Khazarian transgressive fluctuations of the Cas- years increased application of radiocarbon, uranium- pian. What is known of their palaeogeography is not ionium (ionium = thorium-230; Aitken 1990:132), discussed here because it is not relevant to the scope and, to a lesser extent, thermoluminescence dating of this book, but the changes that occurred from the has enabled such correlations to be more firmly estab- beginning of the Early Khvalynian, from c. 20.0 ka lished, although much uncertainty remains. Mamedov onward, are relevant and are briefly described. At each (1997) incorporated dating evidence then available in of the Khvalynian transgressions the Caspian rose suffi- a review of the Late Pleistocene-Holocene history of ciently to flood parts of the lowland adjacent to its pres- the Caspian. He recognized a sequence of seven large- ent eastern coast in Turkmenistan, northern Iran, and scale transgressions and regressions and inferred that southwestern Kazakhstan (as well as extensive areas the final four—the Early Khvalynian, Yenotavian, Late around its northern shores in northwestern Kazakh- Khvalynian, and Neocaspian—occurred between c. stan and southern Russia). It reached its highest level, 32,000 years ago and the present, when the level of the approximately 50 m above present msl, during the Early Caspian stands at c. 27 m below mean sea level (msl). Khvalynian transgression. At that time it extended east Mamedov estimated the level and areal extent of each into the lowland between the Bolshoi Balkhan massif of these four transgression/regression events and cor- and the western Kopetdag, probably as far as the mod- related them very approximately with the Bryansk in- ern town of Kizyl Arvat (Fig. 1.2). During his travels terval (interstadial) in the Valdai (Würm) glacial, the east of the Caspian in 1903, W. M. Davis (1905:42–43) Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the Lateglacial, and observed former “shoreline-terraces” at Krasnovodsk the Postglacial (Table 2.1). Archaeologically the se- and “on the mountain flank near Jebel” that may corre- quence extended from the Upper Palaeolithic through late with this extensive transgression. Hecontrasted the the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and subsequent prehistoric evidence of ancient shorelines near Jebel with a lack of and historical periods to the present. similar evidence near Kizyl Arvat and concluded (ibid.) Since 1997 more radiometric, geomorphologi- that “no shorelines occur along the base of the Kopet cal, sedimentary, and molluskan fossil data relating Dagh [there or] farther eastward”—an observation to changes in Caspian Sea levels have been published which suggests that Kizyl Arvat marks the approximate (e.g., Chepalyga 2007; Dolukhanov et al. 2009). As a re- eastern limit of the transgression. sult, Mamedov’s Early–Late Khvalynian periodization The Early Khvalynian transgression was fol- has been superseded by a more detailed Late Pleisto- lowed by the Eltonian regression during which the cene sequence from c. 20,000 to c. 11,500 calibrated level of the Caspian fell to c. 50 m below present msl, years BP (before present)2 which recognizes three to be succeeded by a rise to c. 20 m above msl during progressively less extensive Khvalynian transgressions the Middle Khvalynian transgression, a fall to c. 100 m separated by two brief regressions, the Eltonian and below msl in the Yenotavian (Enotaevka) regression, Yenotavian (Table 2.2). The main differences between and a rise to the Caspian’s present level at the peak of the two sequences are the recognition of a Middle the Late Khvalynian transgression (Chepalyga 2007). Khvalynian transgression and, more significantly, the The Caspian did not spread east in the Middle and shorter chronology of the new sequence. Late Khvalynian as far as it had during the Early Khva- By confining the sequence to the Lateglacial it lynian, but the sea again invaded the lowland between contrasts with Mamedov’s correlation (1997:165) of the Bolshoi Balkhan and the Kopetdag during these the Early Khvalynian transgression with the Briansk later transgressions, having withdrawn during the interstadial, the Yenotavian regression with the LGM, Eltonian and Yenotavian regressions (Table 2.2). and the Late Khvalynian transgression with the Lat- The Khvalynian transgressions, principally the eglacial. The shorter sequence is itself subject to modi- first, are likely to have been caused mainly by large fication as more dating evidence becomes available influxes of glacial meltwater into the Caspian. These environmental c h a n g e s in t h e pleistocene a n d h o l o c e n e 21

Table 2.1 Late Pleistocene fluctuations of the Caspian Sea according to Mamedov (1997) tentatively correlated by him with the Briansk interstadial–Lateglacial sequence (Velichko and Kurenkova 1990) in uncalibrated radiocarbon years BP; equivalent cal. BP years are indicated by [ka] for dates within calibration range, including the (widely ac- cepted) date of 11.5 ka for the beginning of the Holocene/Postglacial (see Roberts 1998:22–23).

Late Pleistocene Transgressions/ Approximate Years BP Late Pleistocene/ Approximate Years BP Regressions Holocene Phases

Early Khvalynian trangression 32,000–24,000 Briansk interstadial 30,000–24,000

Last Glacial Yenotavian regression 24,000–17,000 [20 ka] 23,000–16,000 [19 ka] Maximum

Late Khvalynian transgression 16,000 [19 ka]–8,000 [9 ka] Lateglacial 16,000 [19 ka]–12,000 [14 ka]

Postglacial Neocaspian regression 8,000 [9 ka]–present 11.5 ka–present (Holocene)

Table 2.2 Lateglacial fluctuations of the Caspian Sea (after Chepalyga 2007 and Dolukhanov et al. 2009).

Lateglacial Transgressions/ Approximate Years BP Approximate Years Regressions cal. BP Early Khvalynian transgression 17,000–14,500 20.0–17.5 ka

Eltonian regression 14,500–14,000 17.5–17.0 ka

Middle Khvalynian trangression 14,000–13,000 17.0–15.5 ka

Yenotavian (Enotaevka) regression 13,000–12,500 15.5–14.6 ka

Late Khvalynian transgression 12,500–10,500 14.6–12.3 ka

Mangyshlak regression 10,500–10,000 12.3–11.5 ka

occurred when the northerly flow of Siberian rivers, as the Uzboi, Atrek, and Gorgan. which had been blocked by the continental polar ice The beginning of the Postglacial is signaled in sheet of the Valdai glaciation, formed huge proglacial the history of the Caspian by a rapid fall in level at lakes from which water spilled southward into the Cas- the end of the Late Khvalynian transgression. This pian, partly via the Volga drainage and partly by way phase, known as the Mangyshlak regression (Table of the Turgai channel into the Aral Sea and thence via 2.2), represents the earliest part of the prolonged the Uzboi channel (Fig. 1.2) into the Caspian (Gross- Neocaspian regression that continued through the wald 1980:15–19; Mangerud et al. 2004:1,322–28). Holocene, when the Caspian became more stable but Two clusters of Mesolithic rockshelter sites close to continued to fluctuate below the present level of c. 27 the southeastern coast of the Caspian, one in western m below msl. The number and dates of individual fluc- Turkmenistan and the other in northern Iran, were tations are not well established, but—on the basis of occupied, probably intermittently, during the Lategla- a palaeogeographical analysis of Neocaspian terraces cial (this volume, pp. 55–58). Their stratified deposits and shorelines, and age estimates from radiocarbon reveal changes in the abundance of terrestrial and dating of marine shells—Rychagov (1997:167) recog- marine animals that reflect shifts in the availability of nized a series of oscillations in the Holocene between food resources arising from the Lateglacial (and early c. 20 and c. 32 m below msl. He identified six trans- Postglacial) changes in position of the Caspian coast gressions separated by regressive episodes of varying and the estuaries and deltas of the larger rivers such length. Although the number, duration, and causes of 22 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia these oscillations remain uncertain, there appears to that this transgression, which they name the “Io Sea” be quite a close correlation between the regressive epi- and attribute to the spilling of proglacial lakes through sodes recognized by Rychagov and several short-term the Turgai channel (referred to above), reached a phases of drier and colder climate that occurred in the maximum altitude of c. 210 m above msl at about 7.5 ka Holocene, such as the 8.2 and 4.2 ka events (discussed (c. 5500 cal. BCE). This corresponds to the altitude of in the next section of this chapter). many Neolithic sites which, they suggest, were located The Pleistocene–Holocene evolution of the at the margins of the Io Sea, and they point out that Syrdarya and its connections with the Aral Sea have the two sites in the Kyzylkum that have been reliably been less intensively studied than changes in the radiocarbon dated—Ayakagytma and Uchashchi (Fig. Amudarya-Caspian-Aral hydrological system. Dur- 6.2)—were occupied at that time. They observe that ing the Pleistocene the Syrdarya shifted northeast the Neolithic settlements at the southern margins of across the Kyzylkum from the southeastern part of the Kyzylkum (Keltiminar sites) and Karakum ( Jeitun- the desert, where it deposited thick accumulations of Culture sites) cluster close to the 200 m contour, and sand and clay as it emerged from its upper course in they infer that at least some of them, including Jeitun the western Tien Shan; created a large delta on the itself, would have been at or near the coast of the Io Sea eastern side of the Aral Sea that connected in its early (see this volume, p. 191, for a comment on this idea in stages with the Amudarya’s Akchadarya delta; and relation to Jeitun). only reached its modern position in the Late Holocene This speculative hypothesis deserves consider- (Boomer et al. 2000:1266–67). ation, but it is not supported by Rychagov’s (1997) Through the Pleistocene and Holocene the reconstruction of the Holocene oscillations of the Cas- level and extent of the Aral Sea was largely deter- pian Sea in that the proposed timing of the Io flood mined by changes in the discharge of the Syrdarya precedes rather than coincides with the maximum and Amudarya, and the intermittent connections of level of the second transgression dated by Rychagov the latter with the Caspian. It is difficult to correlate to 7.0 ka. Also, Boomer et al. affirm (2000:1,275) that closely the hydrology of the Aral Sea basin with the “during much of the Neolithic the Aral Sea was prob- fluctuations of the Caspian, but Boomer et al. (2000) ably at about 72–73 m a.s.l.” However, the inferred infer that the basin probably remained dry through timing of the flood does place it in the mid Holocene, much of the Pleistocene, when evaporite deposits early in the Climatic Optimum (see below), during formed in it; and that during the Khvalynian trans- the wet “Lavlakansky phase” (or “Lyavlyakan pluvial”) gression of the Caspian (not subdivided by Boomer (Boomer et al. 2000:1,267) when increased flow of the at al. 2000:1,276) several of the Amudarya’s major Syrdarya and Amudarya rivers would have discharged channels reached the basin, where they formed the much larger amounts of water into the Turanian low- Sarykamysh, Horezma (Khoresmia), and Akchadarya land. It is to be hoped that future field research and deltas southwest and south of the Aral Sea. Boomer et radiometric dating will help to resolve these contradic- al. also summarize (ibid., p. 1,265), in a series of sketch tory reconstructions, as the Io Sea hypothesis merits maps, their reconstruction of changes in the palaeo- further investigation. geography of the Aral Sea through the Holocene from c. 10.0 ka to the present. A different reconstruction of part of the sequence Pleistocene–Holocene Changes in of changes in the Aral Sea basin has been proposed by Climate and Vegetation the leaders of an Uzbek-Polish archaeological-palae- oenvironmental research team working in the Kyzyl- In addition to its impact on the hydrology of kum desert (Szymczak and Khudzhanazarov 2006a). western Central Asia, the Late Pleistocene–Holocene Prompted by the striking absence of Upper Palaeolithic glacial/interglacial succession profoundly affected the and Mesolithic settlements in the Turanian Lowland climate and vegetation of the region. Evidence for this (the area approximately occupied today by the Kyzyl- comes from windblown deposits of loess that mantle kum and Karakum deserts), they have suggested that extensive areas in the northern ranges of the Central the apparent lack of sites may be due to the lowland Asian mountains, especially in the Tajik-Afghan basin having been flooded for several millennia from the in southwestern Tajikistan between the Pamirs and beginning of the Holocene until c. 5.0 ka. They infer the Hindu Kush. There, at mid altitudes (2000–3000 environmental c h a n g e s in t h e pleistocene a n d h o l o c e n e 23 m), numerous palaeosols have been found buried in basal age of 1.77 million years (Dennell 2009:217–19). loess deposits over 200 m deep. Some of the palaeosols These results confirmed that throughout the contain Lower Palaeolithic stone tools; and pollen Pleistocene the loess horizons and the palaeosols cor- analysis of the deposits has demonstrated alternating respond respectively to cold, dry, windy glacials and periods of xerophytic herbaceous (steppe) and meso- warmer, more humid and calmer interglacial peri- phytic woody (broadleaf forest) vegetation represent- ods. Although uncertainty remains about the detailed ing, respectively, cold/dry and warmer, more humid chronology of much of the Tajik palaeoenvironmental conditions (Bronger et al. 1995; Dodonov et al. 2006; evidence, it is a uniquely valuable record of oscillations Dodonov and Baiguzina 1995; Forster and Heller between glacial/stadial and interglacial/interstadial cli- 1994; Vishnyatsky 1999:87–90). mates and vegetation and provides what is probably a re- Ding et al. (2002:388) infer that the sands of the liable proxy for changing environmental conditions in Karakum and Kyzylkum were the main source of the western Central Asia as a whole. It also provides a frame- Tajik loess deposits. They regard the rate of loess depo- work for understanding the episodic nature of human sition as a good proxy indicator of aridity and desertifi- occupation during the Pleistocene (see below). cation, and cite data from the site of Chashmanigar in Despite the many climatic oscillations of the southern Tajikistan which show that the rate increased Pleistocene, xerophytic grass and shrub communities during glacial periods through the Pleistocene as arid- progressively, if episodically, increased in the low- ity increased, vegetation cover diminished, the deserts lands, plateaus, and foothills at the expense of meso- expanded, and dust storms became more frequent phytic woodlands and forests. For example, on the (Ding et al. 2002:394–95). Such conditions would piedmont of southern Turkmenistan dry steppe com- have been inimical to human occupation, and it is munities dominated by grasses of the genera Stipa, not surprising that such evidence as there is of human Festuca, and Poa expanded as, in the desert lowlands, presence, in the form of chipped stone tools, is found did sagebrush communities dominated by species of in the interglacial and interstadial palaeosols. Artemisia; and riparian tugai forests dominated by Dating the palaeosol sequences has proved tamarisks and poplars became established in lowland difficult. For example, thermoluminescence dating valleys (Kurbanov 1994:127). failed to produce reliable absolute chronologies for sequences at Urkutsay in Uzbekistan (Zhou, Dodonov, and Shackleton 1995) and Remisowka in Kazakhstan The Last Glacial Maximum (Machalett et al. 2006), but palaeomagnetic dating has been more successful. In one of the sequences, at The trend in the Pleistocene toward increased Kuldara in southern Tajikistan, chipped stone tools aridity reached a climax during the LGM, between c. were excavated from palaeosols dated palaeomagneti- 23.0 ka and c. 19.0 ka. Models of worldwide climatic cally to approximately 900,000 years ago in the Lower changes suggest that sea-surface temperatures in Pleistocene (Dennell 2009:326; Ranov and Dodonov the North Atlantic and North Pacific were 5–10°C 2003; Vishnyatsky 1999:89). Stone tools have also lower than at present and temperatures on land were been found in Middle Pleistocene pedocomplexes up to 20°C lower (COHMAP Members 1988:1,045; in the same area at Darai Kalon, Karatau, Lakhuti, Kutzbach, Behling, and Selin 1993). Although very and several other sites (Davis and Ranov 1999; Den- little palaeoenvironmental research relating directly nell 2009:326–29; Dodonov et al. 2006; Ranov 2001). to the LGM has been undertaken in western Central They were first dated, by correlation with the marine Asia, there is no doubt that the climate was excep- oxygen-isotope and north Chinese loess sequences, tionally cold and dry, with ice sheets over the higher to between c. 500,000 and c. 600,000 years ago, thus mountains and a broad zone of periglacial steppe and demonstrating that Middle Pleistocene populations tundra stretching north of the Aral and Caspian Seas were present in western Central Asia in a semi-arid to the continental ice sheets far to the north (Velichko interglacial environment at that time (Davis and Ranov and Kurenkova 1990: Plate 1). 1999:187; Shackleton et al. 1995). More recently, Ding In the deserts and plateaus east of the Caspian et al. (2002) correlated the loess-palaeosol sequence at extreme cold and aridity accentuated the trend toward Chashmanigar closely with the Chinese loess deposits more xerophytic vegetation by reducing the stands and the deep-sea oxygen-isotope record and inferred a of steppe grasses and favoring the further spread 24 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia of sagebrush, a process that would have lowered the or other local palaeoenvironmental evidence of the capacity of the lowlands to support large herbivores Younger Dryas in western Central Asia is lacking at such as gazelle, onager, and saiga. These changes present, although the rapid fall in the level of the Cas- would have made it increasingly difficult for hunter- pian at the end of the Late Khvalynian transgression gatherers to sustain life, except where they had access and during the Mangyshlak regression (Table 2.2) may to perennial water sources and the plant and animal be, in part at least, a result of its impact. There is little resources around them. Very few Upper Palaeolithic doubt that the Younger Dryas had severe ecological sites are known in western Central Asia, in contrast effects and (like the LGM but less drastically) probably to numerous Middle Palaeolithic and Mesolithic ones reduced or even eliminated Upper Palaeolithic hunter- (Movius 1953; Ranov and Davis 1979:257–58; Vish- gatherer populations in the most arid areas, including nyatsky 1999:112); and Davis (1990:272–73; also in much of the Karakum and Kyzylkum deserts. Davis and Ranov 1999:191–92) has suggested that Central Asian populations were substantially reduced and may have disappeared altogether in some areas The Postglacial during the LGM. It is quite possible that the lowlands were too dry to sustain long-term human occupation The end of the Younger Dryas marks the be- and that hunter-gatherer groups were largely or wholly ginning of the Holocene and the rapid resumption restricted to uplands and to riparian habitats along of the fluctuating trend toward warmer and wetter river channels and in the deltaic margins of the Cas- conditions. It used to be thought that this trend was pian and Aral Seas (where traces of former occupation only interrupted by minor climatic shifts identified would now be hard to detect). as the succession of cool/dry (Pre-Boreal), warm/ dry (Boreal), warm/wet (Atlantic), warm/dry (Sub- Boreal), and cool/wet (Sub-Atlantic) stages originally The Lateglacial proposed for northern Europe by Blytt and Sernander early in the 20th century on the basis of peat stratigra- Following the extreme aridity and low tempera- phy. But more recent research elsewhere in the world tures of the LGM, a fluctuating trend toward warmer has revealed greater climatic variability in the Holo- and wetter conditions set in across high- and mid- cene (Lamb et al. 1995; Roberts 1998:117–19). latitude Eurasia at the beginning of the Lateglacial, This re-evaluation of Holocene climate has been c. 19.0 ka. Forest, woodland, and steppe vegetation based on varied sources of palaeoenvironmental data, began to re-expand during the Lateglacial Bølling but it is the Greenland ice cores that have yielded the interstadial, but this process was punctuated by rever- most detailed chronology of northern hemisphere sals to colder and drier conditions during the Older climatic variability through the Late Pleistocene and and Younger Dryas stadials (separated by the warm/ Holocene. They have not only provided evidence of wet Allerød interstadial). The alternation of cold/dry major changes in the Lateglacial, notably the Younger and warm/wetter conditions, with associated changes Dryas stadial, but have also revealed a series of abrupt, in vegetation, affected Upper Palaeolithic settlement short (century-scale) oscillations in the Holocene be- and subsistence across northern Eurasia, including tween cool/dry and warm/wet phases. The first and western Central Asia (Dolukhanov 1997:182–84). largest of these, with about half the amplitude of the The Younger Dryas stadial, between c. 13.0 ka and Younger Dryas, occurred at c. 8.2 ka (Alley et al. 1997; c. 11.5 ka, was the most abrupt and pronounced of these Alley & Ágústsdóttir 2005; Kobashi et al. 2007). This Lateglacial episodes. Its occurrence across the north- 8.2 ka event is recorded in the Greenland ice cores and ern hemisphere is well established and it was probably a many other northern-hemisphere palaeoclimatic re- global phenomenon (Peteet 1993; Roberts 1998:70–76). cords, including data from tree rings, pollen, diatoms, It disrupted the Lateglacial warming trend, temporar- foraminifera, and speleothems. These records show ily halted the process of vegetation recolonization, that the change to cooler/drier conditions began very and in Southwest Asia and possibly China appears to abruptly, within a decade, and that warmer/wetter be implicated in the beginnings of cereal cultivation conditions returned within a century or two. Despite (Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen 2002; Harris 2003; Hill- the brevity of the 8.2 ka event, pollen records indicate man 2000:375–99; Hillman et al. 2001). Palynological that it caused shifts in vegetation toward more cold- environmental c h a n g e s in t h e pleistocene a n d h o l o c e n e 25 and drought-tolerant plant communities. No local Indian and East Asian summer monsoons south and records of it are available from western Central Asia, east of Central Asia, and of the mid-latitude westerlies but it is recorded in pollen cores and deposits of wind- coupled with the orographic (“rain-shadow”) effect of blown silts at sites farther east in the Central Asian the Tibetan plateau. They also emphasized that the Ho- arid zone in northwestern China (X. Q. Liu et al. 2002; locene climate of arid Central Asia was strongly influ- C. L. Liu et al. 2003). The possible significance for enced, via the westerlies, by changes in sea-surface and the beginnings of agriculture in western Central Asia air temperatures around the North Atlantic (evidenced of this sudden change to colder and drier conditions by marine, ice-core, and pollen records) that reached toward the end of the early Holocene is considered in maxima during the mid Holocene and were the main Chapter 12. cause of the increased moisture and higher tempera- There is also evidence that other global phases tures experienced at that time in Central Asia. of drier (and cooler?) climate occurred later in the It had long been recognized that warmer and Holocene, at approximately 7.0–6.4 ka in the mid Ho- wetter conditions than prevail today had occurred locene, and 4.8–4.4, 3.5–2.9, and 2.5–2.2 ka in the late in mid-latitude Eurasia in the mid Holocene. The Holocene (Wünnemann et al. 2007:22). It was pointed phenomenon is often referred to as the Climatic out in the previous section of this chapter that some of Optimum (or Altithermal) and it has been widely the short-term regressions of the Caspian Sea during regarded as the temporal equivalent of the Atlantic the Holocene correlate quite closely with these dry stage of the Blytt-Sernander sequence, but estimates climatic phases, but what other environmental (and of its duration and of how widely it occurred across cultural) effects they may have had elsewhere in west- Eurasia have varied. Chen et al.’s (2008) comparative ern Central Asia remains to be established. analysis confirms and clarifies the occurrence of the Although very little evidence of climatic variabil- Climatic Optimum in arid Central Asia and is broadly ity in the Holocene is available from sites in western consistent with other less comprehensive studies of central Asia, palaeoclimatic records derived from such Holocene climatic change in the region (e.g., Feng, sources as loess and dune deposits, lacustrine and An, and Wang 2006 and Herzschuh et al. 2004). fluvial sediments, and shoreline and river terraces are Apart from the evidence (discussed above) of available from farther east in the Central Asian arid postglacial changes in the hydrology of the Caspian zone. Evidence from lake sediments is particularly valu- and Aral Seas, there are no lake-level or other long able because it tends to have better temporal resolution records from sites in western Central Asia with which and such sediments are less subject to discontinuities to build a local chronology of environmental changes than aeolian and fluvial deposits. In a comparative through the Holocene. But there are extensive traces of analysis of data from nine lakes in eastern arid Central former lakes and now-dry watercourses in the region, Asia (together with records from the Aral Sea and Lake mainly in the Kyzylkum and Karakum. In the south- Van in eastern Turkey), Chen et al. (2008) tracked ern Kyzylkum in central Uzbekistan, Vinogradov and changes in effective moisture through the Holocene. Mamedov (1975) and Vinogradov (1981) demonstrated They inferred that in the early Holocene, c. 11.0–8.0 a close correlation between clusters of Mesolithic and ka, the climate was drier than today; that in the mid Neolithic sites, around the ancient Lyavlyakan lake, Holocene, between c. 8.0 ka and c. 5.0 ka, moisture where palaeosols indicative of denser vegetation have reached a maximum, with lake levels at their highest been found (Dolukhanov 1994:206), and also along and vegetation at its most dense; and that in the late former channels of the Zeravshan river (Fig. 6.2). Holocene, from c. 5.0 ka to the present, effective mois- In the Karakum, former drainage networks are ture decreased, although (despite brief dry phases) the particularly evident along the eastern margins of the climate was wetter than in the early Holocene. desert close to the present channel of the Amudarya, Chen et al. (2008) also compared Holocene and in the north between the Sarykamysh depression moisture trends in Central Asia with lake-sediment, and the Caspian where the channel of the former peat-bog, and cave-speleothem records from nine sites Uzboi river is the dominant feature. Geomorphologi- in monsoonal Asia and found that there, in contrast cal and geoarchaeological investigations in southern to arid Central Asia, maximum moisture occurred Turkmenistan, which combined satellite imagery, during the early to mid Holocene. They attributed the aerial photographs, and ground survey, have revealed difference to the dominant effects respectively of the traces of a palaeochannel of the Amudarya trending 26 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia northwest from its present valley just south of Chard- In addition to such short-term climatic events, zhou, as well as evidence of a large former lake (Mar- people were active agents of environmental change colongo and Mozzi 1998:3). The channel and the lake through the late Holocene. Even in the mid Holocene, may have been part of the drainage system, already the establishment of agro-pastoralism on the Kopetdag referred to, that connected the Amudarya to the Cas- piedmont in the Neolithic, and the subsequent develop- pian via the Sarykamysh depression in the Pleistocene, ment in the Bronze Age of urban settlements and irriga- or it may represent a later change in the drainage tion agriculture associated with continuing pastoralism, network that occurred in the Holocene. Uncertainty had had some impact on soils, stream flow, vegetation, about the age of former lakes and extensive now-dry and animal life. This process intensified with the in- fluvial networks in the deserts demonstrates the need creases of population, land clearance, transport, trade, for well-dated evidence from stratified Quaternary and warfare associated with the ancient and medieval deposits with which to disentangle the complex hydro- Achaemenian, Parthian, and Islamic civilizations. They logical history of the desert lowlands, but the probabil- exerted cumulative environmental pressures through ity remains that much of the former drainage pattern the grazing and browsing of domestic livestock, the constitutes evidence of the more humid conditions of collection of wood for fuel, the felling of timber for the the Climatic Optimum. construction of buildings and irrigation works, and the It is very difficult to determine how far precipita- modification of soils, sediments, and drainage systems tion and air temperature increased in western Central for agricultural, industrial, and military purposes. Asia during the Climatic Optimum, but according to Many of these processes intensified further in more Dolukhanov (1994:203), reporting estimates by Za- recent times, especially during the 20th century when bakov (1986), annual precipitation was 100–150 mm the environment became subject to new pressures, such higher, and mean annual temperature about 1°C and as the exploitation of natural gas and mineral resources winter temperature about 1.2°C higher than present and the development of large-scale irrigation schemes values. Higher temperatures and rainfall in winter and following the construction of the Karakum Canal. As a spring would have increased the length of the growing result, vegetation and animal life has been extensively season and favored the development of Neolithic crop degraded, resulting in major losses of biodiversity, and cultivation and pastoralism. The milder, more humid soil erosion and salinization have rendered large tracts conditions would also have led to expansion of shrub, of land uncultivable (Kharin 1994). woodland, and forest vegetation in the deserts, along The description of Pleistocene/Holocene envi- valleys, and in the mountains. ronmental changes in western Central Asia given in this The Postglacial warming trend that culminated chapter provides a broad temporal framework for much in the raised temperatures and precipitation of the Cli- of the more detailed archaeological-environmental evi- matic Optimum began to give way in the late Holocene, dence presented in the rest of the book. Much remains from c. 5.0 ka, to cooler conditions with short-term to be learned about the extent and intensity of such oscillations between wetter and drier phases. Attempts changes and about past human responses to them, but have been made to relate such short-term climatic the evidence available now does allow some tentative and hydrological changes to changing settlement pat- exploration, in later chapters, of possible correlations terns, for example by Tolstov and Kes (1960), who tried between environmental change and the beginnings of to correlate natural and artificial alterations in the agriculture and sedentary settlement in the Neolithic. Amudarya drainage system to population movements from Neolithic to medieval times. But particularly from n o t e s the Bronze Age onward when large-scale irrigation 1. The Quaternary period is conventionally defined as the systems were developed—and often proved difficult to past 1.8 million years, but many specialists regard 2.6 million maintain—such correlations tend to be problematic. years ago as a more appropriate geochronological definition of Nevertheless, it is probable that short-term phases of the Tertiary/Quaternary boundary because it encompasses the greater aridity, such as those that are thought to have time during which the Earth’s climate has been influenced by occurred at 4.8–4.4, 3.5–2.9, and c. 2.5–2.2 ka (see periodic glaciations (Pillans and Naish 2004). above), did cause changes in river flow and sedimenta- 2. In the rest of this chapter, calibrated radiocarbon dates tion that led to the breakdown of irrigation works and before present are indicated by the abbreviation ka, thus 1 caused some population displacements. ka=1,000 cal. BP or AD 1000, and 3 ka=1000 BCE. 3 The Local Environment of Jeitun with Susan Limbrey

he Jeitun mound lies at the junction of the Kopet- piedmont 28 km south-southeast of Jeitun, provide a Tdag piedmont and the Karakum desert in an area guide to precipitation and temperature at the site, al- of small sand hills just north of a major dune ridge though allowance must be made for the lower altitude which, in this area, forms the southern edge of the (c. 120 m) of Jeitun and its position at the southern desert. Looking south from the site, the steep moun- edge of the Karakum. Ashgabat receives mean annual tain front of the Kopetdag range is clearly visible and precipitation of 230 mm, but at Jeitun the mean falls to the east the desert extends past the terminal fans to c. 200 mm, most of which occurs between October of the Tedzhen and Murghab rivers to the valley of the and May, with a maximum in March and April. At Amudarya, some 600 km away. By the 1990s, extensive Ashgabat the January mean air temperature is just cultivation of grapevines, irrigated with water brought above freezing, with extremes down to -26o C, and from the Amudarya by the Karakum Canal, had en- the July mean is c. 31o C, with extremes up to 47o C. croached on Jeitun, and there was a wide drainage Winter and summer temperatures at Jeitun probably ditch about 100 m east of the site (Fig. 3.1). exceed somewhat these means and extremes. Potential In this chapter, the present climate, soils, veg- evaporation at Ashgabat reaches a total of 1,629 mm etation, and native terrestrial fauna in the vicinity of (unpublished data from the Desert Research Institute, Jeitun are described to place the site in its landscape, Ashgabat, 1990) and is at a maximum from June to but changes in the topography, drainage, and ecol- August. Precipitation exceeds potential evapotrans- ogy of the area, especially the recent development of piration only in January, and by March–April soil large-scale irrigation agriculture, severely limit the moisture falls under rising temperature, even though extent to which the Neolithic environment of Jeitun this is the period of maximum rainfall. Rainfed wheat can be inferred from present-day conditions. However, is said to have been grown in recent times in localized there is some local evidence (see below) of different areas of the Kopetdag, but rainfall decreases sharply environmental conditions in the Neolithic, such as away from the mountain front (Fig. 1.7), and at Jeitun the existence of buried-soil horizons close to the site cereal crops would probably have been grown on areas and charcoal and animal bones excavated on site, that of high groundwater, or with the aid of irrigation (for testify respectively to the former presence of riparian further discussion of conditions for crop growth at trees no longer represented in the local vegetation and Jeitun, see this volume, p. 136 and pp. 163–64). of wild animals now very rare or extinct in the area. Topography Climate The topography of Jeitun’s local environment is No climatic record is available for Jeitun itself, formed of alluvial and aeolian deposits of silts, clays, but data for Ashgabat, at 227 m altitude on the middle and sands. The distributary fan of the Tedzhen river 28 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

May and early June was observed by the geographer W. M. Davis, who traveled in the region in 1903. He described “the variable floods that sweep suddenly, unguided by channels, down the piedmont slope; now eroding, now depositing; here sweeping along coarse blocks, there depositing fine silts”; and he also observed the Tedzhen in flood, having “overflowed its channel and spread a thin sheet for miles over the [piedmont] plain” (Davis 1905:44, 54). The Tedzhen and the piedmont streams have been utilized for ir- rigation since prehistoric times, with the result that the natural supply of sediment has been interrupted, and deep cultural deposits have been formed in the irrigated areas. For example, at the Chalcolithic (Eneolithic)–Bronze Age site of Anau on the middle piedmont east of Ashgabat, where Pumpelly’s expedi- tion of 1904 dug a series of deep shafts through the stratigraphy of the north and south mounds and the surrounding alluvial deposits of the piedmont, it was shown that “22 feet or more of irrigation silts” had accumulated since the earliest occupation (Pumpelly 1908:34). Water flow from the piedmont has also been exploited by vertical wells and by gently sloping tunnels (qanats or karez) since prehistoric times, so the natural extent and volume of water and deposits reaching the desert margin is difficult to estimate. Also, ground water stored in the deep gravels of the upper piedmont contributes to stream flow, with the result that seasonal variation would have been some- what smoothed. Today the belt of cultivated land irrigated from the Karakum Canal occupies a much more extensive area of the lower piedmont than did oases watered by streams, qanats, and wells, and this has further interrupted the natural expression of al- luvial morphology. The alluvial surface of the lower piedmont has a very low slope and is formed of fine sand, silt, and clay, the silt content being increased by desert loess. It is fed by the rivers that drain the Kopetdag, cross 3.1 Sketch map showing the relationship of Jeitun to the the piedmont, and emerge into the desert, where present-day channel of the Kara Su and to the nearby the water is lost by infiltration and evaporation. The modern irrigation drainage ditch. boundary between the lower piedmont and the desert has little topographic expression, and windblown sand overlies alluvium in the form of small sand hills and extends westward to beyond the location of Jeitun, and major dune systems, through which the rivers formerly its deposits, which overlie the Amudarya sediments maintained their courses. The watercourse close to that form the substrate of the Lowland Karakum, Jeitun, the Kara Su, is one of these rivers. It penetrated interdigitate with those of the rivers that flow across the southernmost dune ridge and petered out in the the piedmont from the nearby mountain front of alluvial fan which provided the water and the soils the Kopetdag. Flooding by the Kopetdag streams in exploited by Jeitun’s Neolithic farmers. Recently it t h e l o c a l environment o f j e i t u n 29 was impounded in a series of lakes that probably uti- netz soils that may develop further into solonchaks. lized one of the takyrs that extend in a belt along the The takyr surface layer is a thin porous saline crust, lower piedmont, and from which it is now provided and at shallow depth the clay-rich horizon has a char- with a piped overflow into its original course through acteristic platy structure and cracks into polygonal the dune ridge. The gorge (Fig. 3.1) occupied today blocks in the summer. Gypsum is a significant com- by this artificial version of the Kara Su exposes a se- ponent of the salt content, with a maximum in the ries of dune-sand and alluvial deposits, with a major crust and a second maximum at the depth reached buried-soil horizon that emerges from beneath sands by sub-crustal moistening. Takyrs support few or no in the lower part of the gorge, about 1 km south of higher plants, surface growth being limited to algae Jeitun (Fig. 3.2, color). The buried soil is a truncated and lichens that form a mat which cracks, rolls up, solonetz (Fig. 3.3, color) that shows development, in- and is blown about as it dries. Takyrs gather water cluding clay translocation and rubification. Where directly from rainfall and from seasonal stream flow, the stream emerges from the gorge it forms a terrace, or by percolation through windblown sand that may within which a lower terrace of stratified sands, silts, overlie surrounding areas of the fine alluvial layers. and clays is itself dissected by the stream. The deposits Takyrs are exploited by digging pits and wells to of the lower terrace are similar to those of the recent act as reservoirs for watering livestock and for irriga- alluvial fan and represent an earlier phase of fan tion of crops. Rain is often concentrated into periods construction. of two or three days during which run-off to these Less than 100 m west of Jeitun, and extending reservoirs can be substantial. Takyrs with particularly about a kilometer to the north, a former takyr has high impedence to infiltration, especially those in been used to form a series of shallow lakes, the pre- the piedmont zone where both precipitation and run- cise location and size of which varies. People grazing off are relatively high, have provided very valuable camels, donkeys, goats, and sheep make small hoe areas of cultivable land; for example, Lobova (1960 dams to impound and direct the floods, so that the [1967:274]) calculated that in the piedmont zone one position and extent of the water varies according to square kilometer can collect 9,000 to 25,000 l of water the people’s needs and to the volume of the outlet per annum. Under irrigation, takyrs are exploited by feeding the Kara Su. plowing up the layer of low permeability and digging ditches to provide through-drainage and remove salts, with addition of sand also being beneficial. Tension Soils and Sediments between pastoralists’ use of takyrs for their livestock and policies for the extension of arable cultivation, The area around Jeitun is dominated by clayey, evident today, must have a long history in southern silty, and sandy soils in the form of saline takyrs, Turkmenistan. solonchak soils, sandy alluvial sediments, and dune In the Lowland Karakum, takyrs are formed on sands. the clay-rich components of alluvial deposits of both Pleistocene and Holocene age. It is thought (Lobova 1960 [1967:246]) that where stream flow contributes Takyrs to takyr wetting on the fringes of the distributary fans, as it does at Jeitun, humus content as well as clay Takyrs are areas of saline hydromorphic soils is increased by fine sediment derived from the soils on level ground or very low slopes (Figs. 1.5, 1.6). of the stream catchment (in this case the catchment Because they are important sources of cultivable land of the Kara Su in the Kopetdag). The name Kara Su, and water for livestock, they attracted the attention of meaning “black water,” may reflect a high humus Russian soil scientists from the 1920s onward. Lobova content in its water. A thin layer of fine humus-rich (1960 [1967]) summarized how understanding of material can be the primary cause of takyr develop- their formation developed, the nature of their pedo- ment, rather than more substantial clay-rich layers. logical regime, and their variants. They form where This suggests that in the evolution of a distributary clay-rich materials at shallow depth impede water fan, takyrs of small extent can form rapidly and may penetration, water evaporates, and saline conditions be of limited persistence if buried or disrupted as the develop, resulting in distinctive forms of takyr solo- fan develops. 30 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Sandy Soils and Sediments the site deposits, suggesting that the “ferruginization” process described by Lobova has not been active in the The materials of the dunes and sandy alluvial soils since Neolithic times. sediments around Jeitun are dominated by micaceous In addition to the sand hills and the former takyr fine sands. Derived from areas of granite, limestones, or lake bed, the terrain close to Jeitun includes areas sandstones, and gneiss, the light fraction is rich in of varying extent in which blown sand lies only thinly unweathered feldspars, the micas are dominated by over the alluvial sands and clays. In some of these areas biotite rather than muscovite, and the high heavy min- small takyrs are developed, while in others solonchak eral content is predominantly horneblende. Calcite of soils carry thickets of tamarisk and other shrubs. pedological origin and as detrital grains of limestone is common, and gypsum, of local pedological origin as well as in the form of detrital grains transported by Soil/Sediment Profiles the wind from soils elsewhere, also occurs. The dune ridges and smaller dunes are partially Profiles were recorded in the vicinity of Jeitun by stabilized by the root systems of woody shrubs and the hand auguring and digging pits (see Appendix 3.1). soil development they promote. Tap roots and woody The variability of the alluvial sediment and blown- lateral roots many meters in length are exposed by sand layers in the upper 1–2 m exemplified the nature sand-blow throughout the areas between the shrubs. of fan sedimentation. Wherever takyr-like charac- The shrubs trap sand and finer dust that, together teristics prevailed, whether in the larger area of the with their own organic detritus, improves water reten- herders’ lakes or in small hollows in the honeycomb tion. They also trap snow, increasing moistening from pattern of sand hills, a thin layer of clay or sandy clay snow-melt around them. The shrubs therefore occupy occurred immediately below a surface puffed by salt mounds of soil of finer texture and higher humus con- efflorescence. Below that, sand, or interstratified sand tent than the spaces between them, and thus provide and clay or sandy clay, extended down until ground- suitable conditions for herbaceous vegetation, contrib- water limited further access. In two of the pits, fine uting further to stability. On the lower slopes of the gray sand with very high mica content lay beneath the mounds and between them, where grasses, sedges, and initial takyr clay, whereas this sand was encountered ephemerals are more sparsely distributed, the sand is at greater depth elsewhere. The proximity of the more mobile and the surface is constantly changing. irrigation drainage ditch and the now ponded and The mounds also offer shelter and nesting sites for managed waters of the Kara Su have created artificial burrowing animals that range in size from insects groundwater levels that provide no guidance to the and insect larvae through small lizards and rodents to levels that affected soils, and were accessible to vegeta- monitor lizards, foxes, and jackals. Bioturbation and tion, in Neolithic times. the introduction of organic materials into burrows Lisitsina (1965:25; this volume, Appendix 3.1) affects the sands to considerable depth, and in the reported a humus-stained horizon at 15–35 cm depth case of the larger animals brings about the eventual beneath the takyr surface and suggested that it might collapse of the stabilized area. Stability of the sands be the soil cultivated during Jeitun’s occupation. No is also highly sensitive to grazing. The approaches to equivalent horizon at that depth was encountered pastoralists’ settlements, such as the one at Artykhodja during our investigations, where local variability 1.5 km north of Jeitun, whose livestock are grazed was in any case evident; but the darker upper part around the site, are completely denuded of vegetation, of the sand immediately below the takyr clay in pro- and there the sands are mobile. At Jeitun, stability is file 1, with its inclusion of charcoal flecks, may be sufficient for the deep-rooted woody shrubs to persist, comparable. There is no evidence, however, that the but soil development is limited to a primitive aerosol evolution of the alluvial complex at the time the site without a thick sod horizon. Lobova (1960 [1967:334]) was occupied produced a takyr in the same location refers to evidence of luvic processes in sandy desert as today. Buried-soil horizons with potsherds and soils that result in films of hydrated iron oxides form- charcoal in them were investigated in the side of the ing on sand grains. At Jeitun, such films were observed irrigation drainage ditch east of the site (this volume, in the lower buried soils (this volume, Section 9.3), but pp. 131–41), and they provide secure evidence both of not in the upper buried soil or the blown sand within contemporaneity with the site’s occupation and cul- t h e l o c a l environment o f j e i t u n 31 tivation by Jeitun’s farmers. Levelling data show that The Vegetation Close to Jeitun these soils lie 1–2 m higher than the takyr surface. The vegetation growing around Jeitun on sand hills, dunes, and alluvial surfaces covered with fine Vegetation sands is dominated by xerophytic shrubs and smaller semi-shrubs with a scattering of grasses, sedges, and Today the vegetation in the vicinity of Jei- other herbs on open patches between the shrubs (Fig. tun consists mainly of xerophytic communities of 3.4, color). The tallest stands consist mainly of spe- shrubs, semi-shrubs, and herbs, the structure and cies of Ammodendron, Calligonum, Ephedra, Haloxylon, floristic diversity of which have been severely de- and Salsola, although not all these genera are always graded by browsing and grazing livestock and by present. For example, both white saksaul (Haloxylon people cutting wood for fuel. In the past, and espe- persicum), which typically grows on sand dunes, and cially during the Neolithic period when, during the black saksaul (H. aphyllum), which grows mainly on mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum, the climate was alluvial soils and is more salt-tolerant and deep root- warmer and less arid than it is today (this volume, ing, now occur infrequently in the vicinity of Jeitun. pp. 25–26), the local vegetation cover would have Both species are cut for firewood and provide fodder been more continuous and floristic diversity greater. for domestic livestock; white saksaul is browsed by However, in the absence of palynological evidence sheep, goats, and camels, whereas only camels browse of long-term vegetation change (this volume, pp. black saksaul because they can tolerate the bitterness 171–73), we cannot determine with any precision of its leaves. The wood of black saksaul is very dense how the Neolithic plant communities differed from and makes good charcoal (unlike white saksaul which their present-day equivalents. Nevertheless, we can burns to ash) and it was extensively cut for this purpose be confident that the main types of vegetation now in the past. In areas where it is protected today, as in present in the area would (with the exception of the the Repetek Sand Desert Reserve, black saksaul forms irrigated crops of modern agriculture) have been tall stands (Fig. 1.14, color), and it is likely that it did so present in the past. Also, by examining the vegeta- near Jeitun in Neolithic times. Haloxylon was not identi- tion that exists today in protected areas such as the fied in our archaeological samples of charcoal from the reserves at Repetek in the Southeast Karakaum and site (this volume, p. 167), but its absence may be due on the Badghyz plateau east of the Tedzhen river, we to charcoal burning having customarily taken place can gain some impression of the greater structural close to black saksaul trees because their wood is so and floristic complexity that would have character- dense and heavy. This practice has been documented ized the vegetation of southern Turkmenistan dur- at Repetek where layers of charcoal have often been ing the Neolithic. encountered beneath the surface when soil pits are As was emphasized at the beginning of this dug near the trees (pers. comm., Dr. Suhane, Director chapter, Jeitun is located where the gentle slope of of the Repetek Reserve, April 1994, who also reported the lower piedmont merges into the southern edge that, before they were over-exploited for fuel, mature of the Karakum. It is thus situated on the ecotone stands of black saksaul were much more extensive in between two major ecological zones: the desert, and the Karakum and on the Kopetdag piedmont). the piedmont and mountain front. Desert vegetation On the dune ridge south of Jeitun, and on other surrounds the site itself, and would have done so in the large dunes in the area, a less floristically diverse Neolithic, but the plant (and animal) communities of psammophyte shrub community occurs. It is domi- the piedmont and of the nearer valleys and uplands nated by Calligonum spp. (which often replace over-ex- of the Kopetdag would also have been accessible to ploited stands of white saksaul), Ammodendron conollyi, Jeitun’s Neolithic inhabitants. In this section, both the Ephedra strobilacea, and Salsola richteri which provides desert vegetation close to Jeitun and the more distant valuable browse for sheep and goats. Semi-shrub veg- plant communities of the piedmont and Kopetdag are etation consisting principally of species of sagebrush described, the former in relation to the topography of (Artemisia), with other low-growing shrubs such as the local area and the latter more briefly, focusing on Alhagi sp., Ephedra distachya, Astragalus turcomanicus, plants that may have been exploited by the Neolithic and Halothamnus subaphyllus, is more extensive in the population. Jeitun area than are stands of the taller shrubs, and pe- 32 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia rennial and annual herbs grow between and beneath tamarisks. Among the sand hills and dunes near Jeitun, clumps of sagebrush (Fig. 3.4, color). The perennials there are small areas of saline soil that support such include grasses (Stipagrostis spp.), sedges (Carex spp.) halophytes as Salsola gemmescens, S. orientalis, Anabasis and species of Iris, Tulipa, Ferula, and Allium. Some salsa, the sedge Carex pachystylis, and the stem succulent species, such as Sophora alopecuroides, are too toxic to Halocnemum strobilaceum, whereas the takyr surfaces be browsed by sheep or camels. Around Jeitun the tend only to be colonized by algae and lichens. semi-shrub community as a whole shows signs of heavy overgrazing, accentuated by wind erosion following disintegration of the soil surface. As a result, soil has Plant Communities of the Near Piedmont been removed around many shrubs, leaving them and Kopetdag isolated on soil mounds or pedestals which function as micro habitats that sustain herbaceous plants and Much of the piedmont, and several of the gorges provide shelter for a variety of animals. Between the through the front range of the Kopetdag eroded by mounds there are deflated sandy areas where the root the headwaters of piedmont rivers such as the Kara systems of shrubs are exposed and where perennial Su, are within 40 km of Jeitun and would have been and annual herbs grow sparsely. physically accessible to the site’s occupants (as well as As well as the shrub and semi-shrub communi- to people living at other early Neolithic sites on the ties that dominate the vegetation in the vicinity of piedmont). We cannot determine from the archaeo- Jeitun, salt-tolerant (halophytic) taxa form distinctive logical evidence whether Jeitun’s inhabitants routinely communities on the more saline alluvial surfaces: on gathered and hunted wild plants and animals on the areas of solonchak soils, in areas where the groundwa- piedmont and in the near intermontane valleys of the ter level is high, such as around the lakes just west of Kopetdag, or, if so, at what season(s) of the year they Jeitun that occupy former takyrs, and along the now did, but it is probable that some wild food resources artificially fed stream channel of the Kara Su. Today were regularly procured there by people who spent at its channel is intermittently bordered by stands of least part of the year living at Jeitun (see Chapter 11 tamarisk (Tamarix spp.) and reed (Phragmites australis) for discussion of early Neolithic patterns of settlement (Fig. 3.5, color), and these plants also grow around the and subsistence). The diverse plant communities of lakes and swamps near Jeitun (Fig. 3.6, color) that are the piedmont and Kopetdag would have offered a wide fed by overflow from the extensive area of grapevine variety of foods that could supplement the products of cultivation south of the site. crop cultivation and livestock herding at Jeitun, and In prehistoric times more complex riparian veg- many of the plants that may have been exploited in the etation of tugai type that also included poplar (Popu- early Neolithic are noted in this section. lus), willow (Salix), and probably alder (Alnus) may The main types of forest, woodland, shrub, and have grown along the channel of the Kara Su and in steppe vegetation of the piedmont and Kopetdag have local marshy areas liable to flooding. This inference is already been described in Chapter 1. Although today supported by the presence of wood charcoal of these forests of broadleaf trees are restricted to the western trees in our samples from Jeitun, in addition to much and central Kopetdag, where stands of maple, ash, more abundant tamarisk charcoal (a discrepancy that walnut, elm, and other broadleaf trees persist in some may be partly due to differential preservation of the deep north-facing valleys, these mesophytic communi- denser wood of tamarisk; this volume, p. 169). The ties would have been more extensive in the Neolithic. local tugai vegetation would have been an important The canopy-forming larger trees are associated with source of fuel and timber for the inhabitants of Jeitun, a diverse flora of smaller trees, shrubs, and climbers, and continued exploitation of the larger trees in later many of which produce edible fruits. Those that are prehistoric and historical times is likely to have progres- likely to have been gathered, casually or more system- sively reduced their abundance. It is also possible that atically, in summer and autumn include wild apple, the frequently changing topography of the Kara Su’s pear, plum, cherry, fig, hawthorn, blackberry, and terminal fan, subjected to sometimes violent seasonal grape. Some of the herbaceous plants may also have floods, reduced the chances of poplars and willows been valued as sources of food, for example, wild gar- re-establishing themselves after periods of over-exploi- lic (Allium sativum) and, for their edible roots, Leontice tation because they withstand flooding less well than ewersmannii and Bongardia chrysogonum. t h e l o c a l environment o f j e i t u n 33

On the lower and drier slopes of the mountains archaeobotanical samples from Jeitun (see Chapter and on the piedmont, xerophytic woodlands domi- 9, Sections 9.5–9.8). This negative evidence does not nated by such drought-tolerant trees as wild almond exclude the possibility that such plant foods were gath- (Amygdalus communis) and pistachio (Pistacia vera), ered casually, perhaps during hunting trips, or more both of which yield edible nuts, were formerly exten- systematically in summer and autumn when fruits and sive, although they are now restricted to remote areas nuts matured, but it does suggest that they were not least vulnerable to over-exploitation. For example, regularly transported to, and consumed or stored at, stands of wild almond now only survive in the south- Jeitun. To test the hypothesis that wild plants made a western Kopetdag (where the nuts were until recently more than casual contribution to Neolithic diet in this systematically harvested), and pistachio woodlands part of southern Turkmenistan would require further survive mainly on the Badghyz plateau, where they excavation at other sites on the piedmont, using mod- form open-canopy groves with wild barley and other ern archaeobotanical techniques, but in the absence grasses such as Poa bulbosa in what Popov (1994:175) of such new data we should not dismiss the possibility has described as pistachio “semisavanna” (Figs. 1.9, that wild plant products did supplement the staple 1.10, color). Before it was extensively destroyed by over- foods of Neolithic diet derived from cereal cultivation, grazing and logging in recent times, pistachio wood- livestock raising, and hunting. land occupied large areas of the central and eastern piedmont, and the nuts were regularly harvested, as they are likely to have been in the early Neolithic. Native Terrestrial Animals Shiblyak constitutes a third type of vegetation that is a source of wild plant foods. It is a floristically The distribution and present status of terres- diverse formation of small trees and shrubs that is trial animals native to western Central Asia has been most highly developed in intermontane valleys of described in Chapter 1, with emphasis on the wild the southwestern Kopetdag, such as the Sumbar and mammals that have been exploited for food and other Chandyr, which experience a summer-dry Mediterra- purposes and on the extent to which the populations nean climate. Shiblyak vegetation contains many spe- of most of the larger mammals have been reduced in cies with edible nuts and fruits, notably wild almond, recent centuries by hunting and by destruction of their cherry, quince, medlar, fig, pomegranate, and jujube habitats. This has resulted in the extinction or near-ex- (Zizyphus jujuba). tinction in Turkmenistan of many of the carnivorous Steppe consisting of perennial grasses of the gen- species that would have been present in the Neolithic era Stipa, Festuca, and Elytrigia together with species of (e.g., Persian leopard, Caspian tiger, Asiatic lion, chee- many other herbaceous genera used to be extensive on tah, striped hyaena, brown bear, gray wolf, Eurasian the more level surfaces of the piedmont, and it is possible lynx, sand lynx or caracal, steppe cat or manul, jungle (although we have no direct archaeobotanical evidence or swamp cat, rock marten, marbled polecat). Some of this) that seeds of some of the grasses may have been of these predators would have been hunted for their harvested for food in the remote past before cereal cul- pelts, but the main food prey of Neolithic (and Meso- tivation began in the Neolithic. Today most of the for- lithic) hunters, and of most of the larger animal preda- mer areas of steppe are under cultivation or degraded tors, were the native herbivores: bezoar goat, urial by persistent grazing, but some undisturbed areas still sheep, goitered gazelle, onager, saiga, and Bokhara exist in remote parts of the upper piedmont (Fig. 1.11, deer or kangul. All these herd animals exist now only color). The main importance of the steppe to Neolithic in small numbers in remote, mainly mountainous populations was probably as a habitat of wild herbivores areas, and some, such as the Bokhara deer that inhab- that were hunted, particularly gazelle (see below). ited riparian forest (tugai), are either extinct or very It is evident that the main types of vegetation close to extinction. Wild pigs survive today, mainly characteristic of those parts of the piedmont and Ko- in tugai and other wooded habitats, but were more petdag within relatively easy reach of Jeitun contained widespread in the past. Other mammals, such as red a wide variety of wild plant foods, principally fruits but fox, corsac fox, desert or tolai hare, and many small also edible roots, tubers, and leaves, that could have rodents maintain viable populations in Turkmenistan, been gathered by its inhabitants, despite the fact that as do many species of reptiles, principally snakes and no traces of any of these foods were detected in the lizards and also the steppe tortoise. 34 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

It is clear that in prehistoric times the terrestrial The forests, woodlands, shiblyak, and steppe fauna of southern Turkmenistan was much more of the Kopetdag and piedmont sustained a greater diverse, and the populations of individual species variety and larger populations of herbivores and car- much larger, than they are today. The inhabitants of nivores than the areas of tugai and desert vegetation. Jeitun were well placed to exploit for food, and for furs Bezoar goats are likely to have been restricted to the and pelts, many different animals living in the desert mountains, whereas in the Neolithic urial sheep prob- environment near the site, on the piedmont, and in ably grazed on the piedmont steppe as well as in the the near valleys and mountains of the Kopetdag. The mountains, and both would have been preyed upon by shrub-dominated plant communities around Jeitun the “big cats” and also by hyaenas, lynx, wolves, foxes, would have provided habitats for many medium-size and steppe cats. The piedmont and the mountains and and small mammals (red fox, corsac fox, sand lynx, des- valleys of the Kopetdag were also home to brown bears ert hare, porcupine, long-eared hedgehog, long-clawed and small carnivores such as polecats, rock martens, ground squirrel, jerboa, dormouse, hamster, gerbils, badgers, and otters. and voles), as well as many reptiles (steppe tortoise and Bezoar and urial bones have been reported from numerous snakes and lizards, including the large gray Jeitun (Kasparov 1992:61–63) but none were identi- monitor lizard). The desert near Jeitun would also have fied in the samples from our excavations. The extent been visited by herds of onager, gazelle, and probably to which wild goats and sheep may have been hunted saiga, with their attendant predators. The gazelles mi- in the Neolithic remains unknown, but their remains grated north in the winter from their summer grazing have been reported from both Mesolithic and Chalco- grounds in the foothills of the Kopetdag to graze in the lithic sites in Turkmenistan and neighboring regions Karakum, and the saiga moved south into the desert in (this volume, pp. 84 and 87), which suggests that they autumn and winter from their spring and summer pas- continued to be hunted, probably on a diminishing tures in the Russian steppe. The Neolithic occupants of scale, through the Neolithic. This illustrates the dif- Jeitun and other Neolithic sites on the piedmont were ficulty of assessing at all precisely the role of hunting well positioned to intercept migrating herds of gazelle in the predominantly agro-pastoral economy of Jeitun and saiga—the latter at least when it migrated that far and other Neolithic piedmont sites, but it is clear, south in hard winters (this volume, p. 14). However, even from the limited zooarchaeological evidence although these species are represented in the animal- from Jeitun, that quite a wide range of wild animals bone assemblages from Jeitun (this volume, p. 176; was exploited for food, furs, and pelts and that they Kasparov 1992:51), there is insufficient evidence from were procured not only from desert areas near the site the site, or from other excavated Neolithic piedmont but also from the piedmont and Kopetdag. The wild sites, to estimate how intensively and extensively they animals identified in the bone assemblages excavated may have been hunted. at Jeitun include bezoar goat, urial sheep, goitered ga- Tugai vegetation in the channels of piedmont zelle, saiga, wild boar, wolf, red fox, corsac fox, manul streams, and more fully developed along the Sumbar (steppe) cat, wild (yellow) cat, sand cat, rock marten, and Chandyr rivers and in other intermontane valleys tolai (desert) hare, long-eared hedgehog, long-clawed in the Kopetdag, would have been the principal habi- ground squirrel, steppe tortoise, and (gray monitor?) tat of wild pigs and Bokhara deer and their predators, lizard. They include most of the herbivores that are particularly the Caspian tiger, but there is little zooar- likely to have been hunted (with the interesting excep- chaeological evidence to suggest that people regularly tion of the onager which may have eluded hunters hunted boar or deer in the Neolithic; nor, at Jeitun more easily than other slower animals), and the list at least, is there any evidence that fish or waterfowl suggests that wild animals made a significant and were important sources of food (this volume, p. 179; varied contribution to the diet and to other aspects Kasparov 1992). of life at Neolithic Jeitun. 4 The Local Environment of the Bolshoi Balkhan Sites with Jen Heathcote

lose to the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea southern environs, based on our field observations Cin western Turkmenistan, the Bolshoi Balkhan and on published sources. massif rises to an altitude of just over 1,880 m. It is The rockshelters investigated by the British team an isolated outlier of the Kopetdag mountain system in 1997—Jebel and the Dam Dam Cheshme (DDC) and consists predominantly of a core of Jurassic lime- sites (this volume, pp. 113–16)—are located at the stones and an outer belt of Cretaceous limestones, sur- southwestern extremity of the massif near the town of rounded by a piedmont zone of varying width formed Nebit Dag (Balkhanabat), east of the present shore of by the coalescence of alluvial fans. Its southern flank the Caspian (Fig. 4–1). Jebel, which is the type site for consists of a steep escarpment penetrated by canyons the Caspian Mesolithic in Turkmenistan, is a shallow and ravines cut by intermittently flowing streams that rockshelter at c. 300 m above msl (Fig. 8.15, color). have built, and dissected, a series of fans at the foot of Some 9 m above it there is evidence, in the form of the escarpment, thus creating the piedmont zone (Fig. a wave-cut platform, of a marine terrace indicative 4.1 and Fig. 4.2, color). of a previous high stand of the Caspian Sea during The fans have created a semi-continuous sedi- the Pleistocene. We could find no evidence of raised mentary apron that slopes down to the narrow flood- beaches or deltaic deposits higher on the mountain plain of the former Uzboi river, which here forms a side, and because it is at such a high altitude, the corridor typically less than 5 km wide that bisects the wave-cut platform may record a very ancient (As- lowland between the Bolshoi and Maly Balkhan mas- pheronian?) transgression of the Caspian, although sifs. The lowland varies in width from c. 25 km to c. 30 it may have been created later and tectonically up- km and much of it lies close to sea level. Saline areas lifted since its formation. The DDC rockshelters (Figs. of solonchak soils, developed on superficial deposits 8.16–8.19, color, and Fig. 8.22, color) are located ap- of Quaternary age, occur in the lowland and along proximately 20 km southeast of Jebel, and at about the eastern flank of the Bolshoi Balkhan massif (Fig. the same altitude (c. 300 m above msl), at the base of 4.1). Farther southwest, toward the present shore of the southern escarpment of the massif, where they the Caspian, the lowland becomes wider where it overlook the piedmont and the channel of the Uzboi encompasses the former delta of the Uzboi and there (Fig. 4.3, color). We did not observe any local evidence are extensive areas of sand ridges, mobile dunes, and of Caspian transgressions close to the DDC sites, but solonchaks. In this chapter we give a brief account of at times of higher sea level they would have been in the landforms, sediments, climate, vegetation, and closer proximity to the lower channel and delta of the large mammals of the Bolshoi Balkhan massif and its proto-Uzboi and/or to the sea itself. 36 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

km

4.1 The Bolshoi and Maly Balkhan massifs and the Uzboi lowland. The locations of the Dam Dam Cheshme sites and of Oyukli, Adjikuli, and Bashkovdan are based on GPS readings taken at them, whereas the positions of Jebel, Charla’uk, and Joyruk are approximations based on field notes in the absence of GPS data.

Landforms and Sediments on the lower Uzboi channel where it runs parallel to the escarpment (Fig. 4.4), as these zones would have been During our 1997 field season in the area it was only directly accessible to the inhabitants of the rockshelters. possible to undertake preliminary geomorphological Methods employed in the field included geomorphologi- observations. We decided to focus attention on the pied- cal mapping, limited hand-augering of sub-surface sedi- mont slope at the foot of the southern escarpment and ments, and description of stratigraphic sections. t h e l o c a l environment o f t h e bo l s h o i balkhan sites 37

km

4.4 The southern Bolshoi Balkhan, piedmont zone, and lower Uzboi channel; points A and B mark the extent of the transect walked along the channel.

The Southern Piedmont Slope terial that is indicative of relatively high-energy fluvial A large quarry close to the approach road to the conditions and may represent deposits laid down by DDC rockshelters (Fig. 4.4) provided an opportunity melt water during the final deglaciation of the region, to examine sections through an area of alluvial-fan which began c. 19,000 cal. BP. Unfortunately, deposits deposits. They comprised sequences of unconsoli- suitable for radiometric dating were not identified in dated sands and gravels that in places were exposed any of the exposures examined. at the surface and elsewhere covered with a thin (< 0.50 m) veneer of poorly sorted sediment. Exposures within the quarry showed bedded sequences of sands The Lower Uzboi Channel and gravels up to 4 m thick (Fig. 4.5), although they may well be thicker because this was simply the depth Despite the fact that topographic maps of the of quarrying represented by the height of unquarried area often show the Uzboi as a river, today there is no sections of sediment. At the base of these sections continuous watercourse in the valley, and although there was no evidence of the nature of the underlying ephemeral flow can occur in the channel, it is evidently geology. The gravel units consist predominantly of sporadic and likely to be seasonal. In order to trace pebble- to boulder-sized stones in a sand matrix. They and study the character of the relict Uzboi channel we alternate with coarse to medium, moderately sorted examined it along an 80-km transect walked parallel sands which only occasionally show fining upward of to the southern escarpment of the massif from ap- particle-size distributions within the units. A 12-m- proximately 10 km east of its easternmost limit nearly long exposure in the quarry provided a longitudinal- to Nebit Dag. (Fig. 4.4, points A to B). The channel oblique section through coarse alluvial-fan deposits, is incised locally to a depth of up to 10 m, is strongly the depth of which suggests the previous existence of sinuous, and contains well-established vegetation which a sizeable channel. The extent of the quarry (c. 1.5 km suggests that flooding is infrequent (Fig. 4.6, color). long) attests to substantial accretion of coarse-fan ma- Although maps often show the course of the Uzboi as 38 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

fluvial regime and relative timings to be suggested. At the eastern limit of the survey (A) the Uzboi channel has vertical sides. It is constrained by lithified deposits of probable Tertiary age, and its floor lies at c. 10 m below the present desert surface. The basal 2.5 m of these lithified deposits are well bedded and frequently show localized contortion. However, this morphology exists only for a limited portion of the easternmost part of the valley, and in the rest of the transect the channel is typified by vertical and lateral accretion of fine-grained, unconsolidated sediments indicative of a low-gradient river channel. These ac- cretionary events may have taken place during one of the regressive phases of the Caspian, perhaps when its level fell rapidly at the end of the Late Khvalynian transgression (this volume, p. 21). Traveling southwest from point A, two terraces were identified (first observed at location E–F, Fig. 4.4): an upper terrace c. 6 m above the present valley floor and a lower one at c. 2.5 m. They show clear differentiation in terms of their composite deposits. The upper terrace consists of a pale mica-rich clayey coarse silt, the color of which varies slightly from blue- gray to pale gray. This unit lacks clear sedimentary structure, although some localized horizontal weak iron staining may be associated with subtle textural 4.5 Natural exposure of bedded sands and gravels in the changes and/or weak bedding. It contains pockets quarry on the approach road to the Dam Dam Cheshme of abundant remains of small vertebrates (mammals rockshelters where alluvial-fan deposits were examined, and amphibians rather than fish). The deposits of March 1997. (Photo by Jen Heathcote). the lower terrace are very different. They comprise brown salty clays that lack a significant mica content. a single, strongly meandering channel, on the ground This may indicate that they are derived from sedi- the morphology of the channel is far more complex. ments which have undergone a significant amount of For example, a significant degree of lateral channel aeolian reworking prior to being deposited by fluvial migration is indicated downstream from location C–D activity. They are predominantly massive but display (Fig. 4.4), where the channel frequently divides, and bedding toward the top of the unit, which shows a there is evidence of cut-off meander loops across the sharp (erosion) contact with the overlying deposits of whole valley floor. the upper terrace. No animal or plant remains were This basic survey was undertaken to identify the identified in the deposits of the upper terrace, the full nature and morphology of any channel features, the depth of which is unknown as no basal contact was number of terraces present, and the nature of the ter- identified along the whole of the walked transect. race deposits. Another aim was to identify locations and deposits that showed potential for further work, to establish their inherent sedimentary properties, and/ Gravel Mounds or to determine their palaeoenvironmental associa- tions. Although several such deposits were identified, In addition to the present channel of the Uzboi, it was not possible to undertake analytical work on ei- a further type of (probably alluvial) geomorphologi- ther the environmental associations or the relative or cal feature was identified closer to the piedmont zone. absolute chronology of the deposits. Nevertheless, the To the west of the GAI road check-point, mounds of data acquired allow some basic characteristics of the gravel occur that may be relict coarse channel or bar t h e l o c a l environment o f t h e bo l s h o i balkhan sites 39 deposits of an early proto-Uzboi river system (Fig. 4.4). to the surrounding piedmont, surfaces consist mainly The mounds are c. 500 m long and c. 200 m wide, have of sands, gravels, and boulders, with no or very little flat tops, and are surrounded by flat desert. A section soil development. Vegetation is generally sparse and through the edge of one of them showed poorly sorted woodland is today confined to the higher altitudes, gravels with occasional fine, discontinuous bedding to- where it is dominated by stands of the drought- and ward the top. The origin of the mounds is problematic as cold-tolerant Turkmen juniper ( Juniperus turcomanica). they are too distant from the piedmont to be explained Junipers occur above about 800 m on the southern side as coarse alluvial fans generated from the Bolshoi and above about 400 m on the northern side of the Balkhan massif. Although they might be explained as massif, although isolated trees survive on steep slopes such, produced from a previous cold climatic episode and ledges lower down (Fig. 4.7), and old tree stumps dating to the Early or Middle Pleistocene, considerable indicate that juniper woodland used to extend to the erosion would need to have taken place to remove the base of the mountains (Popov 1994:177). According to sedimentary apron that would have existed between Popov (ibid., p. 178), as recently as the 1930s juniper them and the present piedmont along the southern woodlands covered 40,000 ha in the massif, but they escarpment. It is difficult to envisage an erosional have since decreased drastically as a result of unre- mechanism that could remove such a large amount of stricted wood cutting and grazing, despite the trees’ sediment from such a wide zone while leaving the gravel ability to regenerate from stumps if they are not cut too mounds upstanding. An alternative hypothesis, which frequently. Associated with the juniper woodlands, a seems more probable, is that they represent remnants distinctive type of xerophytic vegetation occurs which of a terrace of a large, possibly braided, Lateglacial consists of low shrubs known as cushion plants that proto-Uzboi fluvial system associated with one of the grow extremely slowly and can withstand both drought Khvalynian transgressions (Table 2.2). and frost. The cushion plants of the Bolshoi Balkhan include Onobrychis cornuta and Tragantha marshalli, as well as four other species, three of which are endemic Climate and Vegetation to the massif (Popov 1994:181). At lower altitudes in the mountains, several types Climate of small trees and shrubs grow sporadically on rocky slopes and along stream channels in canyons, often As a result of its northwestern location in Turk- as single plants or forming small degraded patches of menistan, and its isolation from the Kopetdag moun- shiblyak vegetation. They consist mainly of wild cherry tains, the Bolshoi Balkhan massif experiences slightly (Cerasus microcarpa), associated with species of Berberis, lower average annual precipitation (c. 130 mm) and Calligonum, Cotoneaster, Ephedra, Euphorbia, Rhamnus, temperature (c. 15° C) than areas of equivalent al- and Zygophyllum. Fig trees (Ficus carica) also grow here titude in the Kopetdag. Nevertheless, evaporation exceeds precipitation through most of the year, and the moderating influence of the Caspian, which causes summer humidity to be locally higher along its eastern shore than it is inland, has little effect in the Bolshoi Balkhan. Aridity is the prevailing char- acteristic of the climate, although the higher slopes and summits receive somewhat more precipitation, especially in the form of winter snowfall, than the rest of the massif.

Vegetation in the Mountains

The mountain landscape is dominated by steep, 4.7 Scattered juniper trees surviving on steep slopes and bare rock faces, and even on more gentle slopes and ledges above the Dam Dam Cheshme 4 rockshelter, along the seasonally dry watercourses that lead down March 1997. 40 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

and there, especially at the heads of canyons where mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum (this volume, p. 25). water seeps out of the limestone and is tapped by the At that time, when the Uzboi flowed through its delta figs’ deeply penetrating roots. These sites are often into the Caspian, riparian tugai forests were prob- under rock overhangs that provide shelter for shep- ably established along its channels. That tugai forests herds (Fig. 4.8, color), and the dispersal of fig trees to wereformerly more extensive can also be inferred from such sites may well have been assisted not only by birds the fact that even under present-day aridity stands of but also, inadvertently or deliberately, by pastoralists. poplar, tamarisk, and reed (referred to by Walter and Although the lower slopes of the mountains are today Box [1983:115] as “remains of an earlier floodplain for- largely bare of vegetation, they would have been more est”) grow around the edges of marshes and lakes fed heavily vegetated in the past, with a greater diversity of by rainfall in the Bolshoi Balkhan massif that drains taxa represented, when browsing by livestock and the above and below ground toward the Uzboi (ibid., p. exploitation of trees and shrubs for fuel and construc- 113). Today, in the area of the former delta of the Uzboi tion was less intensive. southwest of the massif, there are extensive sand accu- mulations and saline depressions with solonchak soils and very sparse vegetation. Tamarisk and white saksaul Vegetation of the Piedmont and the Channel are established on some of the dunes, and the leafless and Former Delta of the Uzboi stem succulent Halocnemum strobilaceum is a distinctive feature of halophytic vegetation on solonchaks. At the base of the massif, where the rocky terrain of the mountains gives way to the gravelly slopes of the piedmont, scattered trees and shrubs are replaced Large Mammals by a sparse cover of low-growing desert shrubs, semi- shrubs, grasses, and forbs. The shrubs include several The Bolshoi Balkhan massif formerly provided species of Artemisia, Calligonum, and Salsola, and the habitats for a wide variety of wild mammals, but their herbaceous component includes perennial species populations have been drastically reduced in recent of Stipagrostis, Carex, and Iris as well as many annuals. centuries. This is particularly true of the larger her- Floristic diversity is low as a result of aridity, thin soil bivores and carnivores. Both the urial sheep and the cover, and seasonal grazing on the piedmont by sheep, bezoar goat still exist in the mountains in very small goats, and camels. numbers, but their predators—principally (apart from In the channel of the Uzboi, at the lower edge of humans) leopards but also lynx, striped hyaena, red the piedmont, the vegetation is somewhat more varied. fox, wild cat, and manul or steppe cat (Korshunov The most obvious contrast with the piedmont is the 1994:243)—are now either locally extinct or rare presence of individual trees and clumps of tamarisk (Rustamov and Sopyev 1994:207–13). Wolf popula- (Tamarix sp.), which is well adapted to growth on the tions have been much reduced by pastoralists seeking saline channel deposits (Fig. 4.6, color). Scattered to protect their livestock from predation, but jackals halophytic semi-shrubs, principally Salsola gemmascens, and wild pigs are still relatively common in the area, occupy much of the channel floor, and the sand sedge where they hunt and forage in the mountains, on Carex physodes and the grass Stipagrostis pennata also the piedmont, and along the channel of the Uzboi. occur, sometimes associated with bushes of white sak- Populations of the larger mammals would have been saul (Haloxylon persicum) (Fig. 1.12, color). The deeper greater in the past, especially during the Climatic rooting black saksaul (H. aphyllum) (Figs. 1.13, 1.14, Optimum, when tugai and juniper forests were more color), which grows mainly on alluvial soils and is well extensive along the Uzboi channel and in the moun- adapted to areas of high water table and temporary tains where they would have been hunted by the Meso- standing water, is also present. It may have been more lithic occupants of the Jebel and Dam Dam Cheshme abundant when the climate was less arid during the rockshelters. 5 History of Archaeological Research with Jennifer Coolidge

he prehistory of western Central Asia remained work published by archaeologists from elsewhere who Talmost entirely unknown until after the Russian have worked in the region. Most of the detailed Rus- conquest of most of the region in the second half of sian publications have not been synthesized by Soviet the 19th century. Archaeological research soon fol- scholars, and very few Western archaeologists have lowed, and by the 1880s investigations of prehistoric summarized the Russian literature at all comprehen- sites were underway. During the Soviet era systematic sively, with the notable exceptions of P. L. Kohl (1981, research on the prehistoric archaeology of Soviet 1984), F. T. Hiebert (1994a, 2003), and F. Brunet (1999, Central Asia began, and, by means of a series of field 2002, 2003, 2005). There are some basic overviews in campaigns of survey and excavation, a spatial frame- Russian, but these tend to omit much of the significant work and a chronological sequence for the prehistoric detail in the original research publications. past of Turkmenistan and the other Central Asian This situation appears to be due, in part at republics were established. Great advances in knowl- least, to rivalry and lack of collaboration during the edge were made, particularly after the Second World Soviet era between the Institute of Archaeology of War, when the investigation of tell (depe) sites on the the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow and Kopetdag piedmont revealed the former existence the branch of the Institute in Leningrad, as well as there of numerous Neolithic agro-pastoral villages the strong although unofficial direction exerted by and larger, more urban settlements of the Chalcolithic Moscow and Leningrad over the institutes of archaeol- (Eneolithic in Russian terminology) period and the ogy of the Academies of Science in the Central Asian Bronze Age. Most Western archaeologists remained republics. A secondary reason for the lack of Soviet unaware of these new discoveries, and the way in attempts to synthesize archaeological data (although which research results were interpreted and reported this situation has changed following the dissolution of was constrained by Marxist ideology, as is very evident the Soviet Union) is the formulaic system of conduct- when the voluminous Russian archaeological litera- ing archaeological research and interpreting archaeo- ture of the period is studied. logical data that was prescribed by Soviet ideology. In this chapter the history of research on pre- It required investigators to fit an archaeological site historic archaeology in Turkmenistan and adjacent into a three-tier hierarchy of local variant, archaeo- areas in Uzbekistan, northeastern Iran, and northern logical sub-culture, and ultimately a designated group Afghanistan is summarized, as a prelude to describing of archaeological cultures, and it encouraged com- in Chapter 6 the principal Mesolithic and Neolithic parison of like with like within the hierarchy across sites, sequences, and subsistence economies. Our sum- geographical regions while discouraging comparison maries (which draw on Chapters 2 and 3 in Coolidge of like with unlike. This favored the perception and 2005) are based on a comprehensive reading of the study of archaeological sites and prehistoric cultures relevant Russian literature published in the former as separate entities and militated against attempts at Soviet Union, as well as of the more limited body of regional synthesis. 44 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan 1908). As a geologist, he had already traveled exten- sively in Central Asia, including a reconnaissance Pre-Soviet Investigations expedition in 1903 when he chose Anau for detailed investigation (Pumpelly 1905), and he had been im- Archaeological investigations in the present ter- pressed by the widespread evidence, in the form of dry ritory of Turkmenistan began during the 1880s. The river channels and lake basins, that the climate had initial stage of activity was marked by the plundering formerly been less arid. In his studies of the physiogra- of sites for the international art market as well as the phy of deserts and oases he was assisted by the geogra- use of ad hoc or haphazard techniques of excavation. pher Ellsworth Huntington, who was later to become More systematic investigations began when General a champion of environmental determinism (Hunting- A. V. Komarov, the Imperial Russian governor of ton 1915, 1919), and Pumpelly became convinced that Transcaspia, organized exploratory excavations at climatic changes had profoundly affected patterns of several sites. They included the great urban center of human settlement and migration in Central Asia. In ancient Merv in the Murghab delta northeast of the particular, he suggested that progressive desiccation present-day city of Mary, which occupied a pivotal had stimulated cereal cultivation and the beginnings position on the Silk Route between China and the of (irrigation) agriculture in Central Asian oases West. Then in 1886, he turned his attention to the (Pumpelly 1906:668; 1908:65–66). In proposing this large mounds (referred to as kurgans) at Anau on hypothesis he foreshadowed Gordon Childe’s famous the Kopetdag piedmont east of Ashgabat (Fig. 6.1), “oasis theory” of the origins of agriculture in the where he bisected the north mound with a massive Near East, which Childe first referred to in 1928 and trench, expecting it to contain a royal burial, pos- stated more explicitly in 1934 and in later publications sibly that of Alexander the Great. Although no such (Childe 1928:42; 1934:24–25). burial was found, he realized that he had unearthed The prehistoric cultural sequence that Pumpelly evidence of Stone and Bronze Age occupation, and established at Anau strongly influenced later Soviet his trench was the earliest large-scale excavation of archaeological research and his two-volume 1908 prehistoric deposits undertaken in Turkmenistan publication brought Central Asia, as a center of early (Hiebert 2003:24–25; Kohl 1984:17). civilization, to the attention of Western archaeolo- In the first decade of the20th century, the ear- gists. In retrospect, he deserves to be recognized as liest multidisciplinary scientific investigation into an innovator well ahead of his time, whose methods Turkmenistan’s prehistory took place when in 1904 anticipated the multidisciplinary and systemic ap- the American geologist Raphael Pumpelly, assisted by proaches that were widely adopted in the second half the German archaeologist Hubert Schmidt, carried of the 20th century by American and British archae- out excavations at the Anau mounds. They excavated ologists investigating the origins of agriculture (e.g., at both the north (Chalcolithic/Eneolithic) and south Binford 1968; Braidwood and Howe 1960; Flannery (Bronze and Iron Age) mounds, as well as at the his- 1968; Harris 1969; Higgs and Jarman 1969; MacNeish torical site of Anau city, and thereby established the 1967). first prehistoric cultural sequence for Turkmenistan (Kohl 1984:18). Pumpelly and Schmidt approached the task of excavation and the retrieval of finds system- Soviet Investigations between the Revolution atically, and many of the finds were then sent to spe- and the Second World War cialists for detailed analysis: the animal bones to J. U. Duerst in Bern, pottery and mudbricks with imprints No further significant investigation into the of plant remains to H. C. Schellenberg, also in Bern, pre­historic archaeology of Turkmenistan took place the human bones to G. Sergi in Rome and T. Mollison until after the Russian Revolution of 1918, but changes in Zurich, and the metal objects to F. A. Gooch in New in the aims and structure of archaeological research Haven, Connecticut, for chemical analysis (Hiebert soon followed the Revolution and the ensuing Civil 2003:25–28). War. For example, unauthorized excavations were Pumpelly published the results of his investiga- forbidden, an archaeological map of Central Asia tions in two thoroughly documented volumes to which was compiled in 1920–21, and, after the political the scientific specialists also contributed (Pumpelly boundaries of the Central Asian republics were de- h i s t o ry o f archaeological research 45 marcated in 1924–25, separate institutions were set 1945 under the direction of M. A. Itina, and in 1968 up in each to organize archaeological research (Kohl A. V. Vinogradov published a comprehensive account 1984:18). With the establishment of Soviet admin- of the Neolithic Keltiminar sites found up to 1965. istration, archaeology became a highly structured, By the early 1980s over 60 Keltiminar sites had been well-funded, state-controlled enterprise, oriented identified by aerial reconnaissance, ground survey, toward revealing the origins of communism. The and excavation (Kohl 1984:59). As Kohl remarked Soviet approach provided a very clear if rigid formula (1984:19–20), “This project…pioneered numerous for archaeological excavation, the cataloguing and field techniques in Central Asian archaeology, includ- analysis of artifact assemblages, and the dissemina- ing settlement pattern studies, aerial reconnaissance tion of results. and photography, and the use of mechanized digging Prehistoric archaeology in the Turkmen Soviet equipment”; it also generated important publications Socialist Republic can be said to have begun when and made a major contribution to the training of local D. D. Bukinich, who had discovered the eastern- archaeologists. piedmont site of Namazga-depe in 1916, returned in 1924 to start investigating it (Bukinich 1924; Kohl 1984:18). Two years later he found cultural layers Soviet Investigations after the buried 7 m below the level of the piedmont surface Second World War near Anau, which suggested that active sedimentation could have masked archaeological sites on the alluvial In 1946 a major new archaeological initiative fans that decline northward across the piedmont from was taken when the Southern Turkmenistan Com- the base of the Kopetdag mountains. In 1925, an plex Archaeological Expedition (YuTAKE) was set ethnographic-archaeological association was created up under the direction of the renowned orientalist in Ashgabat, but it was soon superseded by the cre- M. E. Masson. The work of YuTAKE was divided into ation of an archaeological section of Turkmen’kult, brigades that focused on particular sites and periods. the Institute of Turkmen Culture. In the 1930s and One of its earliest missions was undertaken by the during the Second World War Turkmen’kult together IXth Brigade, led by A. P. Okladnikov, who worked with Turkomstaris, the Turkestan Committee for the extensively on Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites on Preservation of Monuments of Antiquity and Art, es- the Krasnovodsk plateau and in the Bolshoi Balkhan tablished in 1921, organized expeditions to investigate region between 1947 and 1952 (Okladnikov 1951, archaeological sites on the Kopetdag piedmont, in 1953). His excavation of the rockshelter site of Jebel the Balkhan-Atrek region in western Turkmenistan, (Djebel) close to the Caspian Sea at the southwestern between the Tedzhen and Murghab rivers, and along end of the Bolshoi Balkhan massif yielded a long the Amudarya (Kohl 1984:19). During this period A. stratigraphic sequence of Mesolithic and Neolithic A. Marushchenko and A. F. Ganyalin worked at the deposits (Okladnikov 1956), and although the chro- piedmont sites of Old and New Nisa and Ak-depe west nology was insecure, it came to be regarded as the of Ashgabat, as well as at Altyn-depe at the eastern end type site for the Turkmenistan Caspian Mesolithic. of the piedmont. Okladnikov also examined two other rockshelters at The most significant development in western the foot of the southern escarpment of the Bolshoi Central Asian archaeology at this time was the forma- Balkhan—Dam Dam Cheshme 1 and 2—but it was not tion by the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1937 of the until the 1960s that these two important Mesolithic– Khoresmian Archaeological Ethnographic Expedi- Neolithic sites were comprehensively excavated, by G. tion, directed by S. P. Tolstov. This project investi- E. Markov of Moscow State University (Markov 1966a, gated many sites south of the Aral Sea in northern 1966b, 1981). (These three sites are described more Turkmenistan and central Uzbekistan, including the fully in this volume, pp. 57–58 and 113–15). stratified site of Janbas (Dzhanbas) 4 in the ancient YuTAKE sponsored many other field projects delta of the Akchadarya (part of the former drainage between 1952 and 1965. One of the most significant of the lower Amudarya). In 1939, following his exca- of these was B. A. Kuftin’s work at Namazga-depe in vations at Janbas 4, Tolstov identified the Keltiminar 1952, published posthumously in 1956. It established Culture of hunter-fisher-gatherers (Tolstov 1946, 1958; a chronological sequence divided into six phases this volume, pp. 64–68). The project continued after termed Namazga I–VI, which became the accepted di- 46 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia vision of the period from the Chalcolithic (Eneolithic) It was during the decade from 1963 to 1973 that to the Late Bronze Age. The important Bronze Age the Neolithic sites of what came to be called the Jeitun site of Altyn-depe, farther east on the piedmont, which Culture of the Kopetdag piedmont were systematically had been discovered in 1929 by A. A. Semenov, was studied. V. M. Masson laid the foundations for this re- explored in 1947 by the VIIth Brigade of YuTAKE, di- search with his excavations at the type site of Jeitun in rected by M. E. Masson and G. A. Pugachenkova, and the late 1950s and early 1960s (Masson 1957, 1971; this excavated intermittently between 1951 and 1961 by S. volume, pp. 95–97), but it was O. K. Berdiev, who died A. Ershov and A. F. Ganyalin (Ganyalin 1967). The in a car accident at the age of 38 in 1973, who extended latter also worked at the nearby site of Ilgynly-depe research to the Jeitun-Culture sites of the piedmont as (Ganyalin 1959). Between 1954 and 1956 M. E. Mas- a whole. He deserves special recognition for carrying son’s son, V. M. Masson, discovered and excavated the out, with great dedication, a comprehensive survey of Iron Age Yaz I culture complex in Margiana (the part the Neolithic piedmont sites, from Bami in the west of the ancient delta of the Murghab river that extends to the Meana-Chaacha district in the east (Fig. 6.1). north of the classical and medieval cities of Merv). His initial fieldwork was reported in his doctoral dis- Continuing in his father’s footsteps, the younger sertation (Berdiev 1963a). Then, between 1963 and Masson went on to direct the XIVth Brigade with 1973, he excavated and published the results of work V. I. Sarianidi and I. N. Khlopin, excavating 11 sites at the sites of Bami (1963b), Chagylly (1964a, 1966), between 1955 and 1962, 9 in the Geoksyur oasis (the Togolok (1964b), New Nisa (1965), Chakmakli (1968a, ancient delta of the Tedzhen river), Kara-depe on the 1968b), Chopan (1972a), Pessedjik (1968b, 1973), and piedmont near the town of Artykh, and the Early Neo- Monjukli (1972b), and also published various more lithic site of Jeitun at the edge of the Karakum desert general papers (Berdiev 1964c, 1968c, 1970, 1971a, northwest of Ashgabat. Further work was undertaken 1971b, 1971c, 1976; Atagarryev and Berdiev 1967, by the XIVth Brigade at Altyn-depe from 1965 to 1967, 1970). Thus, in a decade of extraordinarily produc- after which V. M. Masson became the sole director of tive fieldwork and publication, tragically terminated the excavations there. He continued to work actively by his early death, Berdiev made an unmatched con- at Altyn-depe until 1978, and returned to the site in- tribution to the definition and interpretation of the termittently thereafter (Masson 1988). V. I. Sarianidi Jeitun Culture, much of which he synthesized in the went on to excavate at the Bronze Age piedmont sites volume that he published in 1969 entitled (in English of Ulug-depe and Khapuz-depe in the late 1960s, and translation) The Most Ancient Agriculturalists of Southern I. N. Khlopin, together with his wife, L. I. Khlopina, Turkmenistan. turned his attention to the Sumbar valley where in Also on the piedmont, investigation of the north 1977 he discovered the Early Bronze Age cemetery of mound at Anau was resumed in 1977 when the Turk- Parkhai II (Khlopin 1981 and Kohl 1984:20 for much men archaeologist K. K. Kurbansakhatov, who was of the information in this paragraph). trained by V. M. Masson and became a leading figure A second phase of research in Margiana began in Turkmenian archaeology, began work there as part in the early 1970s when the Institute of Archaeology of of his doctoral research. Between 1977 and 1982 he the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow and excavated areas north of Komarov’s trench, exposed the Institute of History of the Turkmen Academy of successive layers of building, and obtained a long Sciences formed the Margiana Archaeological Expe- stratigraphic sequence by means of a deep sounding dition (MAE), with V. I. Sarianidi as director. Further that reached the lowest deposits (Kurbansakhatov work was undertaken at the previously excavated sites 1987; Hiebert 2003:30–31). of Auchin-depe and Takhirbai-depe, and an extensive topographic survey located over 100 Bronze Age sites, including the large settlement of Gonur 1. In 1978 it Collaboration between Foreign was decided to divide the MAE into two teams, one, Archaeologists and Russian, Turkmen, and led by Sarianidi, began excavations at the southern Uzbek Colleagues and eastern sites around Togolok and Gonur, and the other, led by I. S. Masimov of the Turkmen Academy In the early 1970s foreign scholars began again, of Sciences, began excavations farther north in the some seven decades after Pumpelly’s work at Anau, to Kelleli group of sites (Hiebert 1994a:16–17). become involved in the archaeology of western Cen- h i s t o ry o f archaeological research 47 tral Asia. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky of Harvard University Karlovsky’s original initiative was the opportunity and M. Tosi of the University of Bologna were both in- taken by one of his research students, F. T. Hiebert, to terested in “spheres of interaction” of resource exploi- become involved in Central Asian archaeology. Hie- tation and trade, and were eager to learn more about bert was able to undertake a study tour of archaeologi- possible links between the Iranian sites at which they cal sites in Soviet Central Asia, and, after meeting V. I. had worked—respectively Tepe Yahya in southeastern Sarianidi, was invited to join his 1989 field season at Iran and Shar-i Sokhta in east-central Iran—and sites the Bronze Age site of Gonur 1 in Margiana. Hiebert to the north of the Iranian plateau in Turkmenistan. went on to complete in 1992 a doctoral dissertation They had examined parallels in the material invento- on the Bronze Age settlements of Central Asia, which ries of sites that circumscribed the plateau (Lamberg- gave rise to a substantial monograph (1994a). He then Karlovsky and Tosi 1973; Lamberg-Karlovsky 1975), initiated a second collaborative field project in Turk- which strengthened Masson and Sarianidi’s prior menistan: a re-study of the Chalcolithic (Eneolithic)- suppositions (1972) of the possible existence of prehis- Iron Age north mound at Anau. Here he was following toric trade networks connecting Iran and Turkmeni- in the footsteps of Pumpelly and later investigators stan. This initial research provided the background and this led to the publication, with Kurbansakhatov and stimulus for both Lamberg-Karlovsky and Tosi to and others, of a second major monograph (2003). develop, later in the 1970s and the 1980s, academic Tosi also built on his early contacts with Soviet collaboration with Soviet archaeologists. colleagues and in 1989 a protocol of cooperation was This process was sparked in 1977 by a meeting signed in Rome between the Academy of Sciences of between Lamberg-Karlovsky and two archaeologists the USSR and the Italian Institute of Middle and Far from the Institute of Archaeology in Moscow, R. East Studies (IsMEO). G. Koshelenko, head of the Clas- Munchaev and N. Merpert, at a conference in Den- sical Archaeology section of the Academy of Sciences, mark on the origins of agriculture at which Tosi was had already conceived the idea of creating an archaeo- also present. This initial contact led, after a further logical map of the Merv oasis, and after many years meeting at Harvard University in 1979 to plan col- of excavation within the walls of ancient Merv, he, in laboration, to P. L. Kohl of Wellesley College, Mas- association with A. Gubaev of the Turkmenistan State sachusetts, being invited to travel to Soviet Central University, had begun exploring fortresses and other Asia in 1979 and 1980 to visit archaeological sites, settlements on the northern borders of the oasis. The study museum collections, and meet Soviet colleagues area had been extensively occupied during the Iron (Lamberg-Karlovsky 1994:xviii–xx). Although col- Age, as V. M. Masson’s discovery (already referred to) laborative excavations were not possible at that time, of the Yaz I culture complex in the 1950s had shown. given the political climate of the Cold War, Kohl’s The proposal was now to explore the whole of the vast study tours resulted in the publication of two of the northern area and to produce an “Archaeological Map most significant volumes on Central Asia produced by of the Northern Limits of the Merv Oasis.” Tosi visited a Western archaeologist, one of which focused on the the area with several Italian colleagues in October Bronze Age while the other provided a comprehensive 1989, and the new project was set up under the joint overview from the Palaeolithic to the beginnings of direction of Gubaev, Koshelenko, and Tosi. Archaeo- the Iron Age (Kohl 1981, 1984). Following Kohl’s visits, logical and geological fieldwork was carried out from the first joint USA-USSR archaeological symposium 1990 to 1995 by the Italian-Russian-Turkmen team, was organized by Kohl and Lamberg-Karlovsky in which included B. Marcolongo, director of the Insti- 1981 at Harvard’s Peabody Museum, and three more tute for Applied Geology at Padova. Innovative use was joint symposia then took place, in Samarkand in 1983, made of satellite and other remotely sensed images to Washington, DC, in 1986, and Tbilisi in 1988. The sec- detect ancient irrigation features and to locate new ond of these resulted, in 1985, in the first participation archaeological sites, and in 1998 the project produced of American archaeologists (Lamberg-Karlovsky and its first major publication, a volume of text and figures Kohl) in a Soviet excavation, at Sarazm in Tajikistan, and another of maps, edited by Gubaev, Koshelenko, where a French team was already working (Lamberg- and Tosi (1998). Tosi and Marcolongo also conducted Karlovsky 1994:xxi–xxii). smaller-scale geoarchaeological studies in southern Another outcome of the developing collabora- Turkmenistan, in the Sumbar valley, and the Meana– tion with Soviet archaeologists that followed Lamberg- Chaacha district (Marcolongo, pers. comm. 2000). 48 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Independently of the American and Italian The initial Turkmenian-British agreement for collaborative projects that stemmed from the initial collaboration at Merv was for the years 1992–94, but meetings with Soviet archaeologists in the late 1970s the project was later extended for a second, and then and early 1980s, British archaeologists also started a third, three-year period, under the co-direction two joint field projects with Russian and Turkmen of Herrmann and Kurbansakhatov, with St. John colleagues in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Simpson of the British Museum in charge of the ex- first at the Neolithic site of Jeitun and the second at cavations. Reports of each season’s work appeared in the multiperiod urban center of Merv. Both were, the journal Iran from 1993 to 2001, and specialized initially, collaborative ventures between the Institute papers and substantive volumes were also published of Archaeology, University College London (UCL), (Brun 2005; Herrmann 1999; Puschnigg 2006). In the Institute of the History of Material Culture in St. 1999 the international importance of Merv was rec- Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) and the Turkmen ognized by Unesco when it was formally declared a Academy of Sciences in Ashgabat. Participation in the World Heritage Site. It was then agreed that greater two projects from the London Institute was organized priority should henceforth be given to conservation and led by D. R. Harris for Jeitun and G. Herrmann and interpretation of the whole area of the walled for Merv, in close collaboration with Masson from St. cities and outlying monuments that now constitute Petersburg and Kurbansakhatov in Ashgabat. The an archaeological park. Accordingly a new five-year Jeitun Archaeological-Environmental Project was Turkmenian-British collaboration between the Insti- initiated in 1989 and the International Merv Proj- tute of Archaeology, UCL, and the Ministry of Culture ect (IMP) in 1992, and in subsequent years British of Turkmenistan was started in 2001, co-directed by participation was broadened to include colleagues Kurbansakhatov and T. D. Williams of UCL (Williams from several other university departments and from et al. 2002, 2003). This was extended for a further the British Museum. Whereas the Jeitun project was five years to 2010, co-directed by Williams and Dr. concerned with prehistoric, principally Neolithic, Mukhammed Mamdeov of the Ministry of Culture. archaeology, the IMP focused on the development in Research and selective excavation continue to be part historical times of the ancient and medieval cities of of the project, together with conservation work on the the Merv oasis. The genesis and development of the standing buildings, the training of local staff, and the Jeitun project is described in the Preface to this vol- development of a management plan for the archaeo- ume, and a brief account of the recent investigations logical park (Williams 2007, 2008). at Merv is given here. East of Merv, across the Amudarya in Uzbeki- The spectacular site of Merv, with its many stan, another international project is underway. Be- standing buildings and extensive walls enclosing a tween 1995 and 1999 the Polish-Uzbek Archaeological complex of ancient cities (Erk Kala and Gyaur Kala) Expedition, under the direction of Karol Szymczac and their medieval successors (Sultan Khan Kala of Warsaw University’s Institute of Archaeology and and Abdullah Khan Kala), has been a focus for ar- Mukhiddin Khudzhanazarov of the Uzbek Academy chaeological investigations since 1890 when V. A. of Sciences’ Institute of Archaeology in Samarkand, Zhukovsky began excavating there, following earlier conducted archaeological and palaeoenvironmental reconnaissance by General Komarov. Work continued field research in the Kyzylkum. The aim of the expe- at the site intermittently, intensifying after the Second dition was to establish an accurate chronology and World War when YuTAKE conducted excavations in better understanding of the prehistoric occupation the area of the ancient cities. The size and complexity of the desert in the early and mid Holocene. The of the site presents a great archaeological challenge, project continued, under the same direction, from and one of the main aims of the IMP was to carry out 2002 onward and expanded to include French col- detailed surface surveys of the distribution of ceramics leagues. and other materials and to document all the standing Research on the prehistoric archaeology of buildings and other visible structures such as canals the Kyzylkum was initiated in 1937 by S. P. Tolstov, and water cisterns. Members of the project also un- who first identified sites of the Keltiminar Culture dertook selective excavations of house foundations, as (this chapter, p. 45), and it was continued after the well as of metal-working areas where early evidence of Second World War by several scholars, notably A. V. steel manufacture was unearthed. Vinogradov (1968, 1981; Vinogradov and Mamedov h i s t o ry o f archaeological research 49

1975). Most of the many Keltiminar sites discovered tion did not begin until the 1930s. Among the first in the desert lack stratified cultural deposits, but sites to be test-excavated were Tureng Tepe and Shah Vinogradov (1981) found several where stratigraphy Tepe on the plain of the Gorgan river close to the was preserved, including the site at the northeastern southeastern coast of the Caspian (Fig. 6.1). They were edge of the Ayakagytma depression in the southern investigated respectively by the American archaeolo- Kyzylkum that was chosen by the Polish-Uzbek team gist F. R. Wulsin and the Swedish archaeologist T. J. for intensive investigation. A monograph reporting Arne, and Arne also mapped the location of 310 sites initial results of the project, including 13 radiocarbon on the western Gorgan plain (Arne 1945; Daher 1969; dates and preliminary accounts of the excavation and Kohl 1984:22; Wulsin 1932). More comprehensive ex- of the structures, artifacts, and animal bones found, cavations were carried out at Tureng in the 1960s and has been published (Szymczac and Khudzhanazarov 1970s by a French Archaeological Mission under the 2006b, and see this volume, pp. 67–68). direction of J. Deshayes (1963 and reports in Iranica This account of the history of archaeological Antiqua 1965, 1966; Iran 1967, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, investigations in Turkmenistan and part of Uzbeki- 1974, 1976; and Paléorient 1974), and in 1960 and 1962 stan demonstrates the great advances in knowledge the British archaeologist D. Stronach excavated at that have been achieved since Komarov carried out another site, Yarim Tepe, on the eastern Gorgan plain the first excavations at Anau in 1886. Pumpelly’s where he found sherds resembling Jeitun pottery in pioneering investigations at Anau in the first decade the deepest levels (Stronach 1972; this volume, p. of the 20th century inaugurated a new scientific ap- 62). South of the Elburz mountains on the Damghan proach to the study of Central Asian prehistory, and plain, the mainly Bronze Age site of Tepe Hissar was the extensive surveys and excavations carried out by excavated in 1931 and 1933 by an American team led Russian, Turkmen, and Uzbek archaeologists from the by E. F. Schmidt (1937), and reinvestigated in 1976 1920s onward established the framework, and filled in by an American-Italian-Iranian team directed by R. much of the detail, of the prehistoric and historical H. Dyson, Jr., and M. Tosi (Dyson and Howard 1989). past of the region. With the exception of Pumpelly, The Damghan plain was also surveyed at that time foreign archaeologists played little part in the early (Trinkaus 1981). stages of this exciting process of discovery, but in more Investigations of three rockshelters close to the recent decades that situation changed and an increas- southeastern shore of the Caspian (Fig. 6.1), which ing number of Western archaeologists (ourselves led to the recognition of the Iranian Caspian Meso- included) have had the privilege of participating, with lithic, began in the years 1949–51 when the American local colleagues, in the continuing archaeological archaeologist C. S. Coon excavated two of the sites— investigation of the region’s past. Ghar-i Kamarband (Belt Cave) and Hotu—a short distance west of the town of Behshahr (Coon 1951, 1952, 1957:129–204; Dupree 1952). The third site, Northeastern Iran Ali Tappeh, located just east of Behshahr, was found in 1962 and excavated by the British archaeologist Here and in the final section of this chapter a C. B. M. McBurney (1964, 1968). The three sites, brief account is given of the history of research on the particularly Ali Tappeh, provided valuable evidence prehistoric archaeology of those areas of northeastern of changes in Caspian sea levels, climate, and fauna Iran and northern Afghanistan where investigations during Lateglacial and Postglacial times. have been conducted that relate closely to the prehis- During the early 1970s, under the auspices of tory of Turkmenistan. The most relevant sites in Iran a Japanese-Iranian Joint Archaeological Mission, are located in the province of Mazandaran south of S. Masuda excavated two small mounds at Sang-i the Caspian Sea and in the northernmost part of the Čakmaq (Sang-i Chakmak) on the north Iranian province of Khorassan close to the Iran-Turkmenistan plateau near Bastam north of Shahroud (Fig. 6.1), frontier. both of which proved to have been occupied during Archaeological explorations of northern Iran the Neolithic (Masuda 1972, 1974a, 1974b, 1976, began in the 19th century when Western and Iranian 1977, 1984). The pottery, stone, and bone tools and soldiers and travelers examined some of the more animal figurines found in the lower levels of the east- conspicuous sites, but systematic survey and excava- ern mound resemble equivalent assemblages found 50 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia at Jeitun-Culture sites on the Kopetdag piedmont and that, contrary to earlier interpretations (Negah- (this volume, p. 63). In the 1970s too, the Iranian ban 1977, 1979; Shahmirizade 1977), there was no archaeologist E. O. Negahban excavated a site much evidence of Neolithic occupation at the site (Fazeli, farther west, Zaghe on the Qazvin plain south of Wong, and Potts 2005). Also, extensive settlement the Elburz range. Its lower levels contained the re- surveys on the Tehran plain have discovered many mains of small rectangular mudbrick houses with prehistoric (mainly Chalcolithic) sites, while new ex- plastered platforms resembling the houses at Jeitun, cavations at Cheshmeh-Ali just south of Tehran and and, together with the nearby sites of Sagzabad and at Tepe Pardis farther southeast close to the city of Ghabristan (Qabristan), it provided a stratigraphic Garchak, have yielded an absolute chronology for the sequence that appeared to extend from the Neolithic Late Neolithic–Transitional Chalcolithic–Early Chal- to the Achaemenian period (Negahban 1977, 1979; colithic (c. 6200–5500–4700 cal. BCE), with evidence Shahmirizade 1977). of (Late) Neolithic settlement at Cheshmeh-Ali and In the late 1970s reconnaissance surveys and Sadeghabadi, and of the Late Neolithic/Transitional test excavations were carried out close to the frontier Chalcolithic interface at Tepe Pardis (Coningham with the USSR in northeastern Iran. An Italian team et al. 2004, 2006; Fazeli, Coningham, and Batt 2004, from the University of Turin led by R. V. Ricciardi, Fazeli et al. 2007). assisted by R. Biscione, investigated sites in the upper Iranian prehistorians have also carried out new Atrek valley near the town of Quchan (Fig. 6.1). Dur- surveys and excavations closer to southern Turk- ing three seasons of fieldwork in 1976, 1977, and 1978 menistan, in Mazandaran and Khorassan provinces. they identified some 180 mounds, made extensive Near Behshahr in eastern Mazandaran, close to the surface collections, and carried out test excavations rockshelters excavated by Coon, Mesolithic (Epipa- at two of the larger mounds, Yam and Khorramabad, laeolithic) deposits and Neolithic potsherds and sickle but found no evidence of pre-Chalcolithic occupa- blades were found in a cave (Qar-i Komishan) near the tion (Ricciardi 1980). Also in 1978 P. L. Kohl and D. Hotu rockshelter (Fig. 6.1) during a landscape survey L. Heskel (1980) surveyed the Dargaz (Darreh Gaz) directed by A. Mahfroozi of the Iranian Cultural plain northeast of Quchan, which had previously been Heritage and Tourism Organization (Azarnoush and explored by Negahban and which affords easy access Helwing 2005:193, 201; Mahfroozi 2004; Shidrang to the Kopetdag piedmont. They located 40 sites, only 2004). Also at Tugh Tepe, 25 km west of Behshahr, 4of which were found to contain prehistoric material. Mahfroozi found sherds of Jeitun type above the One of these (DG19) yielded a few sherds resembling deepest levels, which lack pottery, and below levels ceramics from Jeitun and also from Yarim, far to the containing late Neolithic pottery of Cheshmeh-Ali west (Fig. 6.1). type, while at the large site of Gohar Tepe, 5 km west The Iranian Revolution of 1979 brought to a of Behshahr, he found late Neolithic Cheshmeh-Ali halt investigations in Iran by foreign archaeologists, sherds below Iron Age, Bronze Age, and Chalcolithic although some Iranian projects continued in the levels (A. Mahfroozi, pers. comm. 2007). Northeast 1980s. From the mid 1990s onward fieldwork was re- of these sites, on the Gorgan plain, a rescue excava- sumed, and since 2000 a dozen joint Iranian-foreign tion carried out in 2000 at another large mound, Aq missions have been initiated under the auspices of the Tepe, by S. Malek Shahmirizade from the University of Iranian Center for Archaeological Research (ICAR) Tehran uncovered three Neolithic occupation phases; in Tehran (Azarnoush and Helwing 2005:189). Ex- and on the northern side of the Elburz mountains amples of this renewed activity are excavations and above the Gorgan plain in the Golestan National surveys by H. Fazeli of the Institute of Archaeology Park five sites with evidence of Neolithic occupation of the University of Tehran and colleagues from Eng- have been reported by O. Rekavandi, one of which, lish and Australian universities that have established Armadlu Tepe, is the first Neolithic site to be found a new chronology for the northern Central Plateau. in a forested environment (Azarnoush and Helwing This new phase of research included a resumption of 2005:199). excavation, coupled with a program of AMS radiocar- In northern Khorassan several new projects are bon dating, at the site of Zaghe on the Qazvin plain underway. Following earlier surveys in the Shahroud which demonstrated that it was first occupied around area, during which a site, Deh Keir Tepe, was found 5300 cal. BCE in the Transitional Chalcolithic period with a ceramic assemblage very similar to the one at h i s t o ry o f archaeological research 51

Sang-i Čakmaq (Rezvani 1999), K. Roustaei of ICAR Afghanistan (Dupree 1963), carried out an extensive carried out a further landscape survey in the Shah- survey in the northern foothill zone that Coon had roud–Bastam area in 2005. He found pottery with partially explored. Dupree found several sites with painted designs that resemble Jeitun-Culture ceramics deposits of Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic at six Neolithic sites, including Deh Keir and Čakmaq. age (Dupree 1964; Dupree and Howe 1963), and Then, early in 2006, soundings at Deh Keir by Rez- between 1962 and 1965 he investigated and partly vani and by Roustaei at one of the other sites, Kalate excavated four of them near the village of Aq Ku- Khan about 15 km southwest of Čakmaq, revealed a pruk in the Balkh valley south of Mazar-i Sharif. He Neolithic sequence closely comparable to the one at interpreted the sites as spanning collectively a long the eastern mound at Čakmaq (Roustaei In press and sequence from the Upper Palaeolithic (divided into pers. comm. 2007; Azarnoush and Helwing 2005:199). Kuprukian A and B) at the base, through Neolithic Farther east O. Garazhian has carried out extensive and Chalcolithic levels, to the Iron Age and Early surveys in the vicinity of Bojnurd, Neyshabour, and Islamic period. He claimed that sheep and goats Dargaz (Fig. 6.1). Two sites have been sounded: Qaleh had been domesticated locally during the Neolithic Khan near Ashkhaneh west of Bojnurd where ceram- (Dupree 1967, 1972; Perkins 1972), but there were ics resembling Middle/Late Jeitun pottery were found inconsistencies between the radiocarbon dates and in Neolithic levels, and Borj Tepe 25 km southeast of the stratigraphy, and the domestic status of the Neyshabour where 2–3 m of what are probably Neo- sheep and goats in the Neolithic levels was later lithic deposits underlie the lowest (Chalcolithic) level questioned (Meadow 1989a:34). In 1966 Dupree so far excavated, and dated to 4530 cal. BCE. Also, in excavated a rockshelter, Dari-i Kur (Darra-i Kur), his survey of the Dargaz plain, Garazhian identified farther east in the foothill zone beyond the town of 20 prehistoric sites, 3 of which, Yarim Tepe, Novroz Kunduz, where he found evidence of Middle Palaeo- Tepe, and Novkhandan Tepe, produced pottery that lithic occupation and supposedly also of a Neolithic resembles Jeitun-Culture ceramics (Garazhian 2006, “goat cult” assemblage, which was later shown to In press, and pers. comm. 2007). date to c. 2000 BC uncalibrated (Dupree 1967:24; Although no conclusive, radiocarbon-dated evi- 1972:11−13, 32, 79, 82; Shaffer 1978:81–83; and see dence of links with Neolithic sites in southern Turk- this volume, pp. 58–59, for further discussion of the menistan has so far been produced by these many new Aq Kupruk sites). surveys and excavations, together they suggest that In 1965 a member of an Italian archaeological close connections existed between northeastern Iran mission to Afghanistan, S. M. Puglisi, test-excavated and southern Turkmenistan during the Neolithic (see a rockshelter, Dara-i Kalon, in the vicinity of Haibak, Chapter 11). southwest of the site of Kara Kamar, which contained Mesolithic assemblages (Alessio, Bachechi, and Cor- tesi 1967), and in 1969 Dupree and R. S. Davis visited Northern Afghanistan the same area and found a Mesolithic surface site, Kok Jar, between Dara-i Kalon and Kara Kamar (Davis Systematic search for prehistoric sites in north- 1978:38–39, 63–66). Surveys of the plain around ern Afghanistan did not get underway until after the Kunduz, and farther east, were conducted in the Second World War. In 1954 C. S. Coon prospected 1970s by a French team led by J.-C. Gardin (Gardin for Palaeolithic cave sites in the northern foothills and Lyonnet 1978–79), and several Bronze Age sites of the Hindu Kush. He found and excavated a rock- were found in the Shortugai and Talugab areas (Kohl shelter, Kara Kamar, in the valley of the Samangan 1984:23). Soviet archaeologists were also active in river near Haibak southeast of Mazar-i Sharif, where northern Afghanistan in the 1970s. The Soviet-Afghan he recovered stone tools and animal bones of Upper Archaeological Expedition, led by A. V. Vinogradov, Palaeolithic and Mesolithic age (Coon 1957:205–37; found numerous lithic surface sites on the arid plain Coon and Ralph 1955; Davis 1978:50–54, 63–67). In between the foothill zone and the Amudarya, most 1959 L. B. Dupree, who had worked with Coon at of which were dated typologically to the Mesolithic Ghar-i Kamarband and Hotu in northern Iran and (Vinogradov 1979). who had already excavated at the Chalcolithic site With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, of Deh Morasi Ghundai near Kandahar in southern survey and excavation ceased and continuing political 52 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia upheavals and military action have since prevented unresolved, including when and how an agro-pastoral any significant resumption of archaeological activity economy became established in the valleys and plains in northern Afghanistan. Many questions about the north of the Hindu Kush. Resolution of such questions prehistory of the region and early connections with must await political conditions that will allow archaeo- Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and northern Iran remain logical research to be resumed in the region. 6 The Mesolithic and Neolithic Periods: Sites, Sequences, and Subsistence with Jennifer Coolidge

he main purpose of this chapter is to provide a Ranov 1999:187–88; Dennell 2009:217–20, 327–29; Tsummary account of the principal Mesolithic and Ranov 2001; Ranov and Dodonov 2003; Shackleton Neolithic sites, sequences, and subsistence economies et al. 1995; Vishnyatsky 1999:87–90; this volume, pp. of Turkmenistan and adjacent parts of Uzbekistan, 22–23). Variations in the thickness of the loess depos- Iran, and Afghanistan, but first we review briefly the its and the presence in them of the palaeosols provide Palaeolithic foundations of the prehistory of western evidence of oscillating cold dry, and warmer, more Central Asia as a whole. humid conditions associated with the fluctuations of Pleistocene ice sheets, and the stone tools indicate that hunters occupied the area during semi-arid intergla- Palaeolithic Prelude cial and interstadial intervals.

At present, most of the evidence of human popu- lations in western Central Asia during the Palaeolithic Middle Palaeolithic comes from the more mountainous areas in northern Afghanistan, southern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Numerous Middle Palaeolithic sites have been Kirgizstan, although there is also some evidence discovered in western Central Asia, some with homi- from lowland areas in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan nin remains such as the famous Teshik Tash cave south (Dennell 2009; Moloney, Olsen, and Voloshin 2001; of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, where in 1938 and 1939 Vishnyatsky 1996, 1999). A. P. Okladnikov excavated a Mousterian burial of a young Neanderthal child surrounded by wild-goat horn cores (Vishnyatsky 1999:80 –82), and in northern Lower Palaeolithic Afghanistan where in 1966 L. B. Dupree excavated Middle Palaeolithic deposits in a rockshelter, Dari-i In the Tajik depression at the site of Kuldara in Kur (Darra-i Kur), and found a fragment of a Neander- southern Tajikistan, chipped stone tools stratified in thal skull (Angel 1972; Dupree 1972:11−13, 79). More palaeosols buried in deep deposits of loess have been recently, 10 hominin teeth and a humerus fragment dated palaeomagnetically to c. 900,000 years ago in were excavated at a large cave site, Sel-Ungur, in the the Lower Palaeolithic; and such tools have also been Fergana depression in southern Kirgizstan, but it is found in buried soils estimated to be 600,000–400,000 uncertain whether they derive from a Neanderthal years old within loess at other sites in the region, such or a pre-Neanderthal population. Large numbers of as Karatau, Lakhuti, and Chashmanigar (Davis and stone tools resembling the pebble and flake indus- 54 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia tries of the Central Asian loess sites were found at excavated and reported: the open-air Samarkand site Sel-Ungur and more than 4000 fragments of poorly within the city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, which preserved mammal bones, including wild sheep, goat, has been intermittently excavated since 1939, and deer, cattle (aurochs), horse, wolf, fox, and several Shugnou in eastern Tajikistan, an open-air site exca- now extinct taxa such as cave bear, cave lion, and cave vated by Ranov from 1968 to 1970 (Davis and Ranov hyaena. The fauna, together with a uranium-thorium 1999:191; Vishnyatsky 1999:86–87, 93–94). The stra- date of 126,000 ± 5000 BP, points to occupation of the tigraphy of the Samarkand site is complex and poorly site by hunters in the late Middle Pleistocene (Davis understood and its large assemblages of stone artifacts and Ranov 1999:189–90; Dennell 2009:329–30, 453; and animal bones probably represent a mixture of Islamov 1990; Vishnyatsky 1999:94–95). Upper Palaeolithic occupational episodes. Shugnou is In addition to the few cave sites that have yielded located at about 2000 m above msl in the narrow upper hominin remains, many Middle Palaeolithic sites valley of the Yaksu river and the dominance of horse with pebble tools and flakes of Mousterian type have remains in the small bone assemblage, coupled with been discovered in the region. Hand axes and other palynological evidence of steppe vegetation, suggests bifacial tools are generally absent, although undated that it was a site from which hunters intercepted horses surface finds of Acheulean bifaces, some of which may and other migrating herbivores. A few other possibly be of Middle Palaeolithic age, have been reported Upper Palaeolithic sites have been reported, for ex- from central Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and western ample, Kharkush in Tajikistan and Siabcha in Uzbeki- Turkmenistan (e.g., on the K rasnovodsk plateau; Vish- stan (Davis and Ranov 1999:191), and Kara Kamar in nyatsky 1989; 1999:71–72). Vishnyatsky (1999:110–11) northern Afghanistan, a rockshelter dug by C. S. Coon pointed out that most of the faunas represented in in 1954 (this volume, p. 51), but their rarity reinforces the Middle Palaeolithic Mousterian sites of the region the general impression that during the Upper Palaeo- are dominated by wild goat and sheep, which may lithic the human population was very sparse. The few reflect dominance of steppe vegetation under semi- sites with evidence of Upper Palaeolithic occupation arid conditions during the Middle Pleistocene, an are poorly dated, but Davis (1990:272–73) maintained inference supported by palynological data from the that none can confidently be placed within the Last Sel-Ungur site (Vishnyatsky 1999:94). Davis and Ranov Glacial Maximum (c. 23,000–c. 19,000 BP), and he (1999:192–93) concluded that in the Middle Palaeoli- suggested that the very cold and dry conditions that thic Central Asia was “part of the eastern extension prevailed then led to a depopulation of Central Asia [from Southwest Asia] of the Neandertals along the (as probably also occurred in previous glacial maxima mid-altitude foothills of the Zagros, Kopet Dagh, Tien during the Pleistocene). Shan, and Altai mountain ranges.” However, the rela- tively small number of adequately dated sites prevents more detailed interpretation of the changing rela- The Mesolithic tionship between the distribution of hunter-gatherer populations and the environmental oscillations of the The period that follows the Upper Palaeolithic Pleistocene, beyond the generalization that continu- is customarily referred to in the archaeological litera- ous human occupation would have been possible only ture on Southwest Asia and, less frequently, Central during interglacial periods (Dennell 2009:334, 461). Asia as the Epipalaeolithic, and is usually regarded as synonymous with the Mesolithic. However, some archaeologists working in Central Asia, for example, Upper Palaeolithic V. A. Ranov (Ranov 2003; Ranov and Davis 1979:252; and see Brunet 1999, 2002, 2003), have defined the The Upper Palaeolithic presents a striking con- Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic as separate, succes- trast to the preceding Middle Palaeolithic and the fol- sive periods, which they distinguish by the absence lowing Mesolithic (Epipalaeolithic) period because it of geometric microliths in the former and their pres- is largely invisible in the Central Asian archaeological ence in the latter—for example the change from record (Derevyanko and Zun 1992). Very few stratified non-geometric to geometric forms in levels 7 and 6 at sites with deposits of demonstrably Upper Paleolithic the Dam Dam Cheshme 2 rockshelter in the Bolshoi age are known, and only two have been extensively Balkhan massif (see below). In this volume, which is t h e mesolithic a n d neolithic p e r i o d s : sites, sequences, a n d subsistence 55 not primarily concerned with lithic technology, we Table 6.1 Mesolithic rockshelter and cave sites referred to follow the more widespread practice (in Eurasian ar- in the text. chaeology) of regarding the two terms as synonymous, Northern Iran Western Northern while acknowledging that their usage varies by region; Turkmenistan Afghanistan for example, Epipalaeolithic is used in the Levant and Mesolithic in Europe. In this volume, Mesolithic Qar-i Komishan Jebel Kara Kamar subsumes Epipalaeolithic. Ali Tappeh Dam Dam Cheshme 1 Aq-Kupruk In their introduction to the Mesolithic of west- ern Central Asia, Masson and Sarianidi (1972:26) Ghar-i Kamarband Dam Dam Cheshme 2 Dar-i Kalon described the period as a link between “the two great Hotu Kailyu, Hodja-Su epochs in the history of man: the period of a food- gathering economy and the period of a production economy.” They defined four regional variants of the Mesolithic, which are, from west to east: the southeast later prehistoric and historical materials. Recently, as Caspian region in western Turkmenistan and north- part of a national renewal of archaeological research ern Iran, western Tajikistan, the Fergana valley in in Iran, another rockshelter, Qar-i Komishan, which southwestern Kirgizstan, and the Pamir mountains contains Mesolithic deposits as well as some Neolithic in southeastern Tajikistan. Kohl (1984:39–43) and potsherds, has been found near Hotu (this volume, more recently Brunet (1999, 2002) also summarized p. 50). Preliminary investigation suggests that the the Mesolithic of these regions, as well as a fifth group Mesolithic assemblage represents a sequence similar of sites in the foothills and on the plains north of the to those recorded at Hotu and Ghar-i Kamarband, Hindu Kush in northern Afghanistan. Only the first described below. and last of these five regions are directly relevant to At Ali Tappeh McBurney recognized 23 strati- the theme of this book. The Mesolithic in western graphic layers of Mesolithic age which he correlated Central Asia is defined chronologically here as the with a series of radiocarbon dates that spanned the period between approximately 10,000 and 7000 years period c. 12,400–10,800 BP, later corrected by dating ago (c. 11,500–8000 cal. BP), and Table 6.1 lists the new charcoal samples (Hedges et al. 1994:348–49) rockshelter and cave sites with Mesolithic deposits in to c. 11,300–10,200 BP (c. 13,000–11,800 cal. BP). northern Iran, western Turkmenistan, and northern Remains of large and small mammals and mollusks Afghanistan that are mentioned in the following sec- were recovered throughout the sequence (McBurney tions of this chapter. 1968:396–99; Uerpmann and Frey 1981:146–51), and changes in their relative abundance suggested a division of the occupation into five main stages The Southeast Caspian Region that McBurney tentatively correlated with part of the north-European Lateglacial/early Postglacial In the coastal lowlands and adjacent uplands climatic sequence (this volume, p. 24). The most con- that fringe the Caspian Sea in northern Iran and west- spicuous faunal contrasts were between abundance ern Turkmenistan there are two groups of rockshelters of gazelle in stages I, III, and IVb (correlated respec- that have yielded evidence of what is referred to as tively with the Bølling interstadial, and the Older the Caspian Mesolithic. The Iranian sites are located and Younger Dryas stadials) and a sharp increase in in Mazandaran province on the narrow coastal plain seal at the beginning of stage IVa (correlated with between the northern foothills of the Elburz moun- the first part of the Allerød interstadial). Although tains and the Caspian coast near the town of Behshahr the correlation suggested by McBurney now appears (Fig. 6.1). Two rockshelters west of Behshahr, Ghar-i too direct and oversimplified, the changes in abun- Kamarband (Belt Cave) and Hotu, were excavated by dance of gazelles and seals recorded at Ali Tappeh C. S. Coon in the fall of 1949 and the spring of 1951, probably do reflect contemporaneous Lateglacial/ and a third, Ali Tappeh, just east of the town, was early Postglacial changes in local forest/steppe veg- found by C. B. M. McBurney in 1962 and excavated in etation and Caspian Sea levels. Other large mammals 1963 and 1964 (this volume, p. 49). All three sites con- represented in the sequence with varying frequen- tained deep stratified deposits overlain by disturbed, cies include wild sheep, aurochs, onager, wild pig, 56 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

6.1 Distribution of Mesolithic sites in the Bolshoi Balkhan massif and the southeast Caspian region, Neolithic Jeitun-Culture sites on the Kopetdag piedmont, related Neolithic sites in northeastern Iran, and the Chalcolithic–Bronze Age site of Anau near Ashgabat. The locations of sites recently reported by Iranian archaeologists working in northeastern Iran in the provinces of Mazandaran and Khorassan (and mentioned in the text) are not shown.

and deer (Uerpmann and Frey 1981:151), but there Ralph 1955). Domestic goat and sheep appear early is no evidence of domestic animals at this early Me- in the Neolithic, followed later by pig (Uerpmann solithic site. and Frey 1981:148). Uerpmann and Frey attempted This situation contrasts with the nearby site of (1981:159–62) to correlate the faunal sequences at Ghar-i Kamarband where the stratigraphic sequence Ali Tappeh and Ghar-i Kamarband and on that basis (divided by Coon into 28 levels) extends from the they tentatively dated the Mesolithic occupation of early Mesolithic into the Neolithic. Coon’s excavations Ghar-i Kamarband as from c. 9500 to c. 8600 years coincided with the earliest attempts to date organic re- ago (c. 10,900–c. 9700 cal. BP), thus reducing Coon’s mains by the radiocarbon method, when large samples estimate for the beginning of the Mesolithic at the (often aggregated from more than one level) were site by some two millennia. (This large discrepancy required and when dates carried large probability is probably due to Coon’s radiocarbon dates having errors. After an initial trial following his 1949 excava- been produced by the solid carbon method which tion at Ghar-i Kamarband, which produced four strati- proved to be unreliable.) graphically inconsistent dates from samples of charred The sequence at the Hotu rockshelter was bet- bone, he obtained another five dates after his 1951 ter dated (22 radiocarbon dates from 17 levels; Ralph season which enabled him to establish a more con- 1955) than that at Ghar-i Kamarband, on the basis of sistent chronology. This provided approximate dates which Coon (1952; 1957:200) established a chronology for the earliest (Mesolithic) occupation at c. 11,500 for two periods of Mesolithic occupation between c. years ago (c. 13,400 cal. BP), and (at level 10) the be- 11,000 and c. 8000 years ago (c. 12,800 cal.–c. 8900 cal. ginning of the Neolithic at c. 8500 years ago (c. 9500 BP), succeeded by the so-called Sub-Neolithic and Soft- cal. BP), with gaps in occupation within and at the ware Neolithic periods. He suggested (1957:202) that end of the Mesolithic (Coon 1951:30–32; 1957:165–67; “ox, sheep, pig, and dog” found in the Sub-Neolithic t h e mesolithic a n d neolithic p e r i o d s : sites, sequences, a n d subsistence 57 horizon were probably domesticated, but because no the sequence, on the basis of a shift in lithic assem- analysis of the animal remains from Hotu was ever blages from a predominantly pebble-tool tradition published this remains an unverified speculation. to the incorporation of geometric microliths, into The uncertainties inherent in Coon’s radiocar- early and late Mesolithic periods, succeeded in the bon chronologies for Ghar-i Kamarband and Hotu, upper layers (5–1) by Neolithic–early Bronze Age oc- and the fact that he did not publish full reports of cupation. In the early 1950s the radiocarbon dating his excavations, has inhibited interpretation of the technique was in its infancy and was not yet widely stratigraphic sequences at these important transitional applied, but Okladnikov nevertheless submitted a Mesolithic–Neolithic sites. However, materials from sample of (saksaul) charcoal for trial dating by the the excavations, together with records of the contexts liquid-scintillation method. It came from his early in which finds were made, have been preserved in the Neolithic layer 4 and yielded a radiocarbon age of collections of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. 6030 ± 240 BP, calibrated to 5235–4715 BCE (Pro- This archive offers an opportunity to establish sound topopov and Butomo 1959:32; Kohl 1992:157), and chronologies for the two sites by dating samples of re-calibrated for this volume to 5500–4400 BCE (at organic materials from known contexts, and generally 95% probability). In 1976 P. M. Dolukhanov collected to re-assess the significance of Coon’s discoveries. This four more charcoal samples from the rockshelter at task is being undertaken by a postdoctoral research fel- depths in the deposits between 0.20 and 0.85 m (the low of the Museum, Michael Gregg, who is examining lowest sample consisted of “charred twigs”), which, pottery, lithics, and faunal remains from the excava- when calibrated, gave a date range from AD 20 to tions. By 2009 he had already identified 54 samples 5255 BCE (Hurst and Lawn 1984:224–25). The dates of ash, bone, and wood still labeled with information were recalibrated for this volume with OxCal 3.10 about the contexts from which they were recovered (Bronk Ramsey 2005), using the atmospheric cali- by Coon. Gregg aims to date sufficient samples to bration curve of Reimer et al. (2004). This produced establish a high-resolution radiocarbon chronology; dates (at 95% probability) between AD 250–1050 at to determine whether the “Software” pottery from the 0.20–0.25 m to 4890–5300 BCE at 0.80–0.85 m. The earliest ceramic levels resembles pottery found at other lowest sample was associated with flint blades, an Mesolithic rockshelters east of the Caspian (such as the ornamented bone, and a few potsherds that, accord- DDC sites, see below) or Neolithic Jeitun-type ceramics; ing to G. F. Korobkova who examined them, were and, when he has assessed the shape, size, and techno- similar to those from Okladnikov’s layer 4 (Pavel logical attributes of the earliest ceramics from Ghar-i Dolukhanov, pers. comm. May 2009). This, together Kamarband and Hotu, to conduct molecular and isoto- with Okladnikov’s date, indicates that the transition pic analyses of organic residues that may be preserved from Mesolithic to Neolithic occupation at Jebel oc- in them. This ambitious research program can be ex- curred at least 500 years after Jeitun was founded c. pected to add much valuable new evidence relevant to 6100 cal. BCE. the transition from hunting, fishing, and gathering to The other two rockshelters, Dam Dam Cheshme food production south and east of the Caspian. (DDC) 1 and 2 overlook the piedmont zone that fringes The second group of Caspian-Mesolithic sites the southern escarpment of the Bolshoi Balkhan mas- consists of three rockshelters at the foot of the south- sif and slopes down to the ancient channel of the Uzboi western escarpment of the Bolshoi Balkhan massif river which formerly flowed into the Caspian (Fig. 4.4, east of the present shore of the Caspian near Nebit and see also Fig. 4.3, color). Both sites (Figs. 8.16 –8.19, Dag (Fig. 6.1). The westernmost, Jebel (Djebel), is color) were excavated in the 1960s by Markov (1966a, located in a rock outcrop at the junction of the moun- 1966b, 1981), following preliminary investigations by tains and the piedmont (Fig. 8.15, color), and there Okladnikov in the 1950s. Markov identified five cul- is evidence above and below it of marine terraces tural layers at DDC 1 and nine at DDC 2, and, in the formed during previous high stands of the Caspian absence of radiocarbon dates, he tried to establish a (this volume, pp. 20 and 35). It was excavated by A. P. relative chronology that encompassed both sites. This Okladnikov between 1947 and 1950 and is regarded proved difficult, especially because the stone-tool in Turkmenistan as the type site for the Caspian assemblages were poorly preserved, but he was able Mesolithic. Okladnikov (1956) recognized l0 main to infer, mainly from the stone tools and the pottery, layers containing cultural deposits and he divided that the sequence at DDC 1 extended from the Upper 58 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Palaeolithic to the early Bronze Age, whereas the North of the Bolshoi Balkhan massif there are somewhat shorter sequence at DDC 2 extended from two more sites with stratified Mesolithic deposits: the early Mesolithic (or possibly the Upper Palaeoli- Kailyu cave, which also contained Neolithic deposits, thic in layer 9) at the base of the fill to the Bronze Age located close to the Caspian shore on the Krasnovodsk in the uppermost horizon (layer 2), after which the plateau, and Hodja (Khodzha)-su on the eastern coast rockshelter ceased to be occupied. of the bay of Kara-Bogaz Gol (Masson and Sarianidi According to Okladnikov (1956:200–202) the 1972:26 –29; Okladnikov 1953:31–32). At Kailyu Oklad- earliest (Mesolithic) inhabitants of the Jebel rock- nikov dug through 4 m of mainly Neolithic deposits shelter depended on hunting and gathering, supple- to a Mesolithic layer underlain by marine pebbles that mented in the early Neolithic by fishing and in the late contained deposits similar to the Mesolithic levels at Neolithic and Bronze Age by the herding of domestic DDC 2. The Mesolithic inhabitants of both sites are sheep and goats and the collection of wild grain thought to have subsisted mainly by hunting and fish- (inferred from the presence of grindstones). The ing. At Kailyu large quantities of fish bones and scales, main hunted prey, judging from the animal remains particularly of sturgeon, were recovered, and stone found, were goitered gazelle and sheep/goat, although blades and many shell beads were found in human because the bones were very poorly preserved the burials on the remains of a nearby marine terrace. The zoologist who studied them was often unable to dif- two sites represent the northernmost manifestation of ferentiate between remains of gazelle and sheep/goat the Caspian Mesolithic. (Tsalkin 1956). A few bones of wild cattle, onager, and Viewed as a whole, the evidence from the Me- a species of wild cat (manul, caracal, or sand cat) were solithic levels at the rockshelter sites of the south- also recovered. east Caspian region suggests that they functioned Markov provided very little direct evidence of as hunting and fishing camps probably occupied the subsistence economy of the inhabitants of DDC 1 seasonally—an interpretation supported by Dolukha- and 2, but he did report (1966a:123) that in the DDC nov (1986:124)—and that they provided convenient 2 sequence, Tsalkin identified sheep/goat bones in shelter and easy access to terrestrial, marine, and riv- increasing numbers from Mesolithic layers 6 and 5 erine resources. Furthermore, there is no conclusive through the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition at the evidence that Jebel, DDC 1, and DDC 2 were inhabited end of layer 5 and the beginning of layer 4, to the year-round and long-term from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in layer 2. He stated that Tsalkin regarded Bronze Age (see Chapters 11 and 12 for further discus- some of the bones in layer 4 as from “indisputably” sion of their role in the Neolithic pattern of settlement domesticated goats and some of those in layer 3 as and subsistence). from “indisputably” domesticated sheep. Tsalkin also identified onager bones in layers 6 and 2, and dog and bird bones in layer 2. Markov concluded (1966b:91; Northern Afghanistan 1981:42), on the very inadequate osteoarchaeological evidence, that by the beginning of the Neolithic the Between the Hindu Kush and the upper valley inhabitants of the DDC rockshelters hunted, fished, of the Amudarya there is an extensive area of foothills and probably domesticated first goats and later sheep. and plains with evidence of Mesolithic (and Neolithic) He also inferred (1966b:91), from the presence of a occupation. The rockshelter of Kara Kamar south- grindstone in layer 2, that by the Bronze Age cereals east of Mazar-i Sharif, discovered by Coon in 1954, may have been cultivated or their seeds collected, contained Mesolithic stone tools and bones of gazelle although by then the economy was, he suggested, and wild sheep stratified above Upper Palaeolithic based mainly on steppe pastoralism (i.e., the season- deposits (Coon 1957:225–37; Davis 1978:64–67), and ally mobile herding of domestic sheep and goats). No more comprehensive evidence was obtained by Du- archaeobotanical evidence of cereals or other crops pree in the early 1960s when he partially excavated having been cultivated was found at any of the three four prehistoric sites north of the village of Aq Kupruk rockshelters, but it must be remembered that tech- in the Balkhab valley south of Mazar-i Sharif: three niques for the recovery of charred plant remains were rockshelters and one open-air site, known respectively either not known or not applied in the Soviet Union as Aq Kupruk I, Ghar-i Mar or Snake Cave; Aq Kupruk when the sites were excavated. II, Ghar-i Asp or Horse Cave; Aq Kupruk IV or Skull t h e mesolithic a n d neolithic p e r i o d s : sites, sequences, a n d subsistence 59

Cave; and Aq Kupruk III on a terrace of the Balkh particularly one based on stockbreeding.” He also river (Dupree 1964,1967,1972). saw similarities between the Early Neolithic stone-tool Dupree interpreted the deposits he excavated industries of northwestern Afghanistan and those of at Aq Kupruk—principally at Ghar-i Mar (AK I) and the Keltiminar Culture in Khoresmia (the area of the Ghar-i Asp (AK II)—as representing the Upper Pa- lower Amudarya and the former Akchadarya delta laeolithic at the base of the sequence, succeeded by south of the Aral Sea) and the southern Kyzylkum des- what he designated “non-ceramic Neolithic” and ert. This led him to suggest that in the Early Neolithic “ceramic Neolithic” levels, overlain by Chalcolithic, the Keltiminar may have been stockbreeders as well Iron Age, and Early Islamic deposits. He believed as hunters, fishers, and gatherers—a view that Kohl that by c. 10,200 and c. 8600 years ago at AK II and regarded as “reasonable” (1984:41) although there was AK I respectively, in the “non-ceramic Neolithic,” the “no direct evidence to support it” (see below and Chap- local economy included domesticated sheep and goats ters 11 and 12 for further discussion of the Keltiminar (identified as such in a preliminary report by Perkins Culture and Keltiminar-related sites). 1972), and possibly the cultivation of wheat and barley (Dupree 1972:76–77, 80–81). This interpretation was challenged by Vinogradov and Ranov (1985:71), who The Neolithic maintained that the so-called Neolithic economy at Aq Kupruk was based on hunting and gathering without The Neolithic period is central to this study of animal husbandry or crop cultivation; and Meadow the beginnings of agriculture in western Central Asia. (1989a) pointed out that the osteoarchaeological Although it has long been recognized that there is evidence was insufficient to determine whether the an evolutionary continuum from subsistence systems remains of sheep and goats included any domesticated focused primarily on wild plant and animal resources animals. Unfortunately, too, although plant remains to those in which crop cultivation and animal manage- were recovered during the excavations at Aq Kupruk ment predominate (Harris 1989, 1996), in southern (Dupree 1972:80), no archaeobotanical report was Turkmenistan there is a clear contrast between the ever published and the question of whether cereals preceding Mesolithic hunter-fisher-gatherer economy or other crops were cultivated there during the Meso- and the mainly agro-pastoral economy of the Neo- lithic or Neolithic remains unresolved. lithic. The latter is manifested in the sedentary Jeitun Farther north, where the Amudarya forms the Culture of the Kopetdag piedmont. But farther north northern frontier of Afghanistan, there is an east-west and east, in the northern Karakum and the area of the zone of takyrs and sand dunes north of Mazar-i Sharif former Uzboi river and Sarykamysh depression, as well that receives the terminal runoff of streams flowing as eastward across the Amudarya in Uzbekistan as far north out of the Hindu Kush. During three field sea- as the western Kyzylkum desert, there is evidence of a sons, in 1969, 1975, and 1976, A. V. Vinogradov (1979) different, more mobile type of Neolithic occupation— undertook systematic surface surveys across this zone the Keltiminar Culture—that lacked agriculture and and found over 20,000 stone tools widely distributed was dependent on hunting, fishing, and gathering. in clusters of (larger) sites and (smaller) stations, as Dolukhanov (1986) contrasted a northern zone of for- well as in many isolated scatters. He dated the sites ty- agers with a southern zone of farmers in the Neolithic pologically according to morphological similarities of of “west-Central Asia,” and Masson (1996:92) divided the tools with stratified lithic assemblages found else- the region similarly into two large “super-zones…the where, particularly those at Tutkaul in Tajikistan and agriculturalists and stock-breeders of the south (Djei- at the Caspian rockshelters of Jebel and DDC 1 and 2, tun), and the hunters, fishermen and food gatherers and he concluded that although most were Mesolithic of the north (Keltiminar, Hissar, Ferghana).” The in age, they ranged from the Middle Palaeolithic to, Jeitun and Keltiminar cultures overlapped chrono- possibly, the Late Neolithic (Vinogradov 1979; Kohl logically, but whereas the former was the precursor of 1984:40 - 41). the Bronze Age urban civilization of southern Turk- Vinogradov (1979:60), quoted by Kohl (1984:41), menistan (Hiebert 1994a, 1994b, 2003; Kohl 1981), the asserted that “At least for the Early Neolithic (sixth mil- latter persisted little changed from the early Neolithic lennium B.C.) it is completely impossible to exclude into the Bronze Age long after agriculture and urban the partial presence of a food-producing economy, life had become established in the south. The Keltimi- 60 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia nar Neolithic is described in more detail below, after location and chronology of the sites are summarized the settlement pattern and principal sites of the Jeitun in the next three subsections, which are based on Culture have been summarized. numerous Russian publications supplemented by observations in 1997 and 1998 when a member of the British team (Coolidge) and our Turkmen colleague The Jeitun Culture Kurbansakhatov visited most of the Jeitun-Culture sites on the piedmont (Table 6.2 and see Coolidge It is in the context of the Jeitun Culture that we 2005:30–40 for brief descriptions of the principal sites encounter the earliest evidence in western Central other than Jeitun). Asia of settled village life, when people lived in houses built of mudbrick and supported themselves mainly by The Akhal Region of the Central Piedmont cereal cultivation and the herding of sheep and goats This region extends for some 50 km northwest- (caprine pastoralism). Pottery also makes its appear- southeast where the piedmont forms a narrower strip ance, and in contrast to the preceding Mesolithic pe- between the Kopetdag escarpment and the southern- riod, the stone-tool assemblages now include numerous most sands of the Karakum than it does in the western microlithic sickle blades and grindstones. This cultural and eastern regions. Several of the rivers that cross the complex has been identified at a series of tell sites and central piedmont issue from gorges in the mountains lithic and ceramic surface scatters across the Kopetdag which give access to valleys within the Kopetdag and piedmont for a distance from west to east of some 450 farther south to the broad valley of the upper Atrek km, and there are also several sites with Jeitun-Culture river and the Iranian plateau. The sites of the Akhal traits in northeastern Iran (see below). The Jeitun Culture was divided by Berdiev (1969), on the basis of changes in stone tools, archi- Table 6.2 Periods and principal sites of the Jeitun Culture tecture, and ceramic styles, into three phases referred in the central, western, and eastern regions of the Kopetdag piedmont and the southern margin of the to as Early, Middle, and Late Jeitun. With the benefit Karakum desert. of recently obtained radiocarbon dates, Hiebert was able to demonstrate that the Jeitun Culture spanned Periods Jeitun-Culture Sites Regions some 1400 years, from c. 6100 to c. 4500 cal. BCE, and he introduced the terms KD (Kopetdag) 1, 2, KD4 Anau IA and 3 for three successive periods that are equivalent 4500 cal. BCE: Neolithic/Chalcolithic boundary to Berdiev’s Early, Middle, and Late Jeitun (Hiebert KD 3 Late Jeitun Bami Western 2002a:28–29). Berdiev associated his three temporal Pessedjik Central phases with a division of the piedmont into three Chagylly Eastern geographical zones: a central zone (the Geok-tepe Chakmakli Eastern region) which contained sites of the Early and Middle Monjukli Eastern Jeitun phases, a western zone with Late Jeitun sites, Gadymi Eastern and an eastern (Meana-Chaacha) zone with sites of 5100 cal. BCE the Late Jeitun phase and the following Chalcolithic KD2 Middle Jeitun Bami Western (Eneolithic) Anau IA phase. Kohl (1984:46) adopted Chopan Central a threefold division of the distribution of Jeitun-Cul- Togolok Central ture sites broadly similar to Berdiev’s, except that he Pessedjik Central grouped together the western and Geok-tepe zones, New Nissa Central Gievdzhik Central defined a central Darreh Gaz (Dargaz) piedmont Chagylly Eastern zone which lacked known Jeitun-Culture sites, and, Monjukli Eastern like Berdiev, recognized an eastern Meana-Chaacha 5700 cal. BCE zone. Hiebert (2002a:26) adopted essentially the same regional division as Berdiev, but he refers to the three KD1 Early Jeitun Chopan Central Togolok Central regions by their Turkmen names: Arkash for the west- Jeitun Central ern, Akhal for the central, and Etek for the eastern 6100 cal. BCE: Mesolithic/Neolithic boundary region—a practice that is followed here. The regional t h e mesolithic a n d neolithic p e r i o d s : sites, sequences, a n d subsistence 61 region include Jeitun itself (the type site of the Jeitun Fig. 6.1) to the Tedzhen river. Across most of this zone Culture, 28 km north-northwest of Ashgabat), and, in the piedmont is wider than in the central region and a cluster west and south of Jeitun (Fig. 6.1), Chopan the Kopetdag forms a steep, continuous escarpment (Berdiev 1972a), Togolok (Berdiev 1964b), Pessedjik uninterrupted by through valleys. This part of the (Berdiev 1968b, 1973), Gievdzhik (Korobkova 1975a; piedmont lacks Jeitun-Culture sites today, although it not visited during our reconnaissance survey in 1998), is possible that Neolithic settlements have been buried Kelyata, Kantar and Kepele (both surface scatters beneath alluvial-fan deposits. However, at the eastern briefly documented by Berdiev [1971b] but which extremity of the region there is a cluster of four Jeitun- could not be located in 1998 and are not marked on Culture tell sites between the Meana and Chaacha Fig. 6.1), and New Nisa (Berdiev 1965). Another site, rivers: Gadymi (Gademi) (Lollekova 1982; not visited Yarti–Gumbez (which we also failed to find in 1998 in 1998 because of its proximity to the Iranian border and is undocumented in the published literature), is and the need for special permits and armed guards to located on Kohl’s (1984:47) and Hiebert’s (2002a:26) enter the area), Monjukli, Chagylly, and Chakmakli maps a few kilometers southwest or northwest of Ash- (Fig. 6.1). The stratigraphy of the four sites is represen- gabat respectively, but is omitted from Figure 6.1. Jei- tative of the Late Jeitun phase and the following Early tun is attributed entirely to the Early Jeitun phase and Chalcolithic (Early Eneolithic) period. Berdiev sug- Chopan and Togolok are interpreted as having Early gested (1964b:276) that the eastern (Meana-Chaacha) Jeitun levels beneath Middle Jeitun levels. Pessedjik, zone was settled by people from the central (Geok- Gievdzhik, Kelyata, Kantar, Kepele, New Nisa, and depe) region, and that the most striking difference in Yarti-Gumbez are considered representative of the artifacts between the two was a significant decrease in Middle Jeitun phase and also possibly of the Late the percentage of decorated ceramics in the eastern Jeitun phase. compared with the central region.

The Arkash Region of the Western Piedmont Jeitun-Culture Phases: Changes in Artifact Only three Jeitun-Culture sites are known in this Assemblages region: Naiza, Bami, and a surface scatter at Bacha The Early Jeitun phase represented at Jeitun, Well northwest of Kizyl Arvat (Fig. 6.1). Naiza (which lower Chopan, and lower Togolok is marked by a we were unable to find in 1998) and the surface scatter lithic assemblage with numerous sickle blades and at the Bacha Well are reported by Berdiev and Kohl occasional geometric microliths, a predominance of to be quite small, but Bami (near the present town of painted and unpainted handmade ceramic bowls, Bami) is a large circular mound that rises some 6–7 m terracotta counters and discs (the latter possibly used above the surrounding plain and is closer to the Kopet- as spindle whorls), bone scrapers and piercers, and dag mountains than any other Jeitun-Culture site on turquoise and shell beads (Kohl 1984:48). the piedmont. In 1998 we descended into the remains The Middle Jeitun phase is identified in the of a 5-m-deep trench that had been excavated in 1960 upper levels of Chopan and Togolok, at Bami levels 1, by A. A. Marushchenko assisted by Berdiev (1963b). 2, and possibly 3, New Nisa, Pessedjik, and the lower It appeared that approximately 2 m of sediment at levels of Monjukli and Chagylly. It is considered com- the bottom of the trench had caved in, obscuring the parable to the Sialk I complex of the north-central lowest Neolithic levels, but we did not have sufficient Iranian plateau and is characterized by fewer painted time to reopen and shore up the caved-in trench. Be- vessels than are found at sites of the Early Jeitun phase, cause Bami is the westernmost known Jeitun-Culture a greater variety of types of ceramic vessels, a decrease site on the piedmont and has quite deep stratigraphy, in scraping tools, and an increase in denticulate it is a promising site for future excavation that could blades (Kohl 1984:49). throw light on possible links during the Neolithic with The Late Jeitun phase is represented at Bami lev- related sites farther west in northern Iran and the els 4 and 5, the upper levels of Chagylly, and possibly southeast Caspian region. the middle levels of Monjukli. It is characterized by fewer geometric microliths, an increase in the number The Etek Region of the Eastern Piedmont of denticulate blades, an absence of bone scrapers, This region extends from just east of Ashgabat increasingly naturalistic motifs on the pottery, mud- (and the Chalcolithic–Bronze Age site of Anau North; bricks (rather than the long cylindrical proto-bricks 62 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia used previously, e.g., at Jeitun), stone door sockets, and been tentatively identified as ofT. aestivum/durum type small pieces of copper (Kohl 1984:48–49). (this volume, pp. 151–53).

Evidence of Domestic Animals and Crop Plants There is insufficient archaeobotanical and zoo- Northeastern Iran archaeological evidence of crops and domesticated animals at Jeitun-Culture sites to make comparable West of the Kopetdag piedmont in northeastern statements about changes through the Early, Middle, Iran, pottery and other artifacts resembling Jeitun- and Late phases, principally because when the sites Culture materials have been found at several tell sites. were first excavated plant and animal remains were Two of them, Yarim Tepe (Stronach 1972; Crawford not systematically retrieved. Also, identifications of 1963) and Tureng Tepe (Wulsin 1932; Deshayes 1963; the remains that were found and reported are often and many other publications, see this volume, p. 49), unreliable. Remains of domestic goats, sheep, and are situated on the plain traversed by the Gorgan sometimes dogs were recovered at Early, Middle, and river between the eastern Elburz mountains and the Late Jeitun sites, including Jeitun itself, but bones of southeastern coast of the Caspian (Fig. 6.1). Fragments domestic cattle were only reported (by V. I. Tsalkin) of pottery resembling Jeitun ceramics were recovered at two sites, Chagylly and Chopan, from Middle and from the basal levels at both sites, but at neither site Late Jeitun levels (Berdiev 1966:26–27; 1972a:78–79). were these levels radiocarbon dated. At Yarim the low- No remains of domestic pigs, horses, or camels have est levels, associated with “the remains of a Neolithic been reported from Jeitun-Culture sites, but Berdiev village,” were reached in a small excavation (Trench X) (ibid.) did record the presence of onagers (kulan) in that contained sherds of straw-tempered pottery of Jei- the bone assemblage from Chagylly. tun type painted with curvilinear patterns (Stronach Very few systematic attempts were made to re- 1972:22 and pers. comm. 2007). At Tureng, ground- cover and identify plant remains at Neolithic (or later water prevented excavation of the basal levels but prehistoric) sites in Turkmenistan prior to our use of small fragments of straw-tempered pottery that closely the flotation technique at Jeitun from 1989 onward and resembled, in their temper and decoration, pottery Miller’s (2003) at Anau North in 1997. Previously, the from Jeitun were found incorporated into mudbricks main source of information on Neolithic crops was a used to construct later buildings at the site. In a brief study of the development of irrigation agriculture by comment on Tureng, Sarianidi (1992:113) stated that Lisitsina (1978). She studied cereal remains and cereal the pottery fragments from the site correspond to the impressions in mudbrick at Jeitun and other Jeitun-Cul- Late Jeitun phase, but Deshayes (1967:123–25) only ture sites and reported (1978:92) the presence of wheat compared them to Jeitun as a whole and did not refer and barley at Jeitun, Chopan, and Bami (identified just to any of the Jeitun-Culture phases. as Triticum sp. and Hordeum sp.), and of bread and club Despite the lack of a secure chronology at both wheat (identified as T. aestivum L. and T. compactum Yarim and Tureng, Sarianidi stated (1992:114) that the Host.) and two-row barley (identified as H. distichum two sites “provide indirect evidence that in the sixth L.) at Chagylly. Masson summarized these findings in millennium BC the Gorgan valley contained scattered his monograph on Jeitun (1971:97) and emphasized early agricultural settlements that were based fully on the continuity of wheat and barley cultivation from the production,” and Kohl (1984:46) suggested that “More Early Neolithic phase at Jeitun and Chopan, the Middle sites must exist [on the Gorgan plain], but they may Jeitun phase at Bami, the Late Jeitun phase at Chagylly, prove difficult to locate because of the overburden and on through the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age of later remains and burial due to alluviation.” Near in southern Turkmenistan. Lisitsina’s identifications the southern margin of the plain there is a third site, should not be regarded as reliable, and our investiga- Shir-i Shayn (Fig. 6.1), which has produced ceramics tions have since shown that at Jeitun glume wheat—both that Sarianidi said (1992:115) “closely resemble and einkorn (T. monococcum) and another newly recognized possibly predate those in the lower strata of Hissar” type—was the principal crop, together with naked and (a mainly Bronze Age site on the Iranian plateau near hulled (probably six-row) barley (Hordeum vulgare [syn. Damghan) and to be “to some extent reminiscent of sativum]); also a few chaff fragments of what appears to the pottery of Jeitun,” but only “exploratory digs” were be free-threshing wheat (present in three samples) have carried out and further excavation would be required t h e mesolithic a n d neolithic p e r i o d s : sites, sequences, a n d subsistence 63

before the site could add significantly to knowledge of occupation to an aceramic Neolithic phase, but fol- the Neolithic in the area. More recently, Iranian ar- lowing further excavation he concluded (1974b:223) chaeologists carrying out surveys on the Gorgan plain that more research was needed to establish how the and Caspian lowland south of Behshahr have located site related to the regional chronology of Neolithic several sites with evidence of Neolithic occupation, settlement. at one of which, Tugh Tepe near Behshahr, sherds In his publications Masuda only refers to three resembling Jeitun pottery have been found (this vol- radiocarbon dates and his statements about them ume, p. 50). Excavation of such sites can be expected are not always consistent. In his first brief report he to add substantially to knowledge of Neolithic settle- mentioned (1972:2) two dates—7240 ± 150 and 7270 ment in these lowland areas and throw more light on ± 125 BP—as from the “West Tappeh,” but it is clear any connections they may have had with the Jeitun- from the context that in the text West should have Culture sites of the Kopetdag piedmont (discussed in been East. Nor did he state from which level(s) the Chapter 11). charcoal samples that were dated came. In his later South of the Gorgan plain on the north Iranian reports he mentioned a third date—c. 7800 BP (lack- plateau two tell sites provide more, but still inconclu- ing a ± margin of error)—from the western mound, sive, evidence of links with the Jeitun Culture. They but attributed it in different reports to the “second are part of a cluster of small mounds at the edge of layer” and the “third level” (1974a:25; 1976:65). When a terminal fan at Sang-i Čakmaq (Sang-i Chakmak) calibrated, the two dates from the eastern mound give in the village of Bastam 8 km northeast of Shahroud almost identical dates (at 95% probability) within the (Fig. 6.1). Two of the mounds, about 200 m apart, range 6450–5850 cal. BCE, whereas the single date were excavated in 1971, 1973, and 1975 by S. Masuda from western mound gives a calibrated range (at 95% (1972, 1974a, 1974b, 1976, 1977, 1984). The eastern probability) of 7100–6350 cal. BCE. Despite the in- mound is about 6 m high and Masuda’s excavations adequacy of this chronology for the two mounds, the revealed six occupation strata between the surface dates do indicate, when compared with the 11 on-site and bedrock, all but the uppermost of which con- dates we obtained at Jeitun (this volume, pp. 120–23) tained the remains of mudbrick structures and pot- which range from c. 6300 to c. 5600 cal. BCE, that the tery. In a description of the ceramics of each stratum, western mound at Sang-i Čakmaq was probably occu- H. Kamuro stated (in Masuda 1977) that there were pied at least several centuries earlier than Jeitun. This striking similarities between the material from the comparison also demonstrates that Sang-i Čakmaq is third stratum and Middle-Jeitun pottery at Bami at present—before new data from the current investi- and Chopan, and between cruder pottery from the gations in the area by Iranian archaeologists become sixth (lowest) stratum and sherds from Jeitun itself. available1—the earliest dated and westernmost known Masuda (1976:63) mentioned that sherds from the Neolithic settlement with an artifact assemblage very lower levels were straw-tempered like Jeitun pottery, similar to that of the Jeitun Culture. This conclusion is and that many of the artifacts made of stone, bone, reinforced by Aurenche’s observation (1985:236) that and clay resembled artifacts from Jeitun-Culture sites the rectangular shape, internal platforms, and raised (1974b:223). He also pointed out (ibid.) that similar hearths of the buildings at Sang-i Čakmaq resemble materials had been found by Stronach at Yarim Tepe, those at Jeitun. but (as mentioned above) only sherds resembling Jei- Masuda regarded the north Iranian plateau tun-type pottery were found in the lowest levels there. as the area of origin of the culture represented at The finds from the eastern mound at Sang-iČ akmaq Sang-i Čakmaq (1976:65). However, the almost com- included clay figurines of animals and wooden sickle plete absence of pottery in the western mound led handles decorated with animal designs. Most of the Gupta (1979, II:49–52) to suggest that the site might bone implements from the upper strata were made represent a transitional stage between the southeast from cattle bone, whereas many of those found in the Caspian Mesolithic—as revealed in the rockshelters lower levels were of deer bone and antler (Masuda of Ghar-i Kamarband, Hotu, and Ali Tappeh—and 1976:64). The western mound is 3 m high with five the Jeitun Neolithic. Although there are some sugges- strata of mudbrick structures but, unlike the eastern tive similarities in the lithic assemblages and in the one, was almost devoid of pottery. After his first field presence of small cones of baked clay, this hypothesis season Masuda (1972:2) was inclined to attribute the appears very tenuous in the absence of more support- 64 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia ing evidence from further investigations of Mesolithic Italian and American archaeologists near Quchan and and Neolithic sites in both areas. on the Dargaz plain (this volume, p. 50). Fortunately, such investigations have recently The apparent scarcity of Neolithic sites in the been initiated by Iranian archaeologists who have intermontane valleys may partly be due to many of conducted regional surveys and exploratory excava- them having been buried by more recent alluviation, tions on the Shahroud plain close to Sang-i Čakmaq because the Kopetdag mountains are subject to in- and farther east in northern Khorassan near Bojnurd, tense tectonic activity and severe erosion; and other Neyshabour, and Dargaz (Darreh Gaz) (Fig. 6.1). They sites may have been destroyed by post-Neolithic agri- have so far identified some 30 Neolithic sites, at least cultural settlement and cultivation. However, more 10 of which have yielded sherds that resemble Jeitun- comprehensive geoarchaeological prospecting in the Culture pottery (this volume, pp. 50–51). It is to be intermontane valleys both north and south of the hoped that this new phase of research will lead to the Iran-Turkmenistan frontier is needed and may reveal excavation of some of these new sites and the retrieval, the existence of many as yet undiscovered Neolithic, identification, and direct (AMS) dating of animal and and perhaps Mesolithic, sites in the region, as the re- plant remains from them, in order to gain a better cent surveys by Iranian archaeologists suggest. understanding of Neolithic settlement and subsistence in the region. It is clear that the Neolithic sites of the Gorgan The Keltiminar Culture plain, at Sang-i Čakmaq and the newly discovered ones near Shahroud and farther east in northern Khoras- The Keltiminar (Kel’teminar) Culture is a less san, provide evidence of similarities in artifacts and well defined and more heterogeneous entity than architecture with the Jeitun-Culture settlements of the agro-pastoral Jeitun Culture (Kohl 1984:57–64; southern Turkmenistan. It therefore seems surprising Brunet 2005; 1999:40–42). The term Keltiminar has that no such Neolithic settlements have been discov- been applied to a large number of sites thought to ered in the intermontane valleys and plains of the have been occupied by seasonally mobile hunter- middle Atrek catchment and especially its northern fisher-gatherers across a broad swathe of northern tributaries, the Sumbar and Chandyr, which offer ac- Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from the Caspian Sea cessible routes across the mountains to the western and to the Kyzylkum desert. Sites attributed to the Keltimi- central Kopetdag piedmont (Fig. 6.1). These long, east- nar Culture were first identified in 1939 in the ancient west trending valleys receive more precipitation and Akchadarya delta south of the Aral Sea where the type have deeper, more fertile soils than the piedmont, and site, Janbas (Dzhanbas) 4, was excavated by Tolstov, are well suited to rainfed agriculture. The apparent and subsequent surveys led to the discovery of over 60 absence of Neolithic sites in the Sumbar and Chandyr Keltiminar sites in the area of the ancient delta (this valleys cannot be ascribed only to a lack of archaeologi- volume, p. 45). cal prospecting. In the past, several Soviet archaeolo- Keltiminar or Keltiminar-related sites have also gists explored the middle Sumbar valley, where they been found in four other main areas: around the made surface finds of Palaeolithic stone tools (Lyubin ancient Lyavlyakan lake and other depressions in the 1984:28–31) and also discovered a few settlement sites, southern Kyzylkum, along the former northwestern notably the Chalcolithic (Eneolithic)–Bronze Age extensions of the lower Zeravshan river, in the area of cemetery of Parkhai II (Khlopin 1981, 1989). Then, in the Sarykamysh depression and the former channels 1996, members of our team prospected for early sites of the upper Uzboi in the northern Karakum, and in the Sumbar and the Chandyr valleys north of the near now-dry depressions and watercourses on the Iranian frontier, but despite carrying out trial excava- Ustyurt plateau west of the Aral Sea (Fig. 6.2) (Brunet tions at eight rockshelters and one open site, we found 2005; Dolukhanov 1986:125–26; Korobkova 1975b; no evidence of Neolithic (or earlier) occupation (this Masson 1996:96–101; Vinogradov 1968). The Neo- volume, pp. 107–13). Also, until Iranian archaeolo- lithic levels in the rockshelters of the Bolshoi Balkhan gists recently began to undertake extensive surveys in massif and the Krasnovodsk plateau (Jebel, Dam Dam northern Khorassan, very few Neolithic sites had been Cheshme, and Kailyu), and open-air sites north (e.g., found in the upper Atrek valley or elsewhere in the Oyukli) and south (e.g., Joyruk) of the massif (Fig. region, despite the investigations in the late 1970s by 4.1), share some features of their material culture t h e mesolithic a n d neolithic p e r i o d s : sites, sequences, a n d subsistence 65

6.2 Distribution of Keltiminar, possibly Keltiminar, and other Neolithic sites in the desert and steppe environments of western Central Asia; only sites mentioned in the text are named (site locations from Brunet 2005: Fig. 2, and Dolukhanov 1986: Fig. 2).

with Keltiminar-Culture sites, but Korobkova (1975b) and architecture had (by then) only been recorded showed that these Caspian sites have a distinctive at nine sites: Oyukli, north of the Bolshoi Balkhan, stone-tool tradition. A few sites in western Kazakhstan and, in the Kyzylkum, Janbas 4 and 31, Kavat 7, Lyav- between the Aral Sea and the Caspian have also been lyakan 26, Beshbulak 2 and 3, and Darbazakir 1 and attributed by some authors to the Keltiminar Culture 2 (Fig. 6.2). In his discussion of the chronological (Brunet 2005:89–90). problems associated with the dating of Keltiminar Investigation of the Keltiminar Culture and of sites Kohl also emphasized (1984:61) that in addition its relationship with the Jeitun Culture of southern to a general lack of well-dated stratigraphy there was Turkmenistan has been hampered by severe difficul- a dearth of convincing parallels with better-dated ties in establishing a secure chronology. Most of the sites in southern Turkmenistan, and that attempts Keltiminar and Keltiminar-related sites have been to date the beginning of the Keltiminar Culture had deflated by wind erosion and are unstratified. In- depended on whether ceramic or lithic comparisons deed, Kohl (1984:59) pointed out that cultural levels were accepted as primary evidence. Soviet scholars dif- 66 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia fered in their interpretations of when the Keltiminar more extensive and complex hydrological network Culture began and how long it lasted, as well as over than exists today in the Kyzylkum and along the lower its contemporaneity with the Jeitun Culture and the courses of the Syrdarya, Zeravshan, and Amudarya, a subsequent Eneolithic (Chalcolithic) and Bronze Age network which included at various times connections cultures of the Kopetdag piedmont, but a widely ac- between the Amudarya, the Sarykamysh depression, cepted view (Korobkova 1975b; Masson and Sarianidi and the upper and lower channels of the Uzboi—a 1972:73) was that Keltiminar and Keltiminar-related drainage pattern that reflects, at least in part, in- sites spanned a long period from the Neolithic into the creased precipitation of the mid-Holocene Climatic Bronze Age. Vinogradov (1968, 1981; Vinogradov and Optimum (Brunet 2005:91; Dolukhanov 1986:127; Mamedov 1975) assigned the Keltiminar sites to three Kohl 1984:61; this volume, pp. 25–26). The few strati- phases: an early Neolithic Dariasai (Dar’jasaj) phase fied Keltiminar sites are located near former water in the 6th millennium, a developed Neolithic Janbas bodies, and they provide some evidence, in the form (Dzhanbas) phase in the 5th–4th millennia, and a of wood remains from such trees as alder, that implies recent Neolithic phase from the second half of the 3rd the former presence of riparian tugai vegetation. The to the beginning of the 2nd millennia BCE. remains of wooden structures at some of these sites, A general lack of radiocarbon dates from strati- such as Janbas 4 and Kavat 7, together with traces of graphically secure contexts means that the duration hearths, pits, and postholes (Vinogradov 1981:148–54), of the Keltiminar Culture cannot be precisely deter- have been interpreted as evidence of fully or partly mined. However, preliminary results from research sedentary occupation, but as Brunet (2005:96–97) by the Polish-Uzbek team at the site of Ayakagytma points out, there is insufficient evidence to determine (Fig. 6.2, and this volume, p. 48), together with re- whether such sites were occupied continuously or re- examination of relative inter-site chronology inferred peatedly for shorter periods. Most of the unstratified from archaeological and sedimentological evidence, sites are also located near former streams, rivers, and led Brunet (2005:90 –95) to suggest a revised threefold lakes, and their general shallowness and the lack of chronology: a 7th–6th millennium early Neolithic evidence of wooden structures suggests that they were phase, a 5th–4th millennium later Neolithic phase, occupied seasonally rather than year-round. and a third phase from the mid 3rd to the beginning The close association of settlements and water of the 2nd millennium BCE interpreted as Eneolithic bodies is reflected in evidence of subsistence activi- (rather than Neolithic as Vinogradov had proposed) ties: remains of fish (principally pike and carp) and and which, Brunet argued, reflected contact with freshwater mollusks have been found at two of the Bronze Age cultures of the Central Asian steppes. excavated sites in the Akchadarya delta, Janbas 4 Brunet also re-examined regional variation among and Tolstov, where bones of several species of wa- sites attributed to the Keltiminar Culture—the unity terfowl were also found (Dolukhanov 1986:126–27; of which had previously been questioned by Kohl Vinogradov 1981:140–46). If small bones had been (1984:63)—and concluded that the lithic and ceramic systematically retrieved by flotation and/or fine-mesh materials found at several sites north and west of the sieving, remains of fish and waterfowl would probably Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and northern have been recovered at other sites. The importance Turkmenistan, previously classified as Keltiminar or of fishing and fowling is also attested by finds of fish Keltiminar-related, were so locally distinctive that they hooks, net sinkers, and harpoon barbs (Masson and should not be attributed to the Keltiminar Culture Sarianidi 1972:73). (Brunet 2005: Fig. 2 and 95–96). Mammal bones have been recovered at more Having summarized the problems of definition sites, in the Akchadarya delta, the Zeravashan catch- and chronology that have complicated the study of ment, and the area of the Lyavlyakan lake, and Vi- Keltiminar sites, we consider next what is known about nogradov (1981:139–41) reported the presence of settlement and subsistence in the Keltiminar-Culture a wide range of taxa of tugai, steppe, desert, and zone. When the overall distribution of Neolithic sites is mountain habitats, including aurochs, wild boar, red examined, a strong correlation is evident between site and fallow deer, gazelle, onager, saiga, camel, and wild location and the former presence of freshwater lakes, sheep, as well as smaller mammals such as fox, hare, deltas, rivers, and streams. There is abundant evidence and badger (Dolukhanov 1986:126–27). Hunting in the landscape for the former existence of a much evidently made a major contribution to subsistence, t h e mesolithic a n d neolithic p e r i o d s : sites, sequences, a n d subsistence 67 and the harvesting of grass seeds, roots and tubers, overall trend from wild animals in the earliest levels and other plant foods probably did so too, although to domesticates in the most recent levels. Animals there is only indirect evidence of this in the form of regarded as domestic occur in all the units, and grindstones, mortars, pestles, and sickle blades. In Lasota-Moskalewska et al. concluded that in both the her studies of use-wear traces on sickle blades, Korob- earlier and the later occupation phases the economy kova (e.g., 1969, 1978) sought to distinguish between was “nearly fully based” on domesticated and “most tools used to harvest wild and cultivated cereals and probably tamed” animals, with hunting, fishing, and inferred that sickle blades found at sites in the lower gathering playing a “minor role” (ibid., p. 215). The Zeravshan valley had been used to cut domesticated main hunted animals are thought to have been ga- cereals (Dolukhanov 1986:127; Korobkova 1969:186; zelle, aurochs, and, less frequently, red and fallow 1992:275). However, there is as yet no conclusive evi- deer. A remarkable feature of the remains is the dence, in the form of charred grains and chaff, to sup- presence of camel bones in the stratigraphic units port the idea that cereal cultivation was practiced at of both the earlier and the later phases, with a pro- Keltiminar sites during the Neolithic, and Vinogradov nounced increase starting in the middle of sub-unit (1981:139) maintained that the sickle blades found at 5b at c. 5600 cal. BCE, paralleled by a decrease in the the lower Zeravshan sites were evidence of the harvest- representation of cattle and equids, which disappear ing of wild plants. completely during the final phase of the occupation The question of whether stockbreeding was part (unit 2). It is suggested that these trends were mainly of the Keltiminar subsistence economy during the due to climatic changes (to greater aridity?) from the Neolithic is also difficult to resolve because of the late Neolithic into the Bronze Age, and that the camels paucity of well preserved, identified, and analyzed as- were probably tamed, if not domesticated. semblages from stratified sites. As mentioned earlier in The inference about the status of the camels, to- this chapter (p. 59), Vinogradov (1979:60) suggested gether with the conclusion that domestic cattle, sheep, that in the early Neolithic the Keltiminar may have perhaps goat, pig, and dog were all kept and raised, bred livestock as well as hunted, fished, and gathered, focuses attention on how their domestic status was although no direct, well-attested osteoarchaeological determined. That question is briefly discussed in the evidence of domesticated herd animals at Neolithic preliminary report, and it is stated (ibid., p. 206) that a Keltiminar sites had been published. Now the Polish- particular bone fragment “was described as belonging Uzbek team working at Ayakagytma in the southern to a domesticated individual only when diminution of Kyzylkum (this volume, pp. 48–49) has analyzed bone skeleton, and narrowing of a compact bone layer were assemblages recovered there between 1996 and 2003. clearly marked.” It is not apparent whether “diminu- The bones are very poorly preserved and only 1,151 tion” of the skeleton refers here to progressive reduc- fragments out of a total of 7,092 could be identified to tion in bone sizes of a given taxon from the earlier to species or genus, but they came both from the upper the later occupation phases, or to contrasts between stratigraphic units (2 and 4) in the Dzhanbas phase, larger and smaller bone sizes in the same taxon such as radiocarbon dated to c. 3000–4000 cal. BCE, and might, for example, be taken to indicate the presence from the lower unit (5) in the early Neolithic Dariasai of both wild and domestic cattle. If the latter meaning phase, dated to c. 5500–6000 cal. BCE (Fontugne and is intended, it is complicated by the possibility of sexual Szymczak 2006; Lasota-Moskalewska et al. 2006). The dimorphism, which is pronounced in wild cattle and taxa identified include a wide range of herd animals: would need to ruled out before “diminution” could be cattle, ?bison, sheep/goat, horse/onager, camel, water used as a criterion of domestication (see Russell et al. buffalo, gazelle, and deer, as well as pig, dog, bird, 2005 for a discussion of sexual dimorphism in relation fish, and tortoise. The specialists who undertook the to cattle remains from the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük analysis classified the cattle, sheep, ?goat, pig, and dog in Anatolia). The use of “a narrowing of a compact as domesticated, and camel, horse/onager, and water bone layer” (in the bone shaft wall?) as a criterion buffalo as possibly having been tamed, if not actually for domestication is also problematic because many domesticated (Lasota-Moskalewska et al. 2006:208). variables could affect it, such as the size, sex, and age The relative abundance of the taxa represented of the individual animal. at Ayakagytma changes between units 2, 4, and 5 The fact that the bone assemblages studied were (and within sub-units of 5), but does not reveal an small, poorly preserved, and contained a high propor- 68 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia tion of unidentifiable bone fragments would of course riverine areas during the Bronze Age as a result of con- have made it very difficult to use more rigorous mor- tact with the Jeitun-Culture farmers of the southern phological, metrical, and other criteria (cf. Meadow zone (1956:216). 1989b) to determine whether the cattle, sheep/goat, pig, and dog remains found at Ayakagytma were in- deed from domesticated animals, but this lack means The Early Chalcolithic (Eneolithic) that at present the question of their status as domes- Anau IA Phase tic, tamed, or wild animals cannot be resolved. It is to be hoped that the analyses now underway of bone Although the main chronological focus in this assemblages excavated in 2005, 2006, and 2007, and volume is on the Neolithic period and its Mesolithic perhaps further on-site recovery of animal remains, antecedents, a summary account is also needed (es- will clarify this fundamental question. Meanwhile the pecially as a prelude to Part III) of the transition preliminary analysis of the 1996–2003 bone assem- from the Jeitun Culture to the earliest part of the blages raises interesting questions not only concerning succeeding Chalcolithic (Eneolithic) period: Anau domestication but also about possible relationships in IA. The term Anau IA derives from Pumpelly’s exca- the Neolithic with the agro-pastoral Jeitun-Culture vation in 1904 of part of the north mound at Anau, settlements of the Kopetdag piedmont (discussed in when Schmidt (1908:130–32) described a distinctively Chapter 11). tempered and decorated type of pottery found in the At present there is no evidence in the form of, lowest layers and on that basis recognized the earliest for example, charred cereal remains or organic resi- (IA) phase of occupation at the site. In the 1930s Mar- dues on stone blades (“sickle gloss”) to suggest that the ushchenko found ceramics of Anau IA type at several Neolithic occupants of the Ayakagytma site engaged in other sites on the piedmont, but because he did not any form of cultivation. However, some plant remains publish these finds the IA phase was long thought were recovered by flotation in 2008 (Karol Szymczak, to be a development unique to Anau North, or even pers. comm. 2009) and their analysis may provide such “an accidental phenomenon” (Khlopin 1963:21; Kohl evidence, if they can be securely identified and dated 1984:65). After the Second World War Marushchenko by the AMS radiocarbon method. If evidence of grains conducted excavations at the eastern-piedmont site or chaff is found and directly dated, the provisional of Monjukli where he discovered Anau IA materials conclusion that cereal cultivation was not part of the directly overlying Late Jeitun levels and interpreted Keltiminar subsistence system will need to be revised. this as evidence for a local evolution from Late Jeitun So, although the Keltiminar appear to have depended to Anau IA (Berdiev 1972c:11). Subsequently, Anau on a combination of hunting, fishing, and gathering IA materials were found at a series of sites across with, perhaps, some form of livestock herding, it is also the piedmont, with the greatest concentration in possible that grain crops were grown on a small scale the central Akhal region, and also at two sites (Yam by simple floodwater ordécrue methods. and XA6) in the upper Atrek valley in northeast- By the early 2nd millennium BCE, during the ern Iran (Berdiev 1974; Kohl 1984:65–67; Ricciardi so-called Steppe Bronze Age, there is evidence of 1980:53–57). domestic livestock (bones of goats, sheep, cattle, and Considerable controversy has surrounded the asses) and also of domestic cereals (grain impres- definition, duration, and subdivision of the Anau IA sions of barley and wheat) at late Keltiminar sites, in phase partly because, although most of the sites are the context of the Zaman-baba complex of the lower located on the central piedmont, large-scale excava- Zeravshan valley (Masson and Sarianidi 1972:125–28). tions have only been carried out at two of the eastern These finds provide some evidence of a transition to sites, Monjukli and Chakmakli, and only at Monjukli a settled, agricultural way of life, which Masson and do Anau IA materials directly overlie Late-Jeitun levels. Sarianidi believe occurred as a result of close contacts Also, until recently no IA levels had been radiocarbon- with the long-established agro-pastoral communities dated at any site. Despite the lack of absolute dates, a of southern Turkmenistan. Okladnikov, too, assumed consensus eventually emerged that the phase probably that the shift from hunting, fishing, and gathering to dated to the late 6th and the beginning of the 5th mil- cultivation and stockbreeding took place among the lennia BCE (Kohl 1984:67–91). But it was not until Hie- Keltiminar groups of the Amudarya, Uzboi, and other bert, Kurbansakhatov, and their colleagues undertook t h e mesolithic a n d neolithic p e r i o d s : sites, sequences, a n d subsistence 69 new excavations at Anau North in 1997 and obtained from wild cattle and that the smaller bovid bones found 19 radiocarbon dates for specific contexts in layers 3–20 in the upper layers were from domestic cattle. Remains that a well-founded chronology for Anau IA was estab- of domestic pigs also occur in the upper (later Chalco- lished. Four dates were obtained for the Anau IA phase lithic) layers at Anau North (Moore et al.: ibid.), as well (represented by the lowest layers, 19 and 20), which (un- as at the Chalcolithic site of Dashlidji in the Geoksyur calibrated) broadly support the previous relative dating oasis in the ancient delta of the Tedzhen river (Masson of the initial occupation of the site to the late 6th mil- and Sarianidi 1972:61); and it is possible that pigs were lennium BCE, and when calibrated, give a composite raised at piedmont settlements in the Late Neolithic. age of c. 4300 cal. BCE (Hiebert 2003:55–56). The question of whether the material culture of The cultural distinctiveness of the Anau IA the Anau IA phase represents a local development on phase is not limited to its ceramics. Other attributes the piedmont, as some Russian archaeologists have that distinguish it from the Jeitun Culture include the suggested, or was the result of external influences occurrence of copper tools, non-local semi-precious such as the movement of people from Iran into Turk- stones such as lapis lazuli, stone hoe blades, and (as menistan cannot be resolved without more extensive shown by the excavations at Monjukli and Chak- excavation and accurate dating of piedmont sites that makli) larger, more internally complex settlements contain both Late-Jeitun and Anau IA levels. The with multi-room buildings, storage areas, courtyards, resolution of this question is not directly relevant here, and a division of the settlement into two parts divided but it is highly desirable because it is critical to under- by a street (Hiebert 2002a:33; Kohl 1984:67–71). standing the transition from small Neolithic village There is less evidence in the Anau IA phase of communities to larger, more complex Chalcolithic innovation in subsistence activities than in material and Bronze Age urban settlements in the region. culture. Thus the economy continued to be based on a combination of cereal cultivation, livestock herding, n o t e and hunting. However, there is evidence from the 1. As this book was going to press, Dr. Marjan Mashkour IA layers at Anau North that bread wheat (Triticum of the CNRS Archaeozoology Research Unit in Paris (UMR aestivum s.l.) and six-row barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. 7209 CNRS, France) kindly provided information on a French– vulgare) were now being cultivated, and the relatively Japanese initiative between the University of Tsukuba (Akira high water requirements of these plump-grain types of Tsuneki) and the CNRS (Marjan Mashkour and Jean-Denis wheat and barley (compared with einkorn and two-row Vigne) to re-date Sang-i Čakmaq. As a result, animal bones ex- barley) suggest that small-scale irrigation may have cavated by Masuda in the 1970s have now been directly dated by been carried out on the piedmont near Anau North the AMS radiocarbon method. Two very similar dates show that at this time (Miller 1999:15–17; 2003:137–38). This the western mound was occupied by 7997 ± 42 BP (7059–6767 cal. possibility receives some indirect support from the dis- BCE at 2 sigma or 95% confidence), whereas the new dates for the tribution of the Anau IA sites on the piedmont which, eastern mound range from 7182 ± 42 BP (6110–5985 cal. BCE at 2 as Hiebert has pointed out (2002a:32), are all located sigma) and 6444 ± 42 BP (5479–5338 cal. BCE at 2 sigma). These between 200 and 500 m above sea level. In that zone, results do not differ greatly from Masuda’s three dates for the small-scale irrigation dependent on gravity flow from western and eastern mounds as calibrated for this volume (see p. piedmont streams upstream of their terminal deltas at 63). They confirm that the western mound was occupied substan- the edge of the Karakum would have been feasible, and tially earlier than Jeitun in contrast to the eastern mound, the ear- this technologically simple form of irrigation may have liest new date for which corresponds closely to the date of c. 6100 preceded the more extensive and elaborate irrigation cal. BCE for the occupation of Jeitun. In 2009 a new stratigraphic systems that developed in the Bronze Age in the large investigation at Sang-i Čakmaq, combined with systematic recov- inland deltas of the Tedzhen and Murghab rivers. ery of organic remains, was undertaken by Kourosh Roustaei of The pastoral component of the subsistence econ- the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research, Tehran. The omy continued to be based mainly on domestic sheep samples obtained are now being analyzed and AMS dated, and and goats. It has been suggested that large cattle bones the results promise to add significantly to our knowledge of the found in the early Chalcolithic IA layers at Anau North establishment of agriculture in northeastern Iran. I (D.R.H.) am represent domesticated animals (Moore, Ermolova, most grateful to Dr. Mashkour for allowing me to refer here to and Forsten 2003:155–56), but Duerst (1908:365–69, the new radiocarbon dates and to the renewed research program and see this volume, p. 79) believed that they derived being undertaken at this important Neolithic site.

7 Areas of Origin of the Crops and Domestic Animals

fundamental part of this enquiry into the transi- profoundly affected the ranges of wild plants and A tion from foraging to farming in western Central animals, than previously thought. As a result, it has Asia is to try to determine whether agriculture began become more difficult to make sound inferences, from there independently, or whether the new way of life the present geographical distributions of their wild was introduced—wholly or in part—from elsewhere. progenitors and other closely related (congeneric) One approach to this question is to ask whether any of wild species, about where particular crops and domes- the crops and domestic animals identified in the or- tic animals originated. In this chapter, the principal ganic remains recovered at Jeitun and other early sites crops and domestic animals that were present in Turk- could have been domesticated locally from wild pro- menistan and adjacent areas during the Neolithic are genitors native to the region. To answer that question reviewed, in order to assess whether they are likely to requires not only knowledge of the present physical have been domesticated in the region or introduced, environment and of environmental changes during as domesticates, from elsewhere. the Pleistocene and Holocene (outlined in Chapters 1 and 2), but also familiarity with genetic studies of the species concerned and with archaeological evidence The Crops and Their Wild of their presence in the Neolithic. Progenitors In recent years cytological, molecular, and ar- chaeological investigation of the evolution and do- Very little reliably identified and dated archae- mestication of many crops and domestic animals has obotanical evidence of domesticated plants from advanced rapidly, with the result that earlier assump- prehistoric sites has so far been obtained in western tions about their ancestry and areas of origin are Central Asia. No systematic retrieval of macroscopic being radically re-examined (Brown et al. 2009; Bru- plant remains by flotation and/or fine sieving was ford, Bradley, and Luikart 2003; Burger, Chapman, undertaken in Turkmenistan until we carried it out and Burke 2008; Doebley, Grant, and Smith 2006; at Jeitun between 1989 and 1997, and Naomi Miller Fuller 2007; Jones and Brown 2000; Zeder et al. 2006). (1999, 2003) did so at Anau North. Lisitsina (1978) In particular, analyses of modern and ancient DNA of had previously studied cereal grains and impressions several cereals and domestic herd animals that were in pottery from four Neolithic sites in southern Turk- an integral part of Neolithic agriculture in Eurasia— menistan, but her identifications were insecure. Con- barley, wheat, goats, sheep, cattle, and pigs—suggest sequently only the crops we have definitively identified that they may have been domesticated several times in and dated from our excavations at Jeitun are discussed different areas (see below). in this section. There is also a growing realization that short- The cereal remains from Jeitun comprise term climatic and biotic changes during the Qua- charred grains and chaff of hulled and naked variet- ternary were more frequent and extreme, and more ies of (probably six-row) cultivated barley (Hordeum 74 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

vulgare L. [syn. sativum Pers.]) and two types of culti- rarely builds large stands and seems to be completely vated glume (hulled) wheat: einkorn (Triticum mono- restricted in most localities to segetal habitats, ruins, coccum L., both the one-grain and the two-grain form) or to sites which have been drastically churned by and another (emmer-like) type of uncertain origin human activity” (Zohary and Hopf 2000:67). (Jones, Valamoti, and Charles 2000), as well as three When visiting the Badghyz Natural Reserve in tentatively identified specimens of free-threshing southeastern Turkmenistan in 1992, two members wheat (of T. aestivum/durum type). Contrary to our of our research team (Hillman and Harris) observed earlier reports (Charles and Hillman 1992:83–94; apparently natural stands of wild barley growing in as- Harris et al. 1993:332; Harris, Gosden, and Charles sociation with pistachio trees (Fig. 1.9, color), although 1996:438), none of the remains examined can be it is possible that they are feral populations descended definitely identified as cultivated emmer wheatT. ( from domesticated barley. This possibility was also dicoccum Schübl.). Nor has any evidence of legume envisaged by Jan Valkoun (pers. comm. 1997) who crops been found. These results add greatly to the noted that at least some of the “wild” barley popula- earlier, less well documented reports of barley and tions of northeastern Iran and Turkmenistan have an wheat found at Jeitun, Chopan, Bami, and Chagylly upright growth habit, and synchronized tillering and (Lisitsina 1978:92; this volume, p. 62); and they raise seed maturation, implying that they are likely to be the question of whether the wild progenitors of barley descended from weedy forms introduced with already and the wheats found at Jeitun are likely to have been domesticated barley during the spread of Neolithic present in Turkmenistan in the Late Pleistocene and agriculture. However, these observations do not pre- Early Holocene and might, therefore, have been do- clude the possibility that genuinely wild barley grew in mesticated locally. the intermontane valleys and on the piedmont slopes of the region when agricultural settlements were first established there early in the Neolithic, especially as Barley the climate was warmer and wetter then, during the mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum, than it is today (this Wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum L. subsp. spon- volume, pp. 25–26). Hillman had observed wild barley taneum C. Koch, or, according to von Bothmer et growing as a component of wild almond and pista- al. (1995), H. vulgare L. subsp. spontaneum C. Koch) chio woodlands in Southwest Asia, and he speculated is a predominantly self-pollinating annual diploid (1996:188–89) that it might have survived the Late (chromosome number 2n=14) and the progenitor of Pleistocene in refugia farther east and subsequently domestic barley, with which it readily hybridizes and is spread from them (as well as from mountain refugia fully fertile. In wild barley two rows of grain normally in the northern Levant). Similar woodlands exist in develop but under domestication six-row forms have southern Turkmenistan today (this volume, pp. 9–10), been selected, as have naked-kernel forms (Harlan, and it is quite possible that wild barley grew there in de Wet, and Price 1973:317; Pourkheirandish and Ko- such habitats early in the Holocene. matsuda 2007). Wild barley is better adapted to aridity Genetic data derived from accessions of wild and more tolerant of poor, especially calcareous soils barley from west and east of the Zagros mountains col- than wild wheats and it occurs more widely around lected at a wide range of locations between the Medi- the Southwest Asian Fertile Crescent, as Harlan and terranean and the Pamirs in Central Asia have shown Zohary showed in 1966 when they published their well- that western and eastern barleys are part of an inter- known distribution maps of the “primary habitats” of breeding population that shares many haplotypes, but wild wheats and barley (updated in Zohary and Hopf that they often differ in the predominant haplotype 2000:37, 45, 66). Subsequently Zohary (1989:30) com- present, which implies an ancient divergence between mented that “more isolated populations, usually of west and east and that all the eastern barleys are very weedy forms” extend east across Central Asia (includ- unlikely to be feral rather than genuinely wild (Mor- ing Turkmenistan) as far as the western Himalayas rell, Lundy, and Clegg 2003, Morrell et al. 2005). This and Tibet (see also Shao 1981; Witcombe 1978), and conclusion does not deny the possibility that some of he later elaborated that comment, stating that “in the weedy forms referred to by Zohary and Valkoun north-east Iran, Central Asia, and Afghanistan wild may have derived from domesticated barley, but it spontaneum barley is. . .sporadic in its distribution; it supports the palaeoenvironmental inference that areas o f origin o f t h e c ro p s a n d d o m e s t i c animals 75 wild barley may have been present in southern Turk- barley was domesticated, independently of its domes- menistan in the Early Holocene. If so, its local domes- tication in the Fertile Crescent, somewhere east of tication cannot be excluded on phytogeographical the Zagros before western cultivars were introduced grounds. to central and eastern Asia; but the antiquity of such Other genetic studies of barley have concluded a putative domestication cannot be demonstrated that it was domesticated only once or very few times. conclusively from the genetic data alone. Thus Neale et al. (1988) investigated types of chloro- Morrell and Clegg (2007) interpreted archaeo- plast DNA in a large collection of wild and cultivated logical finds of barley in Neolithic contexts at Jeitun, barleys from Israel and Iran and demonstrated the and at Mehrgarh in Baluchistan, as suggestive of areas existence of three lineages in wild barley, only one of where a second domestication of barley could have which was (with two exceptions) represented in the occurred. But at present there is insufficient archaeo- cultivated barley, implying “a single or very few events botanical evidence to resolve the question of whether of domestication” (Zohary 1999:137). This conclusion barley was domesticated locally in Turkmenistan and/ was supported by Badr et al. (2000) who analyzed or in Pakistan or whether it was initially introduced AFLP (amplified-fragment length polymorphism) to those sites as an already domesticated crop. For data from a large sample of wild and cultivated bar- example, at Mehrgarh there is abundant evidence of leys and concluded that barley was domesticated only barley in the form of plant impressions in mudbrick once, in southeastern Turkey. However, although in the earliest (aceramic Neolithic Period I) levels, the authors claimed that this result “closes the long- which, despite inconsistency in the radiocarbon chro- lasting debate on the origin of barley” (ibid., p. 507), nology, probably date to between c. 7000 (or perhaps it should not be regarded as conclusive because AFLP earlier) and c. 6000 cal. BCE (Jarrige 2000:278–83, data analyzed by cluster analysis (neighbor-joining 2007–08:151; Jarrige, Jarrige, and Quivron 2006). trees) is not a genuinely phylogenetic method of in- The barley consists mainly of the domesticated six-row ferring monophyletic origins for crops (or domestic hulled and naked forms but there is also some “wild” animals), as has been demonstrated in simulations of two-row barley (Costantini 2007–08:168–69; 1983:29– cereal domestication (Allaby and Brown 2003, 2004; 31; Fuller 2006:22; Possehl 1999:459). The presence Allaby, Fuller, and Brown 2008; Allaby, Brown, and of both forms could be interpreted as evidence of Fuller 2009; and see Salamini et al. 2004 and Honne initial local domestication, but it does not necessarily and Heun 2009). support that hypothesis because, as Pourkheirandish The possibility that barley was domesticated and Komatsuda (2007) have shown, six-row spikes and more than once received further support from Morrell naked kernels (caryopses) were selected after wild and Clegg’s (2007) comparison of the haplotype com- two-row barley was domesticated, and furthermore, position of wild and domesticated forms from a wide the apparently wild barley, which typically occurs range of locations across southwestern, central, and around Mehrgarh in disturbed habitats, may have eastern Asia. This reinforced their earlier evidence of reached the region from farther west as a weed of an ancient divergence between western and eastern cereal cultivation. wild barleys, and showed that all accessions of culti- Remains of barley recovered from Southwest vated (landrace) barleys from Asia east of the Zagros Asian Neolithic sites show that its domestication was have substantial identity with eastern wild barleys and underway in the Levant and possibly also in the Zagros have been subject to later admixture from imported region by the end of the 9th millennium cal. BCE western landraces. This conclusion is supported by a and that it spread as a domesticated crop throughout phylogeographic analysis by Saisho and Purugganan the Fertile Crescent during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (2007) of haplotype clusters of five genes in a large period1 (Charles 2007; Garrard 1999:77–79; Willcox sample of barley cultivars from East and South Asia 2005:535–38). As the initial domestication of barley (including Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan), as well took place more than two millennia before it was as from the Fertile Crescent, North Africa, and Eu- cultivated at Jeitun, there was ample time for it to rope, which revealed an area of genetic discontinu- be dispersed across northern Iran (together with ity between the landraces westward from the Fertile einkorn wheat; see below) as one of the two founder Crescent into Europe and the eastern ones from Iran crops of Neolithic cereal cultivation at the Jeitun- to China, Korea, and Japan. Both studies imply that Culture sites—a circumstance that can be interpreted 76 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia as evidence against an independent domestication of Zagros, with outlying populations in the Caucasus (Zo- barley in Turkmenistan. However, lack at present of hary and Hopf 2000:45), but neither species has been securely identified and well-dated remains of barley recorded east of the Caspian Sea. A domesticated form (and wheat) from Neolithic sites across northern Iran, of Timopheev’s wheat (T. timopheevi Zhuk.) was culti- from east of the Zagros mountains to the Kopetdag vated until recently in Georgia, where it may have been piedmont, means that the question of whether it was domesticated from T. araraticum (Zohary and Hopf introduced to Turkmenistan as a crop from the Fertile 2000:58), and it is also possible that the glume wheat Crescent, or locally domesticated, remains open. now recognized in the Jeitun assemblage represents There is a similar lack of archaeobotanical evi- an extension far to the east of a formerly much wider dence of barley (and wheat) at sites across Central Neolithic distribution of T. timopheevi cultivation. How- Asia east of Turkmenistan, which makes it also impos- ever, none of these possibilities implies that it might sible, at present, to do more than speculate about the have been domesticated locally in Turkmenistan, and route(s) by which these cereals first reached China. its presence there in the Neolithic is almost certainly They were present by c. 2500 cal. BCE in northwest- the result of its introduction as a domestic cereal from ern China where seeds of barley and wheat have somewhere west of the Caspian. been found at the site of Xishanping near Tianshui In contrast to the uncertain origin of the newly in Gansu and AMS radiocarbon dated to c. 2600 cal. recognized glume wheat from Jeitun, the ancestry of BCE (X. Li et al. 2007). Barley has also been found domestic einkorn is well understood. Its progenitor is at Fengtai in the upper Huang-ho valley and wheat at wild einkorn (Triticum monococcum L. subsp. boeoticum Donghuishan in western Gansu, and both were being [Bois.] A. et D. Löve [syn. T. boeoticum Boiss. emend. cultivated in the middle and lower Huang-ho valley by Schiem.]), a self-pollinating annual diploid grass (chro- c. 2000 cal. BCE in the Late Longshan period (F. Li mosome number 2n=14), with which domestic einkorn 1989; S. Li 2002:180; Zhao Zhijun, pers. comm. 2006). is fully interfertile. A second wild diploid wheat (T. Remains of barley and wheat have also been found in urartu Tuman.) exists in Southwest Asia. It closely re- South Korea and dated to c. 1000 cal. BCE (Crawford sembles two-grain wild einkorn but is intersterile with and Lee 2003). wild and domestic einkorn and is not implicated in the latter’s domestication (Waines and Barnhart 1992; Zohary and Hopf 2000:20 –22, 36 –38), although Heun, The Glume Wheats Haldorsen, and Vollan (2008) have speculated that finds of “einkorn” from Neolithic contexts at sites in the Two types of glume wheat dominate the archaeo- middle Euphrates valley may instead be domesticated botanical samples recovered at Jeitun. Initially, c. T. urartu. Like other wheats, and unlike barley, wild 90% of the wheat remains were believed to consist of einkorn generally avoids calcareous soils and occurs domestic einkorn (Harris et al. 1993:332), but further mainly on acid (often basaltic) soils. As a result, its dis- investigation has shown that some of the material tribution in Southwest Asia is less extensive and more closely resembles a type of glume wheat, morpho- patchy than wild barley. It is more cold- and drought- logically distinct from einkorn, that has been reported tolerant than other wild wheats and its range extends from Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in Greece, Turkey, in a broad band from the northeastern margins of the Hungary, Poland, Austria, and Germany ( Jones, Vala- Fertile Crescent to western Turkey, with more isolated moti, and Charles 2000; Köhler-Schneider 2003). Un- populations in the Caucasus, the central Levant, and like einkorn, which is a diploid, the other glume wheat in Greece and the Balkans where they are weedy forms is probably a tetraploid and it may derive from wild that probably spread with domestic einkorn (Nesbitt Timopheev’s wheat (Triticum araraticum Jakubz. [syn. 2001:46–48; Valkoun 2001; Valkoun, Waines, and T. timopheevi Zhuk. subsp. araraticum]) or possibly from Konopka 1998:295; Zohary and Hopf 2000:37). wild or cultivated emmer wheat (T. dicoccoides Körn and Heun et al. (1997, 2008) undertook AFLP analy- T. dicoccum). Wild T. dicoccoides occurs today through- sis of DNA obtained from a large number of samples out the Fertile Crescent, with a concentration in the of wild and cultivated einkorn from sites between central and southern Levant, whereas T. araraticum the Balkans and the Caucasus (mainly from within extends around the northern and eastern sectors of the northern Fertile Crescent), and concluded that the crescent from southeastern Turkey to the southern einkorn was monophyletic and had probably been areas o f origin o f t h e c ro p s a n d d o m e s t i c animals 77 domesticated in the Karacadağ mountains a short dis- Vollan [2008:449]) also spread west into eastern and tance east of those archaeological sites. A modification central Europe, where there is evidence of two-grain of this hypothesis was suggested by Kilian et al. (2007) (as well as one-grain) einkorn in the Neolithic and who used AFPL and haplotype data to investigate the Bronze Age (Köhler-Schneider 2003:109; Kreuz einkorn domestication and proposed a “dispersed- and Boenke 2002:238), but it did not long survive as a specific model” of multiple “domestication events” in cultivated crop in Southwest Asia or Europe. As it has a larger area of southeastern Turkey. However, as was been identified at Jeitun, it evidently also spread east pointed out in the preceding section, the use of AFLP into western Central Asia. data to infer crop origins by constructing neighbor- These advances in understanding the begin- joining trees can produce misleading results. Nor did nings of einkorn cultivation suggest that the one- and Heun et al. (1997) distinguish taxonomically between two-grain forms may have been separately domes- one-grain and two-grain forms of einkorn, which may ticated in Southwest Asia, but much more genetic have been separately domesticated. and archaeobotanical evidence is needed before the One- and two-grain einkorn have in the past question of where and how frequently einkorn was been classified as separate subspecies ofTriticum boeoti- domesticated in the region can be resolved. It is cum: subsp. aegilopoides (Link) Schiem. (one-grain) interesting that both forms were present at early Neo- and subsp. thaoudar Reuter ex Hausskn. (two-grain), lithic Jeitun, but highly improbable that either was or even as different species: Triticum aegilopoides (Link) independently domesticated in Central Asia. Wild Bal. and T. thaoudar Reuter. Whereas the one-grain einkorn has never been recorded east of the Caspian form occurs mainly in the northwestern part of the Sea, and it is unlikely that its range extended into range of wild einkorn in western Anatolia and around Turkmenistan even during the climatic fluctuations the Aegean, where it occupies what are probably sec- of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. Had it ondary habitats, the more robust two-grain form is done so, it would probably have survived in isolated found throughout the northern Fertile Crescent, with refugia in the intermontane valleys and piedmont of intermediate forms also present, especially in central the Kopetdag, as a component of woodland and/or Anatolia, the Caucasus, and northwestern Iran (Kreuz steppe vegetation. In its main area of distribution in and Boenke 2002:234; Zohary and Hopf 2000:36). Southwest Asia it commonly occurs as a component of The earliest records of domesticated one-grain oak woodlands; the extinction of oak in the Kopetdag einkorn come from sites in the northern Levant and during the Quaternary period (this volume, p. 19), southeastern Anatolia such as Tell el Kharkh, Nevalı and the absence of native species of Quercus in Turk- Çori, and Cafer Höyük during the 9th millennium menistan today (Nikitin and Geldykhanov 1988:140), cal. BCE, in the Early PPNB (de Moulins 1997:52, may partly account for the absence of wild einkorn 68; Pasternak 1998; Willcox 2005:536–37; 2007:24). east of the Caspian. In contrast, definite evidence of the domestic two- The possibility that wild einkorn might have grain form—which could derive either from Triticum been present in southern Turkmenistan in the Early boeoticum subsp. thaudar or possibly from T. urartu Holocene and have been domesticated locally can- (Fuller 2007:8)—is restricted to two much later sites in not be totally excluded, but the weight of evidence is northern Syria: Tell Sabi Abyad I, where the grain was heavily against that hypothesis. Like the other type found in a late Neolithic/early Chalcolithic context of glume wheat found at Jeitun, the presence there of (van Zeist 1999), and Kosak Shamali, where the grain einkorn in both the two-grain and the one-grain form was recovered from burnt storage structures of the is much more likely to be the result of their introduc- Chalcolithic (Ubaid) period (Willcox 2003). There tion, as domestic crops, from Southwest Asia. So too is no evidence that two-grain einkorn continued to is the presence of the free-threshing Triticum aestivum/ be cultivated at Sabi Abyad in later periods, and van durum wheat that has been tentatively identified in Zeist suggested that it may have been domesticated in three samples recovered there (this volume, p. 153); southeastern Anatolia, where the wild form is abun- and see Zohary and Hopf 2000:42–59 for a discussion dant, and introduced as a crop into northern Syria, of the distribution and origin in Southwest Asia of the where it was only cultivated for a short period and then tetraploid durum-type and hexaploid aestivum-type abandoned. It (or domesticated T. urartu rather than wheats). Finally, it is worth noting that the case for two-grain einkorn according to Heun, Haldorsen, and einkorn having been introduced during the Neolithic 78 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia from Southwest Asia as an already domesticated crop is small size and the absence of pig bones in the lowest paralleled by evidence from Mehrgarh in Baluchistan. layers pointed to their being domesticated, although Domestic einkorn has been reported as present there not at Anau itself; he thought that pigs might have been (with the barley referred to above) in the earliest domesticated elsewhere in “Turkestan” or imported as levels (Costantini 1983:31; Jarrige 2007–08:142), and tamed animals “from Iran or India” (ibid., p. 357). it is most unlikely to have been domesticated locally Much farther east at the Neolithic site of Ayakagytma because the site lies far to the southeast of the known in the Kyzylkum desert, a few pig bones have been re- range of wild einkorn in the northern Fertile Crescent covered from both the older (c. 6000–5500 cal. BCE) and Turkey. and the more recent (c. 4000–3000 cal. BCE) levels (Lasota-Moskalewska et al. 2006:208, and this volume, p. 67). The bones are thought to be from domestic The Domestic Animals and Their pigs, but in view of their poor preservation and the Wild Progenitors very small sample, this should be regarded as highly speculative. Thus, there is no conclusive evidence at The only domesticated animals whose remains present of domestic pigs in the region during the early have been recovered during excavations at Jeitun are Neolithic. Those reported from the IB and later levels the dog and two ungulate species, goat and sheep. The at Anau and at other Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic sites other domesticated ungulates associated with prehis- in southern Turkmenistan, such as Dashlidji (Masson toric agricultural and pastoral economies in Central and Sarianidi 1972:61), are probably descendants of Asia—pigs, cattle, horses, and camels—appear later in already domesticated pigs introduced from farther southern Turkmenistan than the Early Jeitun phase, west, in and beyond Iran, although local interbreeding although all of them were present as wild animals in with wild boar may have occurred subsequently. the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene. Evidence of All domestic pigs are descended from Sus scrofa, them in the archaeological record, and the question with the possible exception of the Sulawesi warty pig of whether any of them may have been domesticated which according to Groves (2007:27–29) may have locally, is first reviewed, before the three domestic been domesticated from Sus celebensis. Local domesti- animals recorded at Jeitun are discussed. cation of wild boar in western Central Asia in the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene cannot be excluded on zoogeographical grounds, but without more definite Pigs evidence of domestic pigs at Mesolithic or early Neo- lithic sites in the region that hypothesis lacks support. Remains of pig have been recovered at Jeitun, This contrasts with early zooarchaeological evidence but, on the grounds of their relative rarity and the of pig domestication in the northern Levant and east- large size of the molar teeth found, they are thought ern Anatolia. There pigs appear to have been under to derive from the wild boar (Sus scrofa), which prob- some degree of human management by the Late/ ably inhabited thickets of tamarisk and reeds along Final PPNB1 at the sites of Çayönü (Ervynck et al. 2001; the Kara Su (this volume, p. 177; Kasparov 1992:57; Hongo and Meadow 2000; Hongo et al. 2002:154–57) Shevchenko 1960:466, 470–73). Farther west in the and Hallan Çemi (Redding 2005:43–44; Rosenberg Iranian Caspian lowland, bones of wild boar have et al. 1998), and perhaps already morphometrically been reported from Mesolithic levels at the sites of Ali domesticated at Hayaz, Halula, and Gürcütepe (Peters Tappeh and Ghar-i Kamarband (Uerpmann and Frey et al. 1999:41; Peters, von den Driesch, and Helmer 1981:148, 151). No definite evidence of domestic pigs 2005:113–14). By early in the Pottery Neolithic period has been reported from any Jeitun-Culture site, but (after c. 6500 cal. BCE) domestic pigs were present at by the Early Chalcolithic period domestic pigs—much many more sites around the Fertile Crescent, at least smaller than modern wild boar—were evidently being a millennium before there is evidence of them in raised at Anau North (during the IB1 and IB2 phases, western Central Asia, possibly in the early Neolithic c. 4000 –3500 cal. BCE: Moore, Ermolova, and Forsten at Ayakagytma and more definitely in the Chalcolithic 2003:155–56). This accords with Duerst’s conclusion at Anau North. (1908:355–58), from his study of over 100 pig bones Recent genetic research on the phylogeography excavated at Anau North in 1904, that their generally of the genus Sus does not point to western Central Asia areas o f origin o f t h e c ro p s a n d d o m e s t i c animals 79 as a probable area of pig domestication. Analyses of mi- may have been locally domesticated (an hypothesis tochondrial DNA (mt DNA) and nuclear genes of wild that awaits further investigation through analysis of boar and domestic pig populations in Asia and Europe larger bone assemblages more recently excavated at suggest that pigs were domesticated independently in the site). The presence of cattle identified as domestic eastern and western Eurasia, with the probability that diminishes rapidly from c. 5600 cal. BCE and ceases several domestications from distinct wild lineages of during the final phase of occupation, possibly as a Sus scrofa occurred in both regions (Albarella, Dob- result of climatic changes starting in the late Neo- ney, and Rowley-Conwy 2006:218–19; Giuffra et al. lithic and continuing to the beginning of the Bronze 2000; Kijas and Andersson 2001; Larson et al. 2005, Age (Lasota-Moskalewska et al. 2006:208–15, and see 2007a, 2007b). But to confirm and elaborate this pat- below, p. 81). tern, more extensive sampling of wild and domestic The aurochs (Bos primigenius) is the wild pro- pig populations in Eurasia, including Central Asia, genitor of all domestic cattle. Three subspecies are is needed, together with systematic examination and recognized: Eurasian B. p. primigenius, South Asian B. dating of existing zooarchaeological evidence (cf., for p. namadicus, and North African B. p. africanus (syn. China, Flad, Yuan, and Li 2007:168–69, 192; Yuan and opisthonomous). Domestic cattle are conventionally di- Flad 2002), and, where feasible, analyses of DNA from vided into breeds with and without humps. The former ancient specimens (Larson et al. 2007b). (indicine or zebu) breeds are thought to descend from the South Asian subspecies, which is often referred to as Bos indicus, and the latter (taurine) breeds from the Cattle Eurasian subspecies, often referred to as Bos taurus (Clutton-Brock 1999:27, 84–85; Grigson 1985). No remains of domestic (or wild) cattle have Aurochsen are now extinct in the wild, but in the been found at Jeitun. Nor have domestic cattle been Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene they ranged across reported from other Jeitun-Culture sites, with the ex- temperate and tropical Eurasia and North Africa ceptions of Chagylly in the eastern region and Chopan where they browsed and grazed in forests, woodlands, in the central region of the Kopetdag piedmont where and open-canopy shrub vegetation. Many aurochs they were found in Middle- and Late-Jeitun levels bones were found in the Mesolithic levels at Ali Tappeh (Berdiev 1966:26–27). In the subsequent Early Chal- and Ghar-i Kamarband in the Iranian Caspian lowland colithic period they are relatively abundant (remains (Coon 1951:44; McBurney 1968:396–97; Uerpmann of at least 22 individuals) at the small site of Dashlidji and Frey 1981:148, 151), and although Coon speculated in the Geoksyur oasis, part of the ancient delta of the (ibid., p. 50) that the Bos bones he recovered from Neo- Tedzhen river (Masson and Sarianidi 1972:58–61), lithic levels at the latter site were from domesticated which may imply that domestic cattle played an in- oxen, Uerpmann and Frey pointed out (ibid., p. 147) creasing economic role as settlements based on irriga- that the bones could not be distinguished from those tion agriculture developed in the oasis through the of aurochs in the Mesolithic levels. Duerst concluded Chalcolithic. There is also evidence of cattle breed- (1908:359–69), from his study of bovid bones from ing at the large piedmont sites of Ilgynly-depe by the Anau North, that the cattle remains from the Early Middle Chalcolithic period and at Altyn-depe by the Chalcolithic IA stratum (now dated to c. 4500–4000 Early Bronze Age (Kasparov 1994:145–47). cal. BCE) derived from what he termed the Asiatic Bones identified as domestic cattle, and a smaller form of Bos primigenius, which he referred to as Bos number probably from wild cattle (aurochsen), have namadicus (without implying that they were humped recently been found at the Neolithic site of Ayak- cattle of zebu type). He also showed that the smaller agytma in the Kyzylkum. They are more numerous and more numerous bovid bones found in the upper in the small animal-bone assemblage so far analyzed layers of the site were from domestic cattle which, he than any of the other taxa identified (except camels), hypothesized, might first have been domesticated lo- and more abundant in the earlier than the later phase cally as a long-horned breed and then underwent a of occupation (Lasota-Moskalewska et al. 2006:208). It reduction in size, or, alternatively, that the smaller ani- is suggested that the wild cattle were regularly hunted mals “may have reached Anau with. . .other imported only during the earliest occupation of the site (sub- domestic animals” (ibid., p. 369). More recent exami- unit 5c, c. 6000–5700 cal. BCE) and that some of them nation of new bone assemblages from Anau North ex- 80 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia cavated between 1978 and 1982 produced many bones northern Levant, including Çayönü, Hayaz, Gürcüt- of large long-horned cattle from the IA stratum and epe, Halula, Tell es Sinn, Bouqras, and Ras Shamra later layers, as well as evidence of some smaller cattle, (Helmer et al. 1998; Hongo et al. 2002:160–62; Öksüz all of which are interpreted as domestic (Ermolova 2000; Peters et al. 1999; Saña Seguί 2000). It is even 1985; Moore, Ermolova, and Forsten 2003:155–56). possible that cattle were undergoing domestication by The prevalence of large cattle at Anau is attributed by the Early PPNB at other sites in the northern Levant Moore et al. to diversity in the domesticated popula- such as Dja’de (Helmer et al. 2005:92). tion rather than to the occurrence of wild cattle, and The fact that domestic cattle are present at there is no evidence of a progressive shift through time Middle and Late/Final PPNB sites in the northern from larger to smaller bovid metatacarpal bones, such Levant more than a millennium before they appear as would suggest local domestication. It is possible at Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in southern Turk- that the assemblage represents a mixed population menistan, coupled with the genetic evidence that of introduced (domestic) cattle and (hunted) wild au- identifies Southwest rather than Central Asia as a rochs, and, regardless of that possibility, it is probable probable center of aurochs domestication, suggests that domestic cattle became an increasingly important that domestic cattle spread to Turkmenistan in the component of the local agro-pastoral economy from latter part of the Neolithic from the Fertile Crescent. early in the Chalcolithic period. If so, their introduction probably took place across If we turn from the very limited evidence of northern Iran, but at present the absence of securely domestic cattle in Neolithic/Chalcolithic southern identified and well-dated finds of domestic cattle at Turkmenistan to consider the results of recent genetic Neolithic sites in northern Iran means that this sup- analyses of modern breeds in Eurasia and Africa, the position must remain tentative. likelihood of cattle having been independently domes- The lack of any definite evidence that aurochsen ticated in western Central Asia diminishes. Analyses of were independently domesticated in western Central mtDNA, nuclear microsatellites, and Y-chromosome Asia contrasts with the situation south of the Hindu markers from present-day breeds in Africa, India, Kush and Afghan plateau at the site of Mehrgarh in and Europe have revealed a very ancient divergence Baluchistan. Analysis by Meadow (1993:304–13) of (c. 200,000 years ago) between taurine and indicine Bos remains from the aceramic Period I and ceramic cattle, and significant clustering of variance into three Period II levels at Mehrgarh demonstrated a gradual continental groups. This implies that distinct ancestral increase between c. 7000 and c. 5000 cal. BCE in the populations of aurochsen were independently domes- proportion of cattle in the bone assemblages, and a de- ticated in two, possibly three regions: humped cattle crease in their size. He interpreted this as evidence of in South Asia, humpless cattle in Southwest Asia (the a change from predominantly wild to predominantly principal source of European cattle), and perhaps also domestic cattle of zebu type and thus of local domes- taurine cattle in North Africa where, however, there is tication of “what is today called Bos indicus” (Meadow evidence of admixture of taurine and indicine compo- 1993:310), i.e., the South Asian subspecies Bos primige- nents (Bradley and Magee 2006; Bradley et al. 1996; nius namadicus. Cattle of zebu type may also have been Hanotte et al. 2002; Kim et al. 2003; Loftus et al. 1994; domesticated farther east in South Asia (Fuller 2006: MacHugh et al. 1997; Troy et al. 2001). The genetic 30), a possibility strongly reinforced by recent analyses data presently available do not support a hypothesis of mtDNA diversity in zebu cattle that have identified of independent cattle domestication in Central Asia, two distinct haplogroups in the Indian subcontinent but the possibility that aurochsen were domesticated (Baig et al. 2005; Magee, Mannen, and Bradley 2007; in the eastern part of their range in the arid interior Chen et al. 2010). of Asia should not be completely excluded. In the Southwest Asian Fertile Crescent shifts toward increasing numbers of small cattle in bone Equids and Camels assemblages at Neolithic sites, as well as evidence of earlier killing of the animals, suggest that the domes- No remains of wild or domestic equids or cam- tication process was underway by c. 8000 cal. BCE in els have been found at Jeitun. Shevchenko (1960:465) the Middle PPNB and that by the Late/Final PPNB1 tentatively identified onager or kulan Equus( hemio- domestic cattle were present at many sites in the nus kulan, this volume, p. 14) from one fragment of areas o f origin o f t h e c ro p s a n d d o m e s t i c animals 81 bone, but subsequent osteoarchaeological research 75% in units 4 and 2 (4000–3000 cal. BCE). It is sug- at the site has not yielded any onager bones (Kasp- gested that the camels were “most probably if not fully arov 1992:73; this volume, p. 176). Nor have remains domesticated” or “at least tamed,” and that the great of onager been found at any other Jeitun-Culture increase in their number by the end of the occupa- sites with the exception of Chagylly where they are tion, when they had “completely supplanted cattle and represented by a few bones that increase in number horse,” was probably due to climatic changes (ibid., p. from the Middle- to the Late-Jeitun levels (Berdiev 215, and see below). 1966:27; Kasparov 1994:148). Onagers appear in In his study of equid and camel bones from Anau Chalcolithic bone assemblages at the eastern pied- North on the Kopetdag piedmont, Duerst (1908:384– mont sites of Ilgynly-depe and Altyn-depe, and Kasp- 99, 401–31) attributed the former to the domestic arov (1994:148) suggested that their earlier scarcity horse (Equus caballus) and the latter tentatively to in the Neolithic may have been due to more humid the domestic Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus). climatic conditions in the 6th millennium BCE to Whereas horse bones were abundant and present in which they were less well adapted than to the more all the layers of the site, only two camel bones were arid climate of the Chalcolithic period when they found. They occurred in the highest layers, and Du- were a major hunted prey. He implied too that this erst assumed that the (probably Bactrian) camel was may account for the scarcity of onager bones in the introduced late as a domestic animal “from Bactriana Mesolithic and Neolithic levels at the Jebel and Dam or the Iranian plateau” (ibid., p. 384). His identifica- Dam Cheshme rockshelters in the Bolshoi Balkhan tion of domestic horse at Anau was later disputed by massif reported by Tsalkin (1956:220). Onager bones several authors, most recently by Forsten (2000) who were also present only in small numbers at the Meso- examined some of Duerst’s original specimens and lithic sites of Ghar-i Kamarband and Ali Tappeh in concluded that the bones and teeth were from onager the Iranian Caspian lowland (Uerpmann and Frey rather than horse (Moore et al. 2003:157–59). Since 1981:148, 151). Duerst’s time, a few more camel bones have been Equid and camel bones are represented in the recovered from excavations at Anau and identified by animal-bone assemblage from Ayakagytma in the Ermolova (1985:86) as from the Bactrian rather than Kyzylkum in both the older and the more recent the dromedary, although it is unclear whether the levels. Whether the equid remains are from horse or remains represent hunted animals or isolated finds of onager (“half-ass”), or both, could not be determined domesticated camels (Moore et al. 2003:157). because of the poor preservation of the bones. They The paucity of archaeologically recovered equid are most abundant in the oldest stratigraphic unit (5c, and camel bones from Neolithic sites in western Cen- c. 6000–5700 cal. BCE), diminish thereafter, and are tral Asia may in part be due to the general lack of not represented in the final phase of occupation (unit zooarchaeological research. But it may also imply that 2). This decline parallels that of cattle (referred to wild onagers, horses, and camels were not abundant above) and may be related to climatic changes. Lasota- or commonly hunted at that time, perhaps as a result Moskalewska et al. (2006:215) infer that the horses of the onset of wetter and warmer conditions around (or half-asses) were “if not fully domesticated, then at 6000 cal. BCE at the beginning of the Climatic Opti- least tamed.” However, given the very poor preserva- mum when populations of these wild herbivores, es- tion of the remains and the relatively small number of pecially onagers and camels which are highly adapted equid bones identified (179), the inference seems very to desert environments, probably declined. It is pos- speculative. An alternative hypothesis that the equids sible that changes in the relative abundance of cattle, were hunted appears more plausible. equid, and particularly camel remains between c. Camels comprise the largest taxon in the Ayak- 6000 and 3000 cal. BCE at Ayakagytma reflects oscil- agytma animal-bone assemblage (490 identified lations between relatively warm, wet conditions dur- bones) and they are present in all the stratigraphic ing the Climatic Optimum and cooler, drier phases units. In contrast to the cattle and equids, camel bones such as the one that occurred between c. 4800 and increase markedly from the middle of unit 5b at c. 4400 cal. BCE (this volume, p. 26), but without more 5600 cal. BCE to over 60% of all animal remains by the detailed local palaeoenvironmental evidence for the end of the early Neolithic Dariasai phase and, after the mid Holocene than is available at present that specu- settlement hiatus from c. 5400–4000 cal. BCE, to over lation cannot be tested. In Turkmenistan, bones of 82 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia what are believed to be wild horses do not appear in Pleistocene/Early Holocene. There is archaeological archaeological contexts until the Middle Chalcolithic, evidence that horses were being exploited intensively for example at sites in the Geoksyur oasis (Masson and for food and other purposes at such sites as Dereivka Sarianidi 1972:69); and the earliest reliable evidence in the Ukraine and Botai in Kazakhstan by c. 3500 of domestic horses dates to the end of the 3rd millen- cal. BCE, but whether the remains represent wild or nium BCE (Ermolova 1983). domestic horses has been uncertain, largely because West of Turkmenistan on the north Iranian cen- it is difficult to establish robust zooarchaeological cri- tral plateau, three sites on the Qazvin plain, Zaghe, teria for distinguishing between wild, captive, tamed, Ghabristan, and Sagzabad, provide evidence of the and domesticated horses (Clutton-Brock 1992:54–55; exploitation of (mainly wild) equids from the Late Levine 1999a, 1999b; Olsen 2003, 2006a, 2006b). Neolithic to the Iron Age (Mashkour 2002, 2003). Now a fresh approach to the problem based on three Remains of onager dominate the equid-bone assem- independent lines of evidence—metrical analysis of blages at all three sites, but another (now extinct) wild metacarpal bones, examination of damage to mouth equid, Equus hydruntinus (Clutton-Brock 1999:115), skeletal tissues caused by the use of bridles, and which inhabited Southwest Asia and southern Eu- organic-residue analysis of potsherds indicating that rope from Palaeolithic to Neolithic times, has also both horse meat and milk were processed—has pro- been identified in the assemblages, thus extending its vided strong evidence that some at least of the Botai known prehistoric range farther east and its survival horses were closely managed, milked, and possibly into the Iron Age. Some of the equid bones from the ridden (Outram et al. 2009). Neolithic and Chalcolithic levels in the Qazvin sites In the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene the have “caballine” features which suggest that horses range of wild horses probably extended south of the might possibly have been domesticated locally on the steppe zone into the deserts of Central Asia, where Iranian plateau. The domestic ass or donkey (Equus they would have overlapped with the range of the asinus) is also present by the Chalcolithic period, onager which is better adapted to arid conditions probably having been introduced from the Fertile (Uerpmann 1987:34). However, horse populations Crescent. Far to the east in northern China, remains would have been smaller there, especially in the des- of wild horses have been found at 28 Palaeolithic ert lowlands, than farther north in the center of their sites, but there is very little evidence of horse bones range. In Central Asia they may have been more at Chinese Neolithic sites, none of it incontestably numerous and more intensively hunted in montane of domestic horses, and it is not until c. 1400 BCE in than in lowland desert habitats: for example, remains the Late Shang dynasty that definitely domesticated of wild horses dominate the bone assemblage in the horses are present in the middle and lower Huang-ho Upper Palaeolithic horizons at the hunting-camp site valley, probably introduced from the northwest out of of Shugnou in eastern Tajikistan (Davis and Ranov Central Asia (Flad, Yuan, and Li 2007:169, 194; Yuan 1999:191; Vishnyatsky 1999:93–94; this volume, p. 54), and Flad 2006). and there are (inadequately documented) reports The loci of the initial domestications of horses of Equus remains in the levels assigned to the Upper and camels remain uncertain. Analyses of mtDNA Palaeolithic at the Kara Kamar and Aq Kupruk II sequences from samples of living and fossil horses rockshelters in northern Afghanistan (Coon 1957:230; have revealed a high degree of genetic variation in Dupree 1972:77). domestic breeds which could imply that wild horses Little is definitely known about the ancestry and were separately domesticated many times across an domestication of the two-humped and one-humped extensive area, but it also possible that initial do- camels, the Bactrian and the dromedary. Small herds mestication was more restricted in time and space, of wild camels with two humps that may represent and that wild horses were later incorporated into the progenitor of the domestic Bactrian survive in domestic herds as the practice of horse breeding the Gobi desert. Named Camelus ferus, they are often spread (Jansen et al. 2002; Levine 2006; Lister et al. assumed to be a remnant population of the ancestral 1998; Vilà et al. 2001, Vilà, Leonard, and Beja-Pereira wild camel, but it has been suggested that they might 2006). In any case, it seems certain that horses were be feral descendants of domestic camels (Clutton- domesticated in the Eurasian steppe zone where Brock 1999:156; Mason 1984:108). C. ferus probably the wild progenitor (Equus ferus) ranged in the Late inhabited most of Central Asia, including the Kara- areas o f origin o f t h e c ro p s a n d d o m e s t i c animals 83 kum and Kyzylkum deserts, in the Late Pleistocene/ the site of Tell Abraq, c. 900–800 BCE). The domestic Early Holocene, and Mason states that its former dromedary subsequently spread across Southwest distribution extended into southern Russia, Iran, and Asia, used mainly as a pack animal and in warfare, Afghanistan. and may only have reached Central Asia in the first Bulliet (1975:48–49) suggested that the Bactrian millennium AD, where it, and hybrids between it and camel may have been domesticated on the borders of the Bactrian, gradually displaced the latter as the pre- Iran and Turkmenistan several centuries prior to 2500 ferred pack animal on the Silk Route to China (Bulliet BCE. The earliest direct evidence of domesticated 1975:168–71; Köhler-Rollefson 1996:287–88). It was Bactrians (apart from the inconclusively identified re- also integrated into the agro-pastoral economy, and is mains from Anau in Turkmenistan and the as yet insuf- still bred and milked in the Karakum desert. ficiently documented camel bones from Ayakagytma We can now turn from the domesticated ungu- in Uzbekistan, see above) comes from the large 3rd- lates whose presence in southern Turkmenistan post- millennium BCE site of Shahr-i Sokhta in east-central dates the Early Jeitun phase to the two herd animals, Iran, where remains were found of five camel bones, goat and sheep, whose remains have been recovered pieces of camel dung, and fibers of what was thought at Jeitun. Goat and sheep (caprine) bones are the to be camel hair in fragments of woven cloth (Bökönyi most abundant class of animal remains at Jeitun (this and Bartosiewicz 2000:117; Compagnoni and Tosi 1978; volume, pp. 175–77; Kasparov 1992:51), and they are Salvatori and Tosi 2006). Also, in the 3rd-millennium well represented at other Jeitun-Culture sites. Both BCE levels of Sialk III near Esfahan, a representation played a major role in Neolithic subsistence, and the of what may be a two-humped camel was found on a question of whether they may have been domesticated pottery sherd (Zeuner 1963:359). In Turkmenistan, locally is critically important for our understanding clay models of 4-wheeled carts pulled by camels (and of the origins of the agro-pastoral economy of the less frequently by horses) have been found at Early Jeitun Culture. and Middle Bronze Age sites on the eastern piedmont, for example at Altyn-depe (Masson and Sarianidi 1972:109, 120, Plate 36), indicating that by c. 2000 Goats BCE both had been incorporated as draft animals into systems of agricultural production. Also, by the end of Many living species of wild goats have been the 3rd millennium, representations of domesticated recognized taxonomically, but only three (interfer- Bactrian camels appear in the archaeological record of tile) groups in the genus Capra are implicated in the Margiana (the oasis settlements of the Murghab delta) ancestry of domestic goats—the bezoar or pasang in the form of terracotta figurines and an intricately (C. aegagrus), the markhor (C. falconeri), and the ibex carved steatite amulet from the site of Togolok 21 (Hie- (C. ibex). The bezoar (including subspecies) is recog- bert 1994b:378–79; Moore et al. 1994:425). nized as the main progenitor, and the markhor and The dromedary (Camelus dromedarius) is an im- ibex may have contributed, after the domestication portant domestic animal in western Central Asia of the bezoar, to the ancestry of certain domestic today, but there is no evidence that it was present breeds in, respectively, northwestern South Asia and in prehistoric times. Finer-limbed and faster than northeastern Africa (Clutton-Brock 1999:76–78; Har- the Bactrian, it is well adapted to the hot deserts of ris 1962; Manceau et al. 1999; Mannen, Nagata, and Southwest Asia and North Africa, and although its Tsuji 2001; Takada et al. 1997). All species of Capra are area of origin remains uncertain, it was probably well adapted to rocky high-mountain habitats, and the first domesticated in the Arabian peninsula (Bulliet bezoar is the most widely distributed of them, with a 1975:42–48; Mason 1984:109; Uerpmann and Uerp- range in recent centuries that extended from Turkey mann 2002:258; Zeuner 1963:340–44). Dromedary to western Central Asia (Fig. 1.16). Although only bones have been found at several prehistoric sites in small populations of the bezoar survive in Turkmeni- southeastern Arabia and analyzed by Uerpmann and stan today (this volume, pp. 12–13), it was formerly Uerpmann (2002), who concluded that the earlier more widespread there (and in northern Iran and Neolithic and Bronze Age finds came from wild cam- northern Afghanistan), so the possibility that goats els that were probably hunted, whereas remains of were domesticated locally cannot be excluded on domestic camels did not appear until the Iron Age (at zoogeographical grounds. 84 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

There is no doubt that wild bezoar goats were at the site, Markov inferred that layer 4 was contem- hunted in western Central Asia prior to and during poraneous with the occupation of Jeitun and that it the Neolithic, but their presence has only been docu- represented the beginning of the Neolithic. Assuming mented at a few sites. This may partly be due to the dif- Tsalkin’s identifications were sound, this correlation, ficulty of distinguishing between the remains of wild if correct, suggests that the presence of domestic goats and domestic goats. The customary morphological in layer 4 may be the result of contact with goat (and criteria for recognizing domestication are reductions sheep) herders of the Early Jeitun Culture rather in the size of the limb bones and the appearance of than of local domestication of wild bezoar goats. shorter, more rounded and sometimes twisted horn However, Masson and Sarianidi (1972:170) disagreed cores (Clutton-Brock 1999:78–79); and analysis of age with Markov’s correlation, believing instead that the and sex profiles can, when the evidence is adequate, (more recent) layer 3 was synchronous with Jeitun, demonstrate human management of herds preceding and therefore that domestic goats were present at DDC full domestication (Zeder 2001). Such criteria have 2 prior to the occupation of Jeitun and could have not been systematically applied in the examination of been domesticated there. But even if their correlation goat bones from sites in the region and it is therefore were correct, already domesticated goats could have difficult to determine the accuracy of reports of the reached the Bolshoi Balkhan massif from farther presence of domestic and/or wild goats. This applies west earlier than the foundation of Jeitun. Without a particularly to their reported presence in Mesolithic radiocarbon chronology for the sequence at DDC 2, and Neolithic levels at the sites of Jebel and Dam and more research on bone assemblages from other Dam Cheshme 2 (DDC 2) in the Bolshoi Balkhan early sites in the region, these uncertainties cannot be massif (Tsalkin 1956:221; Markov 1966a:123), Ghar-i resolved (and see this volume, pp. 217–18, for further Kamarband in the southern Caspian lowland (Coon discussion of the possible relations between the Jeitun- 1951:44–50; Uerpmann and Frey 1981:148), and Aq Culture and Bolshoi Balkhan sites). Kupruk I and II in northern Afghanistan (Perkins A more critical analysis of goat remains from 1972). These excavations were carried out before mod- Jeitun itself was undertaken by Kasparov (1992), using ern methods of osteoarchaeological analysis began to Tsalkin’s bone-size criteria for discriminating between be applied to bone assemblages, so the interpretations wild and domestic caprines. On this basis, Kasparov of the data contained in the published reports must (1992:51) concluded that some of the goat bones were be treated with caution. In particular, the suggestion from the wild bezoar, although most of them were that goats were locally domesticated at Ghar-i Ka- the remains of domestic goats. If correct, this implies marband during the Mesolithic (Coon 1951:49–50) that the inhabitants hunted wild goats, probably in should be regarded with great skepticism, as should the Kopetdag and/or Bolshoi Balkhan mountains, Perkins’ claim that both wild bezoar and domestic as well as pasturing domestic herds closer to Jeitun. goats were present at the Aq Kupruk sites (Meadow A few caprine bones of Neolithic age have also been 1989a:27–28). excavated at Ayakagytma in the Kyzylkum, but their The goat and sheep bones excavated by Oklad- poor preservation and small number (19 fragments) nikov at the Jebel rockshelter were examined by the prevented discrimination between goat and sheep. zoologist V. I. Tsalkin who concluded that, because All but one of the bones came from the early Neo- they were so poorly preserved, it was very difficult to lithic Dariasai phase (unit 5) dated to c. 6000–5500 judge whether they represented wild or domestic ani- cal. BCE, but none could be definitively identified as mals, although he tentatively concluded (1956:221), on Capra. They were interpreted as remains of domesti- the basis of the small sizes of the bones, that some of cated animals, except for one bone (in 5b) thought the specimens from levels 3 and 4 were from domes- to be from a wild sheep (Lasota-Moskalewska et al. tic goats. He also studied the bones from the DDC 2 2006:208–9). rockshelter, and according to the excavator (Markov At the later site of Anau North on the Kopetdag 1966a:123), he stated that some of the caprine bones piedmont small numbers of wild-goat bones have been from layer 4 were “indisputably” from domestic goats identified in the Chalcolithic IB and IIA strata, and (and some of those from layer 3 were “indisputably” there too remains of domestic goats are much more from domestic sheep). Although no radiocarbon abundant (Moore et al. 2003:155). Without more dates were obtained for the archaeological sequence extensive and detailed osteoarchaeological evidence areas o f origin o f t h e c ro p s a n d d o m e s t i c animals 85 from sites in western Central Asia, the question of The evidence that goats were domesticated in whether goats may have been domesticated locally southeastern Turkey and western Iran and were being cannot be resolved, but consideration of wider archae- kept at sites around the Fertile Crescent by 7000 cal. ological and genetic evidence suggests otherwise. BCE, long before they are present at Pottery Neolithic The earliest published zooarchaeological evi- sites in southern Turkmenistan some 1000 km east dence for probable goat domestication comes at present of the Zagros, shows that there was ample time for (2008) from two PPNB sites in the northern and east- domestic goats (and sheep) to have spread eastward ern Fertile Crescent: Nevalı Çori in the foothills of the across northern Iran during the millennium or more southern Taurus mountains in southeastern Turkey and that separates the PPNB sites of the Fertile Crescent Ganj Dareh in the central Zagros mountains in western from the PN sites on the Kopetdag piedmont. But Iran, both within the range of the wild progenitor (the to reach a more definite answer to the question of bezoar). The later PPNB site of Ali Kosh in the western whether goats are likely to have been independently foothills of the Zagros range south of Ganj Dareh pro- domesticated in western Central Asia, we need to vides early evidence for domestic goats at the margins of consider the results of recent genetic research on their the range of the bezoar. At Nevalı Çori, an assemblage origins and spread. of goat (and sheep) bones, characterized by more Several research groups have investigated females than males, a high proportion of immature mtDNA in domestic and wild goat populations across animals, and a trend toward smaller individuals, has much of Eurasia and northern Africa. Luikart et al. been recovered from levels that date to the Early PPNB,1 (2001) sampled 88 breeds of domestic goat, focusing suggesting that goats and sheep may have been kept on traditional “unimproved” breeds in remote rural and bred in southeastern Turkey by that time (Peters areas. Their sampling included 406 domestic goats et al. 1999:35–40). The assemblage of goat bones re- (none from Turkmenistan) and 14 wild goats of which covered at Ganj Dareh in the late 1960s and early 1970s 2 bezoars and 1 markhor were from Turkmenistan. has been re-analyzed and dated to c. 7900 cal. BCE by The results revealed three highly divergent maternal Zeder and Hesse (2000). They constructed sex-specific lineages, the largest of which (A) was widespread age profiles which showed that young male goats were in Southwest Asia, Europe, and Africa, whereas the selectively slaughtered and they concluded that the other two much smaller lineages (B and C) were de- animals, although morphologically wild, were man- tected respectively in southern and eastern Asia and aged rather than hunted. They suggested that the Ganj in central and eastern Europe. The authors inferred Dareh assemblage provided evidence of initial human that the three lineages had expanded at different management of goats and a transition from hunting periods, and they suggested that A corresponded to to herding, an interpretation originally proposed by the initial domestication of goats in the Fertile Cres- Hesse (1978), with which Hole (1996) and Legge (1996) cent and their outward expansion from about 10,000 concurred. In contrast, the goat remains from Ali Kosh, years ago, and that lineages C and B expanded about which are chronologically at least 500 years more recent 6000 and 2000 years ago and represented secondary than those at Ganj Dareh (Zeder and Hesse 2000:2257), expansions long after the initial dispersal of domestic represent, as Flannery originally argued, a morphologi- goats by people. Subsequently, the existence of three cally domesticated population characterized by changes more lineages was recognized, now labeled D, F, and in horn shape (Hole, Flannery, and Neely 1969:270 –78). G and referred to as mitochondrial haplogroups by By the Late PPNB there is widespread evidence for Naderi et al. (2007:2). Further research by Luikart et domesticated goats (and sheep) at sites in the north- al. (2006) on mtDNA, Y-chromosome, and microsat- ern Fertile Crescent such as Çayönü, Hayaz, Gritille, ellite markers for domestic goats and wild species of and Gürcütepe, as indicated by both the diminution Capra supported the established view that the bezoar in size and the increased representation of female was the principal progenitor of domestic goats and re- animals evident in the bone assemblages (Hongo et al. inforced the evidence for three main lineages, as well 2002:157–60; 2005; Peters, von den Driesch, and Hel- as the inference that goats were initially domesticated mer 2005:97–98). By the beginning of the Final PPNB in the Fertile Crescent. domestic goats and sheep are present throughout the Since then, Naderi et al. (2008) analyzed mtDNA Fertile Crescent, integrated into the now established from 473 wild-bezoar samples collected over the whole agro-pastoral economy (Harris 2002a:70–78). present range of the species and compared the results 86 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia with the known genetic diversity of domestic goats. All goat domestication in western Central Asia. Further- the mtDNA haplogroups found in domestic goats were more, the credibility of inferring past conditions from also found in the bezoar samples, and the geographi- present-day data is strengthened by the observation cal distribution of these haplogroups in the bezoars that none of the bezoar haplogroups apparently un- allowed the probable location of independent centers derwent so much population reduction that the pres- of goat domestication to be determined. Naderi et al. ent genetic structures would not reflect those of the inferred that the most probable area of origin of the Early Holocene (Naderi et al. 2008:17,660). However, A haplogroup (to which 90% of domestic goat haplo- there are limits to the inferences that can plausibly be types belong) is eastern Anatolia, where it is common drawn from the genetic data, and what is now needed is in wild bezoar populations, whereas the C haplogroup to test and elaborate the data with analyses of ancient predominates in the southern Zagros and the central DNA (aDNA) recovered from goat bones in Neolithic Iranian plateau (in Fars, Yadz, and Kerman prov- (and Mesolithic) sites. No such investigations have as inces). Estimated bezoar population growth rates were yet been undertaken in western Central Asia, but the found to be higher in the C haplogroup than in other feasibility of the technique has been demonstrated by haplogroups and Naderi et al. hypothesized that this analysis of aDNA from Neolithic and Chalcolithic/ reflected early “management” or “incipient domestica- Iron Age sites in southern France and northern Iran tion” of some bezoar populations in the central Zagros (Fernández et al. 2005, 2006; Mashkour, Fontugne, prior to their “true domestication”—which accords and Hatté 1999). In both investigations it proved pos- with Zeder and Hesse’s analysis of the goat bones from sible to relate the aDNA sequences to corresponding Ganj Dareh. haplogroups and to infer that in both cases the goats Naderi et al. (2008) concluded that goats were were descended from populations that originated in probably domesticated independently in eastern Ana- the Fertile Crescent. tolia and the southern Zagros/central Iranian plateau, that the former region contributed more than the latter to the modern goat gene pool, and that, despite very ex- Sheep tensive sampling of bezoars across Iran, no haplotypes were found that could have been domesticated in the All wild and domestic sheep are grouped in the eastern half of the central Iranian plateau or eastward genus Ovis but their classification is both confused of it—a conclusion that argues against a hypothesis of and confusing. In recent decades taxonomists have independent domestication in western Central Asia. tended to reduce the number of species and sub- Nor did Naderi et al. find any mtDNA evidence that species recognized, on the grounds that all extant would support an independent domestication of bezo- wild sheep are capable of interbreeding and because ars in the Indus valley region, for example at the site of genetic data have supplemented the morphological Mehrgarh where remains of very small goats presumed criteria on which many distinctions between taxa were to be domestic have been found in the earliest aceramic initially based (Nadler et al. 1973). Wild sheep can (Period I) levels, and where there is also evidence that be divided according to their diploid chromosome young goats were buried with humans (Lechevallier, numbers into four groups and seven species, all but Meadow, and Quivron 1982; Meadow 1993:310). The one of which (the American bighorn, O. canadensis) site is on the margins of the recent range of the bezoar are native to western and central Asia (Clutton-Brock and Meadow reported (ibid.) the presence of bones of 1999:69–72). The Asiatic mouflon O.( orientalis, dip- “some very large animals during Period IA [which sug- loid chromosome number 2n=54) is generally believed gests] that wild goats were also hunted at least until the to be the principal or only progenitor of all domestic end of that period.” Wild bezoars may well have been sheep. The so-called European mouflon (2n=54), hunted and domestic goats raised at Mehrgarh (as evi- which was formerly referred to as O. musimon but is dently happened at Neolithic Jeitun), but the mtDNA now usually classified asO. orientalis, survives in a feral evidence suggests that the domestic goats had spread state in the mountains of Corsica and Sardinia and is to the area from the Fertile Crescent, rather than been believed to be a descendant of domestic sheep origi- locally domesticated. nally introduced to the islands during the Neolithic The recent genetic research on goat domestica- (Poplin 1979). Two other species of Asiatic wild sheep, tion offers no support for a hypothesis of independent the argali (O. ammon, 2n=56) and the urial (O. vignei, areas o f origin o f t h e c ro p s a n d d o m e s t i c animals 87

2n=58), have been regarded as possible contributors third species of wild sheep, the argali, is larger than to the ancestry of domestic sheep (Ryder 1984:65–66; the urial and the mouflon and lives at higher altitudes Zeuner 1963:159–61), but their higher chromosome east of the range of the urial (Fig. 1.15). Its range numbers make this unlikely. extends eastward from beyond the upper Syrdarya Analyses of Ovis mtDNA by Hiendleder et al. valley through the Tien Shan and Altai mountains to (1998, 2002) also identify the Asiatic mouflon as the Mongolia and south to the Tibetan plateau and the probable ancestor of domestic sheep, and provide no Himalayas. evidence of contributions from either the urial or the The geographical pattern of adjacent but spa- argali. However, two wild hybrid populations of mouf- tially discreet ranges of the three main Asiatic spe- lons and urials have been described, one in the Elburz cies of wild sheep, from Turkey in the west to Tibet mountains of northern Iran and the other in Iranian in the east, is borne out by such osteoarchaeological Baluchistan. Their existence has been attributed to evidence as there is of the remains of wild sheep. the interbreeding of formerly separate populations Uerpmann (1987:126–32) documented the presence that came into contact as a result either of the melting of the Asiatic mouflon at some 40 Late Palaeolithic, of montane glacial barriers early in the Holocene (Na- Mesolithic, and Neolithic sites around the Fertile Cres- dler et al. 1973:118) or, more probably, of a reduction cent and in central Turkey, and also of the urial at four of forest barriers caused by increasing aridity during such sites farther east in northern Iran (Ali Tappeh the last two millennia coupled with more intensive and Ghar-i Kamarband), southern Turkmenistan exploitation of vegetation (Valdez, Nadler, and Bunch (Anau), and northern Afghanistan (Aq Kupruk). At 1978:68). These cases of natural hybridization in the the two Iranian sites fragments of horn cores typical wild show that urials could have interbred with mou- of the urial were found in Mesolithic contexts (Uerp- flons and contributed to the ancestry of some breeds mann 1987:130; Uerpmann and Frey 1981:153–55). of domestic sheep, although the available mtDNA data The small numbers of wild-sheep bones found at Anau do not support that possibility. came from the Chalcolithic IB and IIA strata and were Today the Asiatic mouflon survives in small greatly outnumbered by the bones of domestic sheep numbers in mountainous and hilly habitats from (Moore et al. 2003:155). Meadow (1989a) evaluated south-central Turkey to Armenia, south down the the sheep bone assemblages from Aq Kupruk I and II Zagros range, and east to the Elburz mountains south and concluded that Perkins’ (1972) identification of of the Caspian Sea (Fig. 1.15). In the Late Pleisto- the remains of wild urial sheep in the Upper Palaeoli- cene/Early Holocene its range, attested by remains thic (Kuprukian) levels was probably correct, but that found in archaeological sites, extended farther west his identification of domestic sheep in the “Neolithic” in central Turkey and farther southwest into the and later levels was not well founded. Remains of wild southern Levant, although apparently not east of sheep (unspecified, but presumably urial) were also the Elburz mountains into Turkmenistan (Uerp- found by Coon in what he interpreted as Mesolithic mann 1987:126–27). The range of the urial extends deposits at the site of Kara Kamar in northern Af- in mountain habitats from the eastern Elburz across ghanistan (Coon 1957:234). Turkmenistan and farther east and south in western In Turkmenistan remains of wild and domestic Central and South Asia (Fig. 1.15). The urial sheep of sheep have been reported from Mesolithic and Neo- the Bolshoi Balkhan mountains in Turkmenistan have lithic levels at the Bolshoi Balkhan rockshelters of Jebel been classified as a steppe subspecies,O. v. arkal, that and Dam Dam Cheshme 2. Tsalkin (1956:221) was un- formerly ranged across northern Turkmenistan to the able to determine, because of the poor preservation of delta of the Amudarya (this volume, p. 12). Uerpmann the bones, whether any of the sheep bones excavated (1987:130) argued that both the urial and the mouf- at Jebel were from domestic animals, but (as already lon had more restricted ranges in the Late Pleistocene mentioned) Markov (1966a:123) stated that Tsalkin and were more separated geographically then than reported some of the bones found in (Neolithic) layer they are today—a view that accords with Valdez et 3 at DDC 2 to be “indisputably” from domestic sheep. al.’s (1978) suggestion that the urial-mouflon hybrid Also, at Jeitun Kasparov (1992:51, 63–64) identified a populations in Iran may be a recent phenomenon few bones of wild urial sheep, all from adult animals, due to forest clearance having removed barriers to among the more abundant remains of domestic sheep the extension and overlapping of their ranges. The and concluded that the urial was hunted in the moun- 88 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

tains together with wild bezoar goats. In Uzbekistan, have emerged more recently there, two or three mil- in the early Neolithic (Dariasai phase) levels at Ayak- lennia after the domestication of sheep in Southwest agytma in the Kyzylkum, a single bone was tentatively Asia, possibly as a result of introducing wild mouflon identified as from a wild sheep, but all the other ewes or lambs into local domesticated stock (Tapio et caprine bones in the small assemblage were recorded al. 2006:1781). This interpretation of the pattern of as remains of domesticated sheep (and possibly goat). mtDNA diversity in Central Asian breeds should be re- Lasota-Moskalewska et al. (2006:215) found the appar- garded as provisional and it calls for further sampling ent lack of “interest in sheep (or goat) breeding. . .very in the region; but it does suggest that the presence of strange” and concluded that sheep did not have “major domestic sheep in Neolithic western Central Asia is economical importance” (and see Chapter 11 for gen- attributable to their gradual spread from Southwest eral discussion of the possible role of stockbreeding in Asia rather than the result of local domestication of the subsistence economy at Ayakagytma). the wild mouflon, the range of which probably did not The genetic evidence for the ancestry of domes- extend east of the Caspian. tic sheep (Hiendleder et al. 1998, 2002), together with The zooarchaeological evidence already dis- the distribution of their putative wild progenitors, cussed demonstrates that wild urial sheep continued identifies the Asiatic mouflon as the only, or at least to be hunted during the Neolithic when the herding the principal, ancestor, and the locus of domestication of domesticated sheep (and goats) became established as west of Turkmenistan within the natural range of as part of the agro-pastoral economy of the Jeitun Cul- the mouflon. This general conclusion was supported ture. This, together with the possibility (already men- by two further studies of ovine mtDNA. In an analysis tioned) that sheep as well as goats were kept and bred of 836 samples from domestic breeds and wild sheep in the Early PPNB at the site of Nevalı Çori, and defi- in Eurasia and Africa, Bruford and Townsend (2006) nite evidence of domestic sheep at many sites around found no evidence of urial or argali contributions to the Fertile Crescent by the Late PPNB, reinforces the present-day breeds, although they did emphasize the genetic evidence and leads to the conclusion that need for “further sampling of domestic populations the domestic sheep of Neolithic Turkmenistan were in Central Asia” and elsewhere, as well as “a detailed probably descendants of stock domesticated from the study of O. orientalis” (Bruford and Townsend 2006:311, mouflon in Southwest Asia that had spread to western 314). This recommendation was partly addressed by an Central Asia during the Pottery Neolithic period. So analysis by Tapio et al. (2006) that included data from too, perhaps, were the sheep recorded from the earli- Central Asia. They analyzed mt DNA from 48 breeds est aceramic and ceramic (Periods I and II) levels at and local varieties of domestic sheep sampled across a Mehrgarh in Baluchistan, although, as Meadow sug- wide area from northern Europe to east of the Caspian gested, it is possible that “local wild sheep. . . may have Sea, in a study that identified four divergent lineages been kept and bred, only to be replaced later in the (haplogroups A, B, C, and D) and thus confirmed the history of the region by western forms developed for findings of Hiendleder et al. (1998, 2002), Pedrosa et their wool and fat production” (1993:311). al. (2005), and Guo et al. (2005). Groups A, B, and C are indicative of population expansions and group D was found only in a single Dogs sheep in the Caucasus region. Groups A and B are interpreted as representing expansions westward and The dog is the third domestic animal, in ad- eastward out of Southwest Asia and the Caucasus ap- dition to goats and sheep, whose remains have been proximately 9000 years ago, which is broadly compat- found during excavations at Jeitun. Canid bones from ible with the archaeological evidence for initial sheep the site were first reported, following Masson’s excava- domestication in that region. Groups A, B, and C tions in 1956–58, by Shevchenko (1960:473–75) who were all found in the two Central Asian sample areas identified both wolf and domestic dog, but Kasparov, (one south of the Aral Sea and the other in the Altai who analyzed the animal remains recovered dur- mountain region). The presence of A and B in Central ing the 1989–91 excavations, identified all the (42) Asia is attributed to a gradual spread of domesticated Canis bones he examined as domestic dog (Kasparov sheep from Southwest to Central Asia, and group C, 1992:51, 71–73). Our excavations in 1993 and 1994 which occurs mainly in Central Asia, is thought to produced only two identifiable fragments of canid areas o f origin o f t h e c ro p s a n d d o m e s t i c animals 89 remains which did not permit differentiation between Results from an analysis of mtDNA from a sam- wolf, jackal, and dog (this volume, p. 177). Kasparov ple of 162 wolves from 27 populations in Eurasia and (1992) reported that many of the goat, sheep, gazelle, North America and of 140 dogs representing 67 breeds and other bones from Jeitun show signs of having been by Vilà et al. (1997) strongly supported the view that gnawed by dogs and he assumed that the dogs were the wolf was the exclusive ancestor of domestic dogs mainly used in hunting. During excavation in 1991, and showed that more than one wolf population had dog bones were found with a pottery vessel in a niche contributed to their ancestry, implying either that in a wall of one of the houses, suggesting deliberate wolves were domesticated independently in several burial of a domestic dog. Small clay figurines from parts of the world at different times or that there Jeitun that represent animals provide further, tentative was one initial domestication followed by episodes of evidence of domestic dogs (Fig. 8.12, color). Kasparov admixture between dogs and wolves. Subsequently, (2000) analyzed similar animal figurines from Late a larger-scale analysis of mtDNA from a worldwide Chalcolithic levels at the sites of Ilgynly-depe (70 sample of 654 domestic dogs undertaken by Savol- figurines), Altyn-depe (13), and Kara-depe (13) on the ainen et al. (2002) found that mtDNA diversity pres- Kopetdag piedmont east of Jeitun. Most of the identifi- ent in East Asian dogs was much greater than in dogs able figurines are of bulls, but Kasparov also identified from other areas, implying a common origin of all 7 as dogs, which in style and proportions resemble the dog populations from a single gene pool. The greater dog-like figurines found at Jeitun. genetic variation in East Asia and the pattern of phylo- Bones of domestic dogs were reported from geographic variation suggested that dogs were domes- Middle and Late Jeitun-Culture levels at Chagylly in ticated approximately 15,000 years ago in East Asia, the eastern piedmont by Berdiev (1966:27), and from although a much earlier date of c. 40,000 years ago the Chalcolithic IA and IB strata at Anau North where could also be inferred from the data. However, Wayne the remains varied in size from medium to large dogs et al. (2006:283) subsequently argued that Savolainen (Moore et al. 2003:155, 157). Four bones identified as et al. did not consider other factors that might have from domestic dog have also been found in the early influenced the genetic diversity found in East Asian Neolithic (Dariasai phase) levels at the site of Ayak- dogs and maintained that the evidence presented agytma in the Kyzylkum (Lasota-Moskalewska et al. for the location and time of origin of domestic dogs (2006:208). Although the bone and figurine evidence was not conclusive— a conclusion since reinforced by is sparse, it is sufficient to demonstrate the presence an analysis of mtDNA diversity in 318 African village of domestic dogs at Jeitun and other sites in the Neo- dogs, which was found to be similar to the diversity of lithic and to suggest that they were used in hunting the East Asian dogs sampled (Boyko et al. 2009). wild game, for herding domestic sheep and goats, and An East Asian locus of domestication is not at perhaps as guard dogs and pets. present supported by any definite archaeological Despite the existence today of over 400 distinct evidence of domestic dogs in the Palaeolithic record breeds, all domestic dogs are believed to be descen- of the region, although the remains of a possibly dants of the wolf (Canis lupus) which ranged until domestic dog have been found in the lowest cultural recent times throughout Eurasia and North America. layers of a site in northern China (Nanzhuangtou) In Eurasia, both the larger subspecies of northern dated to approximately 12,000 BP (c. 14,000 cal. BP; latitudes and the smaller wolves of Southwest, Central, Cohen 1998:25; Underhill 1997:113–14). Domestic and South Asia may have contributed to the ancestry dogs, sometimes buried in human graves, have been of domestic dogs in a long process of taming and found in many Chinese and other East Asian Neolithic domestication that began at least 15,000 years ago sites (Underhill 1997:121–28; Olsen 1985:48–70) and (Clutton-Brock 1999:56–58). This view, which was at the Neolithic site of Burzahom in Kashmir (Allchin originally based on anatomical and behavioral simi- and Allchin 1982:113). Also, at the large Chalcolithic larities between wolves and dogs and on archaeological site of Botai in northern Kazakhstan, where (as men- evidence of dogs in Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic tioned above) there is evidence of intensive exploi- contexts (see, for example, Clutton-Brock 1995), has tation of horses, dogs are the only other domestic since been borne out by genetic studies (Savolainen et animal found. Their bones comprise the second most al. 2002; Vilà et al. 1997; Vilà, Maldonado, and Wayne abundant type of animal remains and most were 1999; Wayne, Leonard, and Vilà 2006). found buried in pits in or close to houses. Olsen, who 90 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia studied the bone assemblage (2000; 2003:99–100), Mesolithic (or Neolithic) levels at the Bolshoi Balkhan showed that in their size and morphology the Botai rockshelters of Jebel (Tsalkin 1956) and Dam Dam dogs resemble the modern Samoyed breed, and she Cheshme, although according to Markov (1966a:123), inferred from the placement of the burials in the Tsalkin identified several dog bones from the second foundations and at the thresholds of houses that dogs (Bronze Age) layer at Dam Dam Cheshme 2. may have fulfilled a ritual role as guardians. The apparent absence of remains of domestic The—very limited—archaeological evidence dogs in the Caspian Mesolithic runs counter to a hy- of domestic dogs in Palaeolithic contexts comes from pothesis of independent domestication from local wolf much farther west, in Europe and the Levant. For populations, but this conclusion must remain tentative example, two skulls of adult dogs were found at the in view of the relative lack of zooarchaeological re- Upper Palaeolithic site of Eliseevichi I on the central search in western Central Asia. On present evidence, Russian plain west of Bryansk and radiocarbon dated it seems probable that the existence of domesticated to between c. 13,000 and c. 17,000 BP (c. 15,500– dogs at Jeitun-Culture sites (and at Ayakagytma in the 20,000 cal. BP; Sablin and Khlopachev 2002); a dog Kyzylkum) is due to their having been introduced into mandible was found in a Late Palaeolithic human the region during the Neolithic rather than the result grave at Bonn-Oberkassel in Germany dated to c. of their local domestication from wolves. 14,000 BP (c. 17,000 cal. BP; Nobis 1979); and canid remains identified as dogs have been reported from Epipalaeolithic (Natufian) contexts at several sites in Conclusion Israel dated to c. 12,000–10,000 BP (c. 14,000–11,500 cal. BP), notably at Hayonim and Ein Mallaha where The foregoing review of archaeological, bio- the dogs were buried with humans (Davis and Valla geographical, and genetic evidence concerning the 1978; Dayan 1994; Tchernov and Valla 1997). Remains areas of origin of the crops and domestic animals of of domestic dogs have been found at several early Neo- Neolithic Turkmenistan and adjacent areas reveals lithic sites around the Fertile Crescent, for example at how little we definitely know about how they were in- Jericho, Mureybet, Cayönü, and Jarmo (Clutton-Brock corporated into the agricultural and pastoral systems 1979:140–41; Lawrence 1967; Lawrence and Reed that developed from c. 6000 cal. BCE (the beginning 1983; Peters et al. 1999:38). However, it should not be of the Early Jeitun phase). Without much more ar- assumed that these early Neolithic dogs were necessar- chaeobotanical and zooarchaeological research at ily descended from the Natufian dogs of the Levant Late Palaeolithic/Mesolithic and Neolithic sites in because, as Tchernov and Valla point out (1997:66), it the region, together with accurate identification and is possible that the Neolithic dogs of Southwest Asia direct (AMS) radiocarbon dating of the plant and ani- were either domesticated anew in the region or intro- mal remains found, it is difficult to reach well-founded duced from elsewhere. conclusions about the central question of whether all As wolves were present in the Late Pleistocene/ the crops and domestic animals of the Jeitun Neolithic Early Holocene across the whole of Asia, zoogeo- were introduced from elsewhere or whether some of graphically it is possible that dogs could have been do- them were independently domesticated in the region. mesticated anywhere between the Levant and China, The rapidly accruing genetic evidence on the ori- including western Central Asia. There is, however, no gins of crops and domestic animals is beginning to conclusive evidence of domestic dogs at Late Palaeo- provide valuable insights into the question, but close lithic/Mesolithic sites in the region. Coon (1957:155) correlation between it and the biogeographical and found the muzzle of a very large dog in the lowest Me- archaeological evidence is difficult to achieve. Given solithic levels at the site of Ghar-i Kamarband, which the present inadequacy for western Central Asia of all he said resembled that of a St. Bernard dog and he in- three types of data, we cannot answer the question ferred that domestic dogs were used in hunting during definitively, but by weighing the probabilities, already the Mesolithic. But H-P. Uerpmann, who analyzed the discussed, of local versus external domestications, it is bone assemblage (Uerpmann and Frey 1981), thought possible to reach general, if tentative, conclusions. the specimen more likely to be from a wolf (Uerp- Regarding the cereal crops that were definitely mann, pers. comm. 2007). No canid remains were present at Jeitun in the Early Neolithic, we can be con- identified at the nearby site of Ali Tappeh nor from the fident that einkorn (and the tentatively identified free- areas o f origin o f t h e c ro p s a n d d o m e s t i c animals 91 threshing wheat) were not domesticated locally, and areas in prehistoric and early historical times, but although less is known about the ancestry of the other not found at Jeitun itself, reveals similar uncertain- glume wheat, it almost certainly reached Jeitun as a ties. Pigs and cattle could have been domesticated domesticate from somewhere west of the Caspian. The locally from wild boar and aurochs, but the weight phytogeographical and recently acquired genetic evi- of archaeological and genetic evidence is against the dence that eastern forms of wild barley occur in Central possibility and in favor of both animals having been Asia (as well as feral domestic barley) demonstrates that introduced as domesticates from Southwest Asia. barley could have been domesticated independently in Horses and Bactrian camels conclusively identified as southern Turkmenistan, but its widespread distribu- domestic do not appear in the archaeological record tion as a Neolithic crop around the Fertile Crescent until the Chalcolithic and the Bronze Age, but the long before it was present at Jeitun suggests that, like wild progenitors of both are likely to have been pres- the wheats, it is more likely to have reached southern ent during the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene and Turkmenistan as an already domesticated crop. so might have been domesticated locally. Indeed, the The two domestic ungulates, sheep and goat, discovery of horse and camel bones in early Neolithic parallel wheat and barley in that the sheep appears to and later levels at Ayakagytma in the Kyzylkum could have been domesticated (from the mouflon) outside be interpreted as evidence of local domestication, the region and subsequently dispersed eastward into but the question of whether the remains derive from Central Asia, whereas the distribution of the bezoar domesticated animals remains to be resolved. Finally, suggests that it could have been independently domes- the dromedary appears only to have been introduced ticated in the region. However, Naderi et al.’s (2008) into Central Asia, as a domesticate, in the 1st millen- analysis of bezoar mtDNA sampled across the wild nium AD. goat’s present range found no support for possible domestication anywhere east of central Iran, so the n o t e domestic goats too are more likely to be descended 1. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) period in the Levant from stock domesticated in Southwest Asia. The dog lasted approximately three millennia and is conventionally could have been domesticated locally from native divided into the PPNA and PPNB. The latter is subdivided into wolves, but the lack of evidence of domestic dogs at Early, Middle, Late, and Final PPNB (sometimes referred to Late Palaeolithic/Mesolithic sites in western Central as the PPNC). Approximate calibrated BCE dates for the divi- Asia, compared with early evidence of them in South- sions (after Peters, von den Driesch, and Helmer 2005:535) are west Asia, tends to suggest otherwise. as follows: PPNA 9500–8700, Early PPNB 8700–8200, Middle The evidence of the other domestic animals PPNB 8200–7500, Late PPNB 7500–7000, Final PPNB (PPNC) that were present in Turkmenistan and adjacent 7000–6500, succeeded by the Pottery Neolithic.

8 Jeitun, the Sumbar and Chandyr Valleys, and the Bolshoi Balkhan Region: Excavation and Survey with Chris Gosden

s explained in the Preface, the initial aim of our Consequently, our excavations were quite limited in Aresearch in Turkmenistan was to build on the ear- extent, and in the final two seasons at Jeitun, 1993 lier work of the Russian and Turkmen archaeologists and 1994, we concentrated on two houses in the lower who discovered and described the Neolithic Jeitun layers of the site, the lower of which proved not to be Culture of the Kopetdag piedmont zone by undertak- underlain by other structures. We also excavated test ing archaeological-environmental investigations at pits across the site, partly to gain some idea of vari- the type site of Jeitun: the earliest known agricultural ability within it and also to sample the deeper layers settlement in western Central Asia. As the project at several places. developed through the 1990s, its scope expanded to Masson had based his conclusion that Jeitun was include exploratory survey and excavation in two other an agricultural settlement mainly on the large num- regions—the middle Sumbar and Chandyr valleys, and bers of flint sickle blades found (studied principally the Bolshoi Balkhan massif—which we hoped might by G. F. Korobkova, e.g., 1960), on the presence of help to elucidate the question of how agricultural com- animal bones that included sheep and goat (initially munities originated on the piedmont. We undertook studied by A. I. Shevchenko, 1960), and on a small reconnaissance surveys and carried out small-scale number of wheat and barley seeds and impressions of excavations in both regions (described later in this cereal grains in mudbrick (studied by G. N. Lisitsina, chapter), and two members of our team (Coolidge and 1978:92). However, no systematic retrieval of plant re- Kurbansakhatov) also reconnoitered most of the other mains by sieving and/or flotation was attempted and Jeitun-Culture sites on the Kopetdag piedmont (this no radiocarbon dates on samples from the site were volume, pp. 60 –61), but Jeitun itself was both the initial obtained. Two of our most important objectives were impetus for our work and the site we investigated most therefore to retrieve charred plant remains by system- fully in our program of research. atic flotation of excavated samples, and to obtain a The earlier Russian-Turkmen excavations at detailed radiocarbon chronology for Jeitun by using Jeitun had concentrated on the overall layout and the AMS (accelerator mass-spectrometric) technique structures of the upper part of the settlement, and to date charred cereal grains and chaff (this volume, the main aim of our team was to complement this with pp. 119–23). We achieved both these objectives, and fine-grained techniques of excavation and recovery our radiocarbon dates from Jeitun now form part of a in order to provide stratigraphically controlled and broader effort to build radiocarbon chronologies for directly dated evidence of plant and animal remains, the Neolithic, Chalcolithic (Eneolithic), and Bronze soils, and artifacts, and to investigate the settlement’s Age in southern Turkmenistan (Hiebert 2002a:28–29; earlier history by excavating lower levels of the mound. 2003:55–56). 96 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Excavations at Jeitun The first archaeological investigation at the site took place in 1952 when B. A. Kuftin and A. A. Mar- Jeitun is a small (0.7 ha) mound, with 3–4 m uschenko made several soundings in the mound, one of cultural deposits, situated on sparsely vegetated of which penetrated 2 m of cultural deposits and re- windblown sand at the southern edge of the Karakum vealed traces of five compacted floor levels, as well as desert 28 km north-northwest of Ashgabat (Fig. 3.4, flint blades and animal bones (Kuftin 1956:261, 271; color). It is located at the margin of the alluvial fan of Masson 1971:5–6). Although this was interpreted as a river, the Kara Su, which (prior to construction of the evidence of five phases of settlement, each represented Karakum Canal in the mid 20th century) traversed the by a clay floor, the date and nature of the site remained piedmont, cut through the southernmost dune ridge in doubt. The first extensive excavation undertaken of the Karakum, and dissipated in the desert close at Jeitun was directed by Masson in 1955 and 1956, to the site (this volume, pp. 28–29, Fig. 3.1, and Fig. when an area of 100 m2 was opened up (Masson 1957). 3.2, color). The archaeological significance of Jeitun This showed that the uppermost level of the site had first became apparent in the 1950s and 1960s when been deflated, but that an earlier period of occupa- excavations directed by V. M. Masson revealed a small tion (labeled phase 2 by Masson) was intact. In 1959 settlement of rectangular mudbrick houses which he and again in 1962 and 1963 he uncovered almost the assigned, on the basis of similarities between the ce- whole of the phase 2 settlement and showed it to be a ramic assemblages at Jeitun and at the western Iranian small settlement of some 30 mudbrick houses, built sites of Jarmo and Tepe Guran, to the 6th millennium as free-standing structures with courtyard areas and BCE (Masson and Sarianidi 1972:36, 171). Masson’s other ancillary features between them (Fig. 8.1; Masson main aim was to understand the social organization of 1971). The houses were very uniform in shape, close the settlement and so his excavations focused particu- to square, with sides varying in length from c. 3.5 to larly on the architecture and general layout of the site, c. 6.25 m. They consisted of single rooms and most of which could be interpreted in social terms. them contained large mudbrick ovens built against

Platform A

0 10 20 30 Metres m

8.1 Plan of V. M. Masson’s excavation of the “second level” (phase 2) at Jeitun (based on Fig. 5 in Masson 1971). j e i t u n , s u m b a r a n d c h a n d y r valleys, a n d bo l s h o i balkhan r e g i o n : e x c av a t i o n & s u rv e y 97

8.2 Plan of the Jeitun mound showing the locations of the trenches and test pits excavated between 1989 and 1994.

the northern or eastern walls, many with adjoining shell (Masson 1971:174–205; Masson and Sarianidi raised areas to the right of the ovens which have been 1972:34–42). Although Masson concentrated on the interpreted as sleeping platforms. Excavation showed phase 2 buildings, he also excavated several underly- that some of the houses had single low entrances in ing structures which he designated phase 3. one of their walls. Pottery was generally in the form In a geometrical analysis of the published plans of conical bowls with red painted patterns on a yel- of nine excavated Neolithic–Bronze Age sites in low background. Most stone tools were made of flint, southern Turkmenistan, including Jeitun, M. Ran- with both blades and microliths reported, plus rarer ieri (2000:593–601) demonstrated that architectural occurrences of mortars and pestles and polished shapes were based on triads of small integers, probably stone axes. Bone points and needles were also found, used as rope lengths in the construction of what are as were partially fired clay counters and animal and almost-perfect orthogonal building segments. The human figurines, and beads made of stone, bone, and regularity of house shape at Jeitun fits this model. 98 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Ranieri divided the houses of Masson’s phase 2 into 8.4). There were two levels of lime-plaster fl oors and three spatial groups according to their cardinal di- an upper fl oor of clay, indicating that the house was rections. He inferred that one group was likely to rebuilt several times; the two lower fl oors were sepa- have been built before the other two—a hypothesis rated by a layer of sand, perhaps deliberately placed that contrasts with Masson’s assumption that all the to provide a level surface for the upper one. Three upper surviving (phase 2) structures were contem- meters east of the doorway of the house there was a poraneous. Ranieri’s theoretical analysis highlights smaller structure without any internal features (Figs. the need for more extensive excavation of lower levels 8.3, 8.4). The function of this outbuilding is unknown, at Jeitun, and it was with the structures underlying but Berezkin (1992:29) found evidence of compacted the phase 2 level—which might provide clues to the animal dung on the upper of two fl oor levels and sug- earlier history of the site—that the recent excavations gested that goats and sheep may have been penned have been concerned. These started in 1987 when K. in it, whereas Kasparov, who identifi ed bones found Kurbansakhatov (1992) opened a 10 x 10 m area at the inside the building, speculated (1992:75) that it may eastern end of the mound which uncovered several have been used for processing animal carcasses, in- houses thought to belong to phase 3. cluding skins of fox and steppe cat. Remains of other structures were partially uncovered along the south- western edge of the excavation. The yard area between Excavations in 1989 and 1990 the house and the other buildings contained layers, made up of ash and sand, mixed together with large Our involvement in work at the site began in 1989, amounts of animal bone, plant material, and artifacts. in collaboration with Kurbansakhatov, Masson, and a Russian team from the Institute of the History of Mate- rial Culture of the Academy of Sciences in Leningrad N (Masson and Harris 1994). The main excavations con- nected with our project took place in the center and at the northwestern edge of the mound (Fig. 8.2). Also, between 1990 and 1993 geoarchaeological investiga- tions were conducted by the British team in the vicinity of Jeitun, leading to the discovery of several sequences of sand accumulation containing evidence of three lev- els of past soil development in the form of buried soils (this volume: Chapter 9, Sections 9.3 and 9.4). In 1989 a 10 x 11 m area was excavated in the center of the mound, under the direction of Berezkin (1992), with a small extension in the southwest cor- ner from which the British participants took samples for fl otation to determine whether charred remains of domesticated cereals were present that could be dated by the AMS technique. This proved successful and demonstrated conclusively that wheat and barley were cultivated at Jeitun during the early Neolithic. Trench This excavation was continued in 1990 with the aim of 1991a uncovering structures from phase 3, together with any that might represent earlier periods of occupation. The central excavation, carried out in 1989 0 5 Metresm and 1990, uncovered a square house with sides ap- proximately 5 m long, a hearth and raised (sleeping?) 8.3 Simplifi ed plan of the area excavated in 1989 and 1990 platform on the northeastern wall, holes in the fl oor by Berezkin in the center of the Jeitun mound and the that may have supported pottery vessels, and an en- northeast extension (trench 1991a) excavated by the Brit- trance (doorway?) in the southeastern wall (Figs. 8.3, ish team in 1991. j e i t u n , s u m b a r a n d c h a n d y r valleys, a n d bo l s h o i balkhan r e g i o n : e x c av a t i o n & s u rv e y 99

8.4 View of part of the central area excavated in 1989–90 and attributed to Masson’s third level, showing the main house, the in- ternal oven with its adjacent raised platform on the northeast wall, and the entrance in the southeast wall, beyond which is a small outbuilding that may have been used as an animal pen or for processing animal carcasses, May 1989.

Many small hearths were found, with concentrations been built at the same time and possibly, therefore, by of animal bones around them. These finds as a whole incomers rather than as a result of natural population suggest that domestic activities of many different kinds growth. He believed that the phase 3 settlement was were carried out in the yard area. markedly larger than the preceding phase 4 settle- These buildings and yard layers were assigned ment. to phase 3 in Masson’s scheme. However, there were The other excavation that Berezkin and the two walls along the northeastern side of the excava- Russian team carried out was a long trench on the tion, one in the northern corner, the other near the northwestern side of the mound in an area untouched southern corner, which were thought to lie below the by previous excavations (Fig. 8.2). It was 25 m long and other architectural features and to belong to phase 4. 1.3 m wide and cut through the side of the mound The wall near the southern corner was some 6 m long. from the top to sterile sand at the base. Several walls It had a floor to the east and may have been part of an and floors thought to belong to both phases 2 and unusually large structure. The other wall was much 3 were exposed along the trench. The probable ex- shorter (1.5 m) and it was impossible to infer what istence of these phase 2 structures implies that the sort of structure, if any, it belonged to. Little else was settlement was slightly larger than Masson originally found below the phase 3 buildings, which led Berezkin thought and that the phase 3 remains may be as ex- to conclude that there had been a marked increase in tensive as those of phase 2 (only large-scale excavation the size of the settlement in phase 3. As all the phase could test this possibility). The British excavations 3-structures seemed to have been constructed at the were much influenced by Berezkin’s work. It led us same stratigraphic level, he thought that they had all first to excavate in 1991 a small area in the baulk of 100 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia the central excavation, and then, in 1993 and 1994, to We carried out two excavations in 1991, but carry out larger-scale (although still limited) excava- they were very limited in extent due to lack of time tions of houses at the southeastern end of Berezkin’s and personnel. First, a small (1.5 x 3 m) area, labeled long trench. trench 1991a, was excavated in the northeast corner of Berezkin’s central excavation (Fig. 8.2) in order to investigate how the deposits had built up and what Excavations in 1991 and 1992 kinds of structural evidence they contained, and also to obtain samples from secure stratigraphic contexts, During 1989 and 1990 British specialists worked including charred cereal grains for AMS radiocarbon at the site (Harris et al. 1993), but they did not direct dating. The excavation revealed a series of clay-lined the excavations. The main aims of our excavations hearths built up against two superimposed mudbrick from 1991 onward were to use fine-grained strati- structures, one assigned to phase 2 and the other to graphic excavation techniques to distinguish indi- phase 3. The continuity from one phase to another in vidual features and fine layering on the site, and to the construction and use of these hearths confirmed undertake systematic sampling and fine sieving to that Masson’s phases were useful as a starting point for retrieve charred plant remains, bones, and other small interpreting the development of the site, but also that finds. This involved using techniques now standard they do not encompass the straigraphical complexity in many parts of the world, but which were new in that finer-scale excavation reveals. Despite its limited Turkmenistan. By using these methods we hoped to scale, such excavation can provide detailed evidence increase understanding of how the settlement origi- of human activities on the site, in this case in the form nated and how its organization changed over time of hearths and their surrounding debris (Fig. 8.5 and as different parts of the site were occupied. Standard Fig. 8.6, color). British excavation techniques were used, whereby each The contexts uncovered in this excavation con- individual feature is given a context number and is dis- sisted mainly of a series of hearths and layers of ash tinguished according to whether it is a built structure, resulting from the cleaning of hearths and the dump- a cut such a pit or posthole, or a fill. Excavated mate- ing of rubbish. Layers of sand were also present, which rial was systematically sieved, flotation was employed may indicate periods of less intensive or different use (for the first time at Jeitun), and all sediment was of this part of the site. All the sand layers contained passed through a 10-mm mesh. artifacts, charcoal, and bone, and there is no sugges- All levels measured in different years of excava- tion that the area was completely out of use for any tion were tied into Masson’s original site datum (a period of time (see this volume, pp. 125–26, for a metal post on top of the mound at 190 m above msl), detailed description of the section shown in Fig. 8.5 and repeated measurement of the same feature in and Fig. 8.6, color). The other major set of features different years showed that the datum was stable. The consisted of mudbrick walls from at least two phases of question of levels is associated with the five phases of construction. The individual bricks, although variable occupation into which the Russian excavators divided in size and shape, resembled long loaves. Some were the site, based on general sets of floor levels. Our exca- almost a meter in length, and they tended to be more vations suggest that this phasing is too general to con- cylindrical than rectangular in cross section. Such vey the full complexity of the site’s use and its history “protobricks” distinguish buildings at Jeitun from of occupation. Nevertheless, the five-phase sequence those at later Jeitun-Culture sites where mudbricks are does permit results from different seasons of excava- more rectangular in cross section and their shape is tion from the late 1950s onward to be compared. We more standardized. Because the area excavated was so were unable to replace it with a detailed alternative small, it was impossible to make any sense of the layout scheme, because for this to be done, more extensive of the mudbrick and adjoining features, although it excavation and dating would be required. We there- was possible to assign a relative date to the mudbrick fore continue to refer to the five phases as a convenient features and note the occurrence of smaller features means of discussing different areas of the site, and in associated with them. This excavation is described the conclusion to this section on the excavations at in detail, with reference to numbered contexts, in Jeitun we offer some tentative conclusions concerning Appendix 8.1 at the end of this account of the excava- the phasing and history of occupation of the site. tions at Jeitun. j e i t u n , s u m b a r a n d c h a n d y r valleys, a n d bo l s h o i balkhan r e g i o n : e x c av a t i o n & s u rv e y 101

14

22 12

26 22 27 28 30

Root channel

33 Datum

38 38 42 42

42 41 41 43 44 44

45 45

46

0 1 Metre

8.5 The section through yard deposits in the northeast extension (trench 1991a) at Jeitun, sampled for particle-size, phytolith, and micromorphological analysis; context numbers shown; section datum at 188.6 m above msl; cf. Fig. 8.6 (color).

The second excavation we carried out in 1991 was site and also extended test pit 7 (Fig. 8.2). Most of even more restricted. It took place at the eastern side of the pits were dug across the southwestern part of the mound in a small (1.5 x 1.5 m) trench that had pre- the site, which Masson believed to have the deepest viously been excavated by Berezkin, following Kurban- stratigraphy. They were designed as a rapid means sakhatov’s excavations in the area in 1987. We labeled it of investigating the nature and distribution of the trench 1991b, and deepened it in 1992 to become test underlying deposits of phases 3 and 4. Test pits 5 pit 7 (Fig. 8.2). The main focus of our work here was and 6 came down on structures from phases 2 and 3, on the sands underlying the complex of upper occupa- at which level we stopped excavating in order not to tion layers. This new excavation revealed the existence destroy these features. Test pit 2 revealed no features of phase-3 yard layers, underlain by 40 cm of relatively at all and may indicate that there was an open area in sterile sand under which were earlier floor levels, each this part of the site. Test pits 1 and 4 went below fea- separated by layers of ash and sand. A depth of 4.70 m tures attributable to phases 2 and 3, but encountered below datum was reached before excavation had to be no traces of earlier features. Test pit 4 was dug in the halted because it was difficult and dangerous to dig any base of the central area that had been excavated in deeper. The lowest layers reached still contained some 1989 and 1990. The only features observed here below evidence of human occupation in the form of traces those of phase 3 were charcoal lenses accompanied of burning and at 4.20 m below the datum there was by pottery and animal bone. A sample for dating was a destruction level of mudbrick. A sample for dating taken from the lowest charcoal lens, which gave a date was obtained from the lowest (4.70 m) level reached. (OxA-4693 at 95% confidence) of 6020– 5720 cal. BCE It yielded a date (OxA-4695 at 95% confidence) of (this volume, p. 120). A further test pit (8) was dug in 6220–5900 cal. BCE (this volume, p. 120). 1993 in an attempt to discover the limits of the site on During 1992 the British team, with Russian its southwestern side, but no evidence of structures was help, excavated six 1.5 m2 test pits elsewhere on the found and only a few finds were recovered. 102 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Also in 1991 and 1992 a Russian team, under ensured that all small fragments of bone and stone, the direction of Berezkin, began an area excavation as well as charred plant remains, were recovered. that extended out from the 25 m trench they had dug Any excavated deposit in excess of 50 l from a single through the northwestern side of the mound in 1990 context was sieved through a 10-mm sieve. In 1994 we (Fig. 8.2). An area of c. 11 x 7 m was excavated and the altered this sieving strategy slightly so that, after the remains of three houses were revealed. Two of them initial 50-l sample had been taken, the next 25 l of were thought to belong to phase 2 and the third under- deposit from a context was passed through a 10-mm lying one was assigned to phase 3. One of the phase 2 sieve and all subsequent deposit from each context houses was only partially excavated and the other was went through a 15-mm mesh. Finds of bone and plain completely excavated. The latter was small (approxi- pottery were bagged by context and not located by mately 2.5 m2) and lay stratigraphically above and square. Finds of diagnostic pottery (rims, bases, and in the middle of the phase 3 house. Masson had not decorated pieces), as well as clay figurines, bone imple- excavated it, and its discovery showed that, although ments, flint blades, and any other small finds were his excavations were extensive, they did not include located to square. The methods used in 1994 were the entire phase 2 settlement. By the end of the 1992 identical to those employed in 1993, except for the season the first floor level in the phase 3 house, which variation in sieving just described, and the 1994 grid had been overlain by several layers of sand and mud- was an extension of the one laid out in 1993. brick destruction, had been reached. It was here that the British team started excavating in 1993. The 1993 Excavation of House A

Aims and Methods of the 1993 and 1994 The main features encountered inside House A Excavations (Fig. 8.7 and Fig. 8.8, color) were an oven, a platform adjacent to it, and a series of floors interspersed with The most extensive excavations reported in this layers of mudbrick destruction and blown sand. A de- volume are those carried out in 1993 and 1994 by the tailed context-by-context description of the excavation British team. Our main aim in 1993 was to excavate of House A is given in Appendix 8.2, so here we just the house at the northwestern side of the mound summarize what we learned about its construction. attributed to phase 3 by Berezkin (and designated The sequence of construction appears to have been as House A by us). At the end of the 1993 season it be- follows. The basal mudbrick material composing the came obvious that there was another house beneath floor (context 58) was laid down and the walls of the House A, as Berezkin had suspected. So, in 1994 (our house (1) were built on top of this. The oven (5) and final season at Jeitun) our main aim was to excavate the adjacent platform (43) were probably built next, this house (designated House B), the lowest architec- although we have no direct evidence for this seemingly tural feature so far uncovered at Jeitun. It is the lowest logical sequence. The extensions to the oven (88 and of the three houses excavated on this part of the site, 91) appear to be contemporary with the main oven con- which spans phases 2 to 4, but whether an even higher struction. The gypsum cover (42) of the floor was then phase 1 house ever existed above them is unknown. laid down and this evidently merged with the clay lining When we began excavation in 1993, a 1-m grid of the oven (52), suggesting that the oven lining and the was laid out over the area to be excavated, with point gypsum cover were contemporary. Probably after the 100/100 lying in the northwest corner to allow for ex- gypsum lining was laid down a small pit (87) was let into tensions of the grid. Single-context methods of excava- the floor in the southwest corner. The mudbrick feature tion were employed and all excavation was carried out (54/55) was laid down after the gypsum floor was ap- with trowel and knife. From each context a standard plied to the mudbrick. Contexts 39 and 40, composed 50-l sample of deposit was taken for flotation, with of mixed sand and gypsum, either represent later floor none of the finds removed, in order to gain a measure levels or the remains of organic floor coverings. Above of the total amount of archaeological material per 50 these was the sand layer 37, which contained large l of deposit. The flotation samples were all wet-sieved numbers of finds including animal figurines and other through a series of sieves, the smallest of which had clay artifacts (Fig. 8.9, color). It is not clear whether the a 1-mm mesh. The fine sieve sizes used for flotation series of small postholes (59–84) cut through context 37 j e i t u n , s u m b a r a n d c h a n d y r valleys, a n d bo l s h o i balkhan r e g i o n : e x c av a t i o n & s u rv e y 103

8.7 Plan of House A at Jeitun as excavated in 1993, showing the positions of the oven (1), the raised platform (2), the entrance (3), and, below, a cross section of the southeastern wall showing the positions of a window (1) and the entrance (2); previously published in Harris, Gosden, and Charles 1996; reproduced by courtesy of the Prehistoric Society. into the gypsum floor relate to activities carried out in most of the northwestern wall of House A and dug a the house during its use, or were associated with people slot trench into the floor which uncovered part of the who may have camped in it during a period of disuse. lowest house yet seen on the site. The northwestern At the conclusion of the excavation we removed wall of this lowest house had first been revealed in 104 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Berezkin’s 1992 excavation. He attributed it to phase sand, some of which were clean (contexts 135, 140, 4, and we labeled the wall context 7. It had a mudbrick 145, 150, 152, 158) and some of which contained protrusion of unknown function on its northern side. admixtures of charcoal and mudbrick and showed The slot trench showed that the lowest house (House evidence of disturbance by roots and animals (137, B) was approximately 4 m across and had an oven in 141, 163). They were adjacent to a mudbrick wall, the center of the north wall. The extent of the house presumably part of a house excavated by Masson, and toward the south could not be determined because it we eventually came down on to a series of floor levels ran under an unexcavated baulk. The orientation of (which were only encountered during mass removal House A is identical to that of House B, although the of the deposits by shoveling). This area had been kept upper house is larger and offset to the north. Excava- relatively clean and may have been used for activities tion of House B was to be the main objective of our immediately adjacent to the house. At the southeast 1994 season at Jeitun. end there was evidence of hearths and small areas of ash and burning (143, 157, 169), disturbed by large animal burrows (151, 164). They were associated with a The 1994 Excavations of House B and low mudbrick wall (167), which was only fully revealed Associated Deposits when we were shoveling. It is impossible to deduce what function(s) these burnt areas represent due to Yard Deposits the small size and truncated nature of the excava- In 1994 we started by excavating layers of yard tion, but it is probable that the two areas, only 2 or 3 deposits from between the buildings previously exca- m apart, had different functions. This reinforces the vated by Masson above Houses A and B. We removed inference that there is much spatial differentiation the upper layers contemporary with Masson’s phase within the site which reflects a variety of social and 2, which were approximately 2 m above the level of economic activities at the settlement. House B, in order to uncover yard deposits contempo- rary with Houses A and B, and to recover bones and House B plant remains from rubbish dumping and other activi- As in House A, the main features found in ties that took place between the houses. In the event, House B were the remains of an oven with an adjacent once we reached levels contemporary with Houses platform (Fig. 8.10 and Fig. 8.11, color), and a series of A and B, the layers contained few artifacts, bones, floors interspersed with layers of sand and remnants and plant remains. Also, the excavations here were of mudbrick. somewhat inconclusive because the top of the layers To uncover House B, we removed five spits of that we started excavating were at the point at which 20–30 cm depth by shovel. A sample was taken for wet Masson had stopped digging, and they represented a sieving from each spit, and visible finds were collected surface which had been exposed and walked on for and bagged. The northeastern and northwestern walls some time. They thus had no overlying archaeological of the house had been uncovered by the slot trench context and were somewhat disturbed. So, because dug at the end of the 1993 season, which had also re- we had relatively little time on site we decided to stop vealed the oven attached to the northeastern wall. The the careful excavation of this area at an archaeologi- southeastern wall lay below the floor of House A and cally arbitrary point and shoveled down to the level the southwestern one below the area where we had ex- of House B. The layers we excavated in this area lack cavated yard layers by shoveling. We removed the walls full contextual information and therefore cannot be of House A (context 1) on its northwestern and south- fully interpreted. They are best regarded as a series of western sides down to the lowest (gypsum) floor level samples taken under carefully controlled conditions in the house, and then removed the gypsum floor (42). to recover organic remains and artifacts. Nevertheless, The floor consisted of a series of layers, some of which it is possible to make some general comments on the appeared to have been covered in red paint (samples nature of the excavated layers. were taken for analysis, but, unfortunately, they were The area excavated was approximately 3 m x 7 subsequently lost in transit). The gypsum floor overlaid m in extent and can be divided into northwestern and a sub-floor (176) made of solid mudbrick to a depth of southeastern ends in terms of the features found. At about 8 cm that contained abundant plant remains, the northwestern end there were several spreads of but otherwise was almost sterile. The sub-floor over- j e i t u n , s u m b a r a n d c h a n d y r valleys, a n d bo l s h o i balkhan r e g i o n : e x c av a t i o n & s u rv e y 105

8.10 Plan of House B at Jeitun as excavated in 1994, showing the positions of the oven (1), the raised platform (2), the entrance (3), and an incomplete tortoise carapace (4); previously published in Harris, Gosden, and Charles 1996, reproduced by courtesy of the Prehistoric Society. laid a leveling or destruction layer (178) composed of of mixed sand, charcoal, and pieces of mudbrick and lumps of clay (probably derived from the mudbrick of it appeared to have been put across the whole area House B) and burnt clay, together with charcoal that on which House A was subsequently built to provide underlaid the whole of House A. Next was a further level foundations for the house. A detailed context-by- leveling layer (181) that extended across the southern context description of the subsequent excavation of part of both houses. It was a thick (10–15 cm) layer House B is given in Appendix 8.3. We also excavated 106 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia several areas immediately outside the house, detailed lower level may have been less intensive than that of descriptions of which are given in Appendix 8.4. the upper levels of the mound. The history of construction and use of House B seems to have been simpler than that of the overlying House A and can be summarized as follows. The lower Conclusion: Excavations at Jeitun and house appears to have been constructed on clean sand Their Interpretation (244) and thus provides evidence of the earliest use of this part of the site. Its solid mudbrick floor (249) was Excavation at Jeitun has a long and complex his- laid down first and the walls of the house were built tory that falls into two main periods: the campaigns at the same time. Presumably the oven and the plat- carried out by Masson between 1955 and 1963, and the form were constructed at the same time as the floor excavations carried out by Kurbansakhatov, Berezkin, and walls. Some of the lowest contexts we uncovered and the British team between 1987 and 1994. The cam- outside the house (234, 242) may be connected with paigns had contrasted aims and employed a variety of its construction or they may represent floors that pro- different techniques, especially in the later period. vided working areas outside it. It is uncertain at what Masson’s aims were to excavate as much as possible point the buttressing at the corners of the house (129, of the deflated remnants of phase 1, and especially to 210, 215, 251) was built. uncover as much of the phase 2 settlement as possible. The period during which the house was used He also made smaller soundings which encountered is suggested by the gypsum floor (204, 225), which lower levels, mainly those attributed to phase 3. The was renewed on several occasions. It appeared to be excavations from 1987 onward concentrated on the continuous with the lining of the oven and we assume lower levels, first Kurbansakhatov’s at the eastern end that they were laid down at the same time and made of the mound and then Berezkin’s in the central area. of the same material. Contexts 199, 200, and 202, Berezkin paid more attention to the fine details of which lay on top of the floor and were all composed the stratigraphy than had earlier excavators, partly of clean sand and mudbrick, probably represent sand because by then a major aim was to recover samples blown into the house while it was out of use. Context for archaeobotanical and geoarchaeological analyses 196, which consisted of clay with gypsum patches, lay by the British specialists. Our excavations from 1990 on top of these contexts, suggesting that it had been onward were slow and painstaking by Russian stan- a temporary floor of some type, but whether it was dards because they were designed to elucidate some laid while the house was still standing or whether of the fine details of stratigraphy (necessarily over it represents more ephemeral occupation after the limited areas), to recover bulk samples for flotation, house had collapsed cannot be determined. Two and to carry out systematic sieving. By combining the contexts (178, 181) on top of context 196 consisted results of these later investigations we can gain some mainly of mudbrick with some charcoal and sand and understanding of the broader history of the site (this they were evidently designed to provide a foundation volume, pp. 194–95 and 211–12), but for the purposes for House A. On top of them lay the solid mudbrick of this brief conclusion we retain Masson’s phases 1–4 floor of House A (176) with its gypsum covering (42). (he mentions five phases, but it is not clear what the The postholes in the southern corner of House A are final phase refers to). At the same time, we suggest probably evidence of some activity that post-dates the that, if fine-grained excavations were undertaken on collapse of House B, although we could not infer what a larger scale than we were able to achieve in the time kind of activity they represent. The oven in House B and with the limited resources available, it would be revealed no in situ evidence of burnt material, but possible to develop a more refined phasing of the oc- there was evidence of relining and the collapse of its cupation of Jeitun. roof. Fewer artifacts were found in House B than in Masson excavated some 30 phase 2 houses, which House A, although one unusual find was made: an in- he interpreted as all contemporary with each other. complete carapace of a steppe tortoise that had been He envisaged Jeitun as a permanent settlement sited (deliberately?) deposited close to the southwestern on a low sand hill at the edge of the desert, occupied wall (Fig. 8.10 and Fig. 8.12, color). Overall, House B by some 30 nuclear families (Masson and Sarianidi seems to have had a simpler history of use than House 1972:33). Berezkin believed that there were strati- A, which reinforces the idea that occupation of the graphic grounds for concluding that the phase 3 j e i t u n , s u m b a r a n d c h a n d y r valleys, a n d bo l s h o i balkhan r e g i o n : e x c av a t i o n & s u rv e y 107 houses he uncovered in the central area were likewise history of the settlement and to obtain more detailed contemporary with each other and that they had been evidence of the environment and the economy of established within a very short period of time, probably its inhabitants by securing, dating, and analyzing by new settlers. However, he did distinguish an earlier samples retrieved from clearly defined stratigraphic and a later period within phase 3. The much sparser contexts. Recent work at the site has yielded much new evidence both of architectural features and of yard de- data, but more large-scale, fine-grained excavation of posits from phase 4 seemed to him to indicate a smaller the substantial deposits that remain is needed if the population and a less intense form of occupation. This full history of Jeitun is ever to be unraveled. is confirmed to some extent by our small-scale excava- tions in the northeast extension, where upper layers, belonging to phases 2 and 3, appear to derive from Fieldwork in the Middle Sumbar and more intensive activities surrounding hearths than the Chandyr Valleys, 1996 layers below them. Such a picture is further confirmed by the excavations of Houses A and B, the lower of In 1996 we carried out fieldwork in the middle which appeared to be surrounded by fairly ephemeral Sumbar and Chandyr valleys in the western Kopetdag yard layers that produced smaller quantities of bones, mountains during a three-week season of reconnais- plant remains, and artifacts than the layers above. sance survey and trial excavations. We did so primarily The fact that our excavations were small scale because we thought that early Neolithic, Mesolithic, or and fine grain makes it difficult to draw broad strati- Palaeolithic sites might exist there which antedated the graphic conclusions. We emphasize the complexity Neolithic sites of the Kopetdag piedmont and might of the use of the site and point out that the mudbrick thus throw light on the origins of the Jeitun Culture architecture is only the most obvious evidence of oc- and the beginnings of agriculture in Turkmenistan. cupation. For example, postholes and small hearths One reason for regarding this as a possibility was that may indicate that people camped at the site between the valleys experience a Mediterranean-type climate episodes of building. At several places, such as test pit with sufficient precipitation to sustain rainfed agricul- 4 in the center of the mound and test pit 7 at its eastern ture (Harris and Gosden 1996:384). More broadly, we end, there is evidence of hearths and charcoal lenses hoped to find evidence of how, in these upland valleys beneath the architectural levels. This indicates ephem- well suited to agro-pastoralism, people subsisted in the eral use of the site prior to any evidence of buildings, early and mid Holocene, in contrast to the more arid although not pre-dating the architectural levels by environment of Jeitun. any great period of time. There seems to be a definite change between phase 3, where large-scale settlement is in evidence, and the preceding phase 4, when there The Regional Environment may have been fewer people and less intensive activity on the site. How far all the phase 3 houses were con- The Sumbar and Chandyr rivers drain the west- temporary with each other, and likewise those of phase ern end of the Kopetdag mountains in southwestern 2, is uncertain, and without finer grained stratigraphic Turkmenistan, close to the present border with Iran. evidence it is difficult to resolve that question. They occupy the two main intermontane valleys that Looking back over the long history of excavation trend east-west through the mountains, join the main at Jeitun, it is clear that the aims of the excavators have Atrek drainage, and flow into the Caspian lowland changed markedly over the many years during which along the Iranian frontier (Fig. 8.13). the site has been intermittently investigated. Between In their uppermost courses the Sumbar and 1955 and 1963 Masson’s main aim was to uncover a Chandyr are mountain rivers, but their middle sections fully functional Neolithic settlement revealed at a par- flow through wide valleys flanked by hills. Here the cli- ticular time in its existence, as represented by phase mate is relatively mild: in July average temperatures are 2. When excavation was resumed between 1989 and between 28oC and 30oC, in January between 2oC and 1994 objectives had changed with the advent of AMS 4oC; there are long frost-free periods, high amounts radiocarbon dating and the development of rigorous of sunshine, and mean annual rainfall of between bioarchaeological and geoarchaeological techniques. 300 and 250 mm (data from the Atlas of the Turkmenian The main aim now was to investigate the longer-term SSR, Moscow, 1982). The valleys have deep fertile al- 108 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia luvial soils and the native vegetation—much of which southern margin, with a shorter visit to the Chandyr, has long since been cleared for agriculture—contains the southern side of which was inaccessible to us be- many trees, shrubs, and herbs of the Mediterranean cause it lies within the closed border zone along the flora, including species with edible fruits such as pear, Iranian frontier. In our surveys, we were following pomegranate, and pistachio. Today many fruits and reconnaissance in 1980/81 by V. P. Lyubin and other vegetables, as well as cereals, are cultivated in the area. members of a YuTAKE team who discovered 10 minor The valleys remained unglaciated during the Pleisto- Palaeolithic sites and collected over 100 Palaeolithic cene and would have experienced higher temperatures stone tools, mainly on eroded slopes and river terraces and rainfall during the mid-Holocene Climatic Opti- along the south bank of the Sumbar near Kara-Kala mum (this volume, pp. 25–26). Cretaceous limestones and the north bank of the Chandyr near Kyzyl-Imam form much of the Kopetdag mountains, which are (Lyubin 1984:28–31). We focused on caves and rock- seismically active and are today undergoing tectonic shelters because, in the highly eroded landscape, uplift. As a result, the landscape is intensively eroded, such sites seemed to offer the best chance of finding a natural process accentuated by crop cultivation and early and/or pre-Neolithic deposits where late Pleis- livestock grazing over many centuries. tocene or early Holocene sediments might have been preserved. Initial reconnaissance was carried out on foot and this procedure located many shelters under Fieldwork Methodology limestone overhangs, together with a small number of caves. Our fieldwork was concentrated in the middle Sites were targeted for excavation following Sumbar valley in the vicinity of Kara-Kala and along its a dual strategy: on the one hand, to maximize our

km

8.13 Southwestern Turkmenistan showing the relationship of Jeitun to the Sumbar, Chandyr, and Atrek valleys, the Bolshoi Balkhan massif, and the Uzboi channel. j e i t u n , s u m b a r a n d c h a n d y r valleys, a n d bo l s h o i balkhan r e g i o n : e x c av a t i o n & s u rv e y 109

Parkhai

The site is situated northeast of Kara-Kala on the southern slopes of the Kara-il-chi mountains on the side of a ravine running approximately north- south. At c. 800 m above msl, it is the highest site we excavated. The local bedrock is a mixture of sand- stone and limestone, and around the site there is grassland with a scattering of trees and small shrubs, grazed by flocks of sheep and goats. The site consists of an outer rockshelter and an inner cave divided into two parts. The shelter is c. 20 m long with an overhang of several meters to the north and especially to the east. There is a large tumble of rocks near the cave’s km entrance that forms the south end of the shelter. Lyubin excavated part of the shelter during his survey 8.14 The middle Sumbar and Chandyr valleys showing the of the region. In 1994, during a preliminary visit, we approximate locations of the archaeological sites vis- removed spoil from what appeared to be Lyubin’s ited and test-excavated in 1996; P=Parkhai, D=Dorian, PC=Parkhai Chalcolithic–Bronze Age, K=Karakesy, trench and excavated to a depth of 1 m where we 2 C=Chandyr. encountered roof fall. In 1996 we excavated a 1-m trench in the shelter 2 m west of Lyubin’s, which we labeled square 1. The stratigraphy consisted of chances of success, we wanted to examine sites in alternating red-brown and yellow sandy layers. The as many different parts of the Sumbar and Chandyr former probably derive from humic material and the valleys as our limited time allowed; on the other, we latter have weathered from bedrock. Our excavation wanted to look at the interrelationships of sites in reached a total depth of about 60 cm and produced one area to see how they varied in terms of their ages few finds, the most notable being a possible Chal- (dates), their types of sediment, and their artifacts. In colithic (Eneolithic) potsherd near the base of the total, we located and test-excavated eight rockshelter excavation. The excavation was brought to an end and cave sites and one open site, all in the Sumbar by a large rock, which had probably fallen from the valley except for one in the Chandyr catchment (Fig. roof. We also extended Lyubin’s excavation 1 m to the 8.14). west, where a similar sequence of layers was found, Our basic unit of sampling was a 1-m2 trench and with some Bronze Age and later pottery in the upper at most sites we only excavated a single trench. We dug layers and nothing in the lower ones. mainly by individual contexts, although when time Inside the cave we opened a 2 x 1 m trench, was short grosser forms of excavation were used. Dry labeling the eastern half square 2 and the western sieving was employed throughout and 10-l samples of half square 3. Excavation was hampered in the early deposit were taken from the most promising contexts stages by bad light, as we were unable to make the to ensure total recovery of bone, plant remains, and generator we had brought with us work. The upper artifacts from them. The sites we investigated are de- layers consisted of a series of small lenses of ash and scribed below: first, three close to Kara-Kala (Parkhai, produced one complete pot and a coin, both prob- Dorian, and the Parkhai Chalcolithic–Bronze Age ably of Parthian date. There was also some bone and site), next, a group of sites on the southern side of the a few other sherds. Below this was a series of levels of Sumbar valley (Karakesy 1–5), and finally the only exfoliated bedrock and sandy deposits derived from site we were able to visit in the Chandyr catchment, it. They were in a channel between two large rocks (Chandyr). In the event, our search for pre-Neolithic which may be either roof fall or bedrock. These lay- and Neolithic sites was unsuccessful. Possible reasons ers, which lacked finds except for small amounts of for this are discussed below in the conclusion that bone and some charcoal, continued to a depth of 2 m follows brief descriptions of the nine sites we test- below the surface. Bedrock was not reached, but we excavated. stopped excavating because the sides of the trench 110 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia were extremely unstable and the gap between the two Neolithic deposits were extensive. As time was short, rocks was very small. we made use of an existing hole dug by one of the Why the cave should contain so few remains land owners and excavated a 2.2 x 1 m trench. The is a mystery. Below the Parthian material there was hole was 1.8 m deep before we started excavation little in the way of finds and no evidence of hearths and we removed another 80 cm of deposit, making or burning. There was certainly no sign of Neolithic a total depth of 2.6 m. The excavation encountered or earlier material and also little in the way of natural a small stream channel, and two more were noted in bone accumulation (at least bone that has survived). section above the level at which our excavation had Yet both the cave and the shelter are large, easily started. Above these stream channels in the section accessible, and ideally sited for the exploitation of there was a thick mudbrick foundation. It was ap- upland plant and animal resources, as well as hav- parent that the Chalcolithic habitation in this part ing ready access to the Sumbar with its valley-floor of the site had been built on an area which had had resources. We cannot offer any convincing explana- some stream activity at an earlier time, making it un- tion for why there is so little archaeological material likely that Neolithic deposits would be encountered in the cave. here. Our excavation came down on an old surface composed of weathered bedrock. We dug into this for another 30 cm but no earlier features or artifacts Dorian were encountered. We were thus unsuccessful in finding any pre-Chalcolithic deposits, but this does Situated at the western end of the Kara-il-chi not necessarily mean that they do not exist in other range northwest of Kara-Kala at c. 650 m above msl, parts of the site. Dorian is a large cave some 17 m wide and 7 m deep. We excavated a 1-m2 trench on the western side of the entrance. The deposit consisted of a series of The Karakesy Sites ashy lenses and small hearths to a depth of 95 cm (contexts 1–12). The basal layer was a green sandy de- These sites are in a series of rockshelters on posit, similar to the base of Karakesy 4 (see below). A the southern side of the Sumbar valley c. 8 km due considerable quantity of bone was recovered and two south of Kara-Kala, west of the road to the Chandyr apparently recent sherds from the upper part of the valley. The sites are located at an average altitude deposits, but no artifacts were found lower down. We of c. 550 m. in shallow limestone ravines aligned thus have no indication of the date of the site, but also north-south and parallel to the road. They run down no reason to believe that the deposits are particularly from a ridge to the south to a low valley in the north, ancient. and only reach a maximum depth of 10 m below the average height of the ground surface. The local rock consists of limestone interbedded with layers of clay- The Parkhai Chalcolithic (Eneolithic)– shale. These layers are relatively soft and weather Bronze Age Site easily, causing collapses of the limestone, which may be precipitated by earthquakes. This process has This is a large open site composed of a settle- resulted in a series of limestone overhangs that form ment and cemetery, the latter having been excavated rockshelters of varying sizes, many although not all of previously by I. N. Khlopin (1981, 1989). It is located which contain archaeological deposits. We excavated close to Kara-Kala on the north side of the road out of five of these shelters, numbering them Karakesy 1–5 the town to the west. Houses have recently been built in the sequence in which we excavated them. They on the site and building was continuing in 1996. The exhibited considerable variation in the nature of site extends over at least 500 x 300 m and its surface deposits and finds. is covered with a variable density of bone and pottery. We hoped to find Neolithic deposits beneath the Karakesy 1 Chalcolithic layers, but, given the size of the site and This site, at the lowest end of the ravine that is the limited time available to us, the search for earlier nearest to the road, is a large (c. 10 x 4 m) shelter with material was likely to be fruitless unless underlying a relatively stable roof. The deposit was not more than j e i t u n , s u m b a r a n d c h a n d y r valleys, a n d bo l s h o i balkhan r e g i o n : e x c av a t i o n & s u rv e y 111

1.5 m above the stream which still flows through the but that is improbable as there is no known evidence ravine in wet weather. The upper layers consisted of of relatively recent volcanic activity that could have sand and decayed rock, together with small hearths deposited such ash). and ash (contexts 1–7). Context 8 was a thin (5–8 Context 10 separated the Parthian level from the cm) layer of light grey sandy soil with ash and some lower earlier levels, but we have no indication of the charcoal. It yielded three sherds of black pottery of un- date(s) of these earlier levels due to a lack of artifacts. known type with geometric incised decoration. Below Below context 10 there was 40 cm of small hearths and this context there was a series of layers (9–15) of sand ashy soil lenses (11–16) that contained bone and char- and charcoal with some bone, but no other artifacts. coal, but no artifacts. Beneath these deposits there was A maximum depth of c. 70 cm was reached. We found a green sandy layer mixed with broken bedrock, slop- no parallel for the pottery in any of the other sites we ing from the southeast down to the west (17 and 18). excavated in the Sumbar-Chandyr region, suggesting Under this was another series of small ash lenses (exca- that Karakesy 1 may be earlier than the other sites we vated as one context (19) due to lack of time). Finally investigated. there was a gray stony layer (20) sitting on bedrock and almost certainly a product of weathering from the Karakesy 2 bedrock. This was the deepest set of deposits in any Located higher up in the same ravine as Kara- of the Karakesy sites and probably represents a series kesy 1 and some 3 m above the present stream bed, of relatively short-term occupations that produced Karakesy 2 contained deposits to a maximum depth hearths, burnt bone, and very few artifacts. There is of c. 70 cm. They consisted of humic layers and clays no indication that even the basal deposits are very old. washed out of the clay-shale. Very few artifacts were We also found some sherds of possible Neolithic age found, but a bone assemblage was recovered which eroding out of a bank in this ravine, but lack of time may, however, have derived from natural processes. prevented us from investigating further by excavating a section in the bank. Karakesy 3 This small shelter is located in the second ravine Karakesy 5 west of the road, several hundred meters upslope from This is a small shelter, c. 2 m deep and 15 m wide, the first ravine. Sixty cm of deposit was exposed in a in the third ravine west of the road. We excavated a 1-m2 trench, ranging from recent dung-rich layers on 1-m2 trench at the north end of the shelter in an area the surface to clayey layers weathered from the bed- relatively free of roof fall. A maximum of 60 cm of rock, and containing large pieces of rock lower down. deposit was encountered. It comprised a layer of earth Small amounts of charcoal and bone were recovered and broken rock (context 2), a layer of predominantly throughout, and one possible hearth was found in the broken rock (3), a brown clay soil (4), a gray clay (5), basal layers at the southeast corner of the trench. The and a light clayey deposit (6) on bedrock. A small site was probably used only sporadically. amount of bone was found, but no pottery. There was no definite evidence here of any human use of the Karakesy 4 shelter and the bone could be a natural accumula- This shelter is also located in the second ravine tion. We dug a second 1-m2 trench c. 4 m out from the west of the road, some 200 m north of Karakesy 3. The shelter, down the slope toward the base of the ravine. shelter appears small, but this is because it is almost Here again a series of layers was found composed of completely full of sediment. It stretches back at least 4 clayey deposit and rock to a depth of 80 cm, with no m from the present drip line and its entrance is about indication of human presence. 10 m wide, partly obscured by roof fall. The deposits reached a maximum depth of 1.70 m. The upper 80 cm consisted of soil and ash layers (contexts 1–9), at Chandyr the bottom of which we found what may be a Parthian pot and two iron rings, probably also Parthian. Con- This combined rockshelter and cave is the only text 10 was a 6–10 cm thick layer of light-brown mate- site we excavated in the Chandyr catchment. It is rial, of fine vesicular texture and light in weight, which located at c. 650 m above msl some 100 m west of the may be eroded bedrock (it looked like volcanic ash, road that leads south to the valley from Kara-Kala 112 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

(Fig. 8.14).The shelter is approximately 8 m wide and so in the mid-Holocene) and the diversity of natural 2 m deep, and at its southern end the cave stretches resources would have been greater here than in most back a further 4 m. We excavated two 1-m2 trenches of the rest of Turkmenistan. Nor, as the middle Sum- under the drip line of the shelter at the point where bar and Chandyr valleys were not glaciated, would the cave starts. Trench 1 was excavated first, but occupation have been precluded during Pleistocene when a depth of 2 m had been reached trench 2 was glaciations. opened to the north to enable excavation to con- The second possibility is that the rockshelters tinue to a greater depth. Bedrock was reached at 2.5 and caves in the region were formed in post-Neolithic m. The site is very similar to Karakesy 4 in that it is times. Given the amount of tectonic uplift and seismic composed of many small hearths and ashy lenses. It activity in the Kopetdag, it is quite possible that small was the deepest of all the sites excavated and one of rockshelters and caves are relatively rapidly created the richest in terms of the bone material recovered. and destroyed and that the present ones are not more Pottery that may be Parthian or from a more recent than a few millennia, or even only a few centuries, old. period was found on bedrock indicating that the site Added to this is the probability that rates of erosion was relatively recent. and redeposition are high due both to the tectonic uplift and to the susceptibility to erosion of some of the sediments, particularly the loess that occurs as a Conclusion superficial deposit throughout the area. This could have resulted in early open sites—if they existed in the Despite the fact that we test excavated eight rock- past—being deeply buried by recent deposits. shelter/cave sites and one open site (Parkhai Chalco- The third possibility is that earlier sites do exist lithic) at varying locations and altitudes in the middle but that we failed to find them, either because we Sumbar and Chandyr valleys, no pre-Chalcolithic looked in the wrong places or because our excava- artifacts were found in the course of excavation. We tions were on too small a scale. This remains a pos- also carried out fairly extensive surface surveys in the sibility, but one that is difficult to assess without more region and the only materials found that might be pre- fieldwork in the region over longer periods of time. Chalcolithic were the few putative Neolithic sherds In addition to the need for more extensive surveys (mentioned above) that were observed near Karakesy and further test excavations, there is the problem 4. In all these surveys we found no stone tools of any that stone tools may be very difficult to recognize period with definite signs of having been worked, owing to the nature of the local rock, much of which apart from a very small number of pieces that may is soft limestone that tends not to have good flaking have been flaked. This is at variance with the reports properties. It readily erodes, so what may once have of Lyubin (1984:28–31) and Vishnyatsky (1996:37–43; been well-flaked stone tools may now resemble natural 1999:77–78), who reported surface finds of Palaeoli- stones, having over time lost all indications that they thic pebble cores, choppers, side scrapers and crude had been struck and used. flakes in the Sumbar and Chandyr valleys. As already suggested, none of these hypotheses Our failure to find any Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, is entirely convincing. It seems most probable that or Neolithic material was both surprising and dis- a combination of the rockshelters and caves being appointing, and we are at a loss to explain why we recent features, and our sampling being limited, pro- recovered no early material. Three possible expla- vides the best explanation. If the shelters and caves nations present themselves, none of which is wholly are rapidly created and destroyed, ancient ones may convincing. The first and least likely is that the areas be scarce or non-existent and our chances of discover- we surveyed were unoccupied prior to the Chalcolithic ing them therefore low. Many of the sites that we ex- period. Given that many other parts of Turkmenistan cavated looked very similar in character, with a series were occupied in the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and of small hearths and ash lenses indicating low-level, Neolithic periods, as well as neighboring areas in Iran perhaps intermittent, occupation over some period and Afghanistan (this volume: Chapter 6), it seems of time. We can only hope that future archaeological highly improbable that there were no pre-Chalcolithic research in the region will throw more light on these settlements in the areas we examined, especially as conundrums. It was disappointing not to obtain new the climate is relatively mild (and was probably more evidence of prehistoric settlement in the Sumbar and j e i t u n , s u m b a r a n d c h a n d y r valleys, a n d bo l s h o i balkhan r e g i o n : e x c av a t i o n & s u rv e y 113

Chandyr valleys, but their possible significance in rela- the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition, we needed to tion to the beginnings of agriculture in the region is locate areas of cultural deposit left unexcavated by nevertheless discussed in Chapter 11. Okladnikov and Markov at DDC 1 and 2, and, ideally, also find and excavate pristine occupation layers at DDC 3 and 4. By excavating deposits remaining in The Bolshoi Balkhan Region, 1997 DDC 1 and 2, and recovering stone tools and pot- sherds as well as organic remains, we hoped also to The field season we conducted in March and be able to link our new data to Markov’s published April 1997 in the Bolshoi Balkhan region (Fig. 8.13) stratigraphies. However, as the following descriptions had two main aims: to recover archaeological and of our investigations show, we failed to achieve these environmental evidence pertaining to the Mesolithic– objectives, although our excavations at the DDC sites Neolithic transition in the region, and to assess the and our reconnaissance surveys in the area did add possibilities for future work in the area. The local to the archaeological record of the Bolshoi Balkhan environment of the Bolshoi Balkhan massif has al- region. ready been described in Chapter 4, and the history and results of previous investigations there by Soviet Dam Dam Cheshme 1 archaeologists, principally A. P. Okladnikov and G. E. DDC 1 is a large rockshelter situated at the Markov, have been outlined in Chapters 5 and 6. Three base of a limestone cliff that is part of the dissected main rockshelter sites were excavated and the results southwestern escarpment of the Bolshoi Balkhan mas- reported by these pioneers: Jebel (Djebel), which was sif (Fig. 4.1). The entrance is visible from a distance excavated by Okladnikov between 1947 and 1950 and commands an extensive view over the piedmont and which established the first Mesolithic–Neolithic that slopes down to the channel of the former Uzboi sequence for Turkmenistan (Fig. 8.15, color); and the river (Figs. 8.16, 4.3, color). The shelter consists of a Dam Dam Cheshme (DDC) rockshelters 1 and 2 some semicircular recess under the overhang of the cliff, 20 km to the southeast of Jebel (Fig. 4.1). c. 50 m wide at the entrance and extending inward DDC 1 and 2 were excavated by Markov in the c. 15 m to the apex of the semicircle. Today its floor 1960s following preliminary investigations by Oklad- consists mainly of exposed and weathered bedrock nikov in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and they and there are two pools near the back of the shelter yielded Mesolithic–Neolithic sequences comparable that are fed by seepage and by occasional waterfalls to the one at Jebel. In 1997 our initial aim was to re- from an eroded nick in the cliff face above (Figs. 8.17, cover direct evidence of past subsistence at these sites 8.18, color). in the form of plant and animal remains that could DDC 1 was first investigated by the geologist V. provide AMS dates and establish a secure chronology V. Shumov who dug a test pit in it. In 1947 Okladnikov for the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition. However, we excavated a 10 x 1 m trench next to Shumov’s pit across had to modify this strategy in the field once we saw the shelter and identified six cultural layers (Oklad- how extensive the Russian excavations had been and nikov 1951:97–100). Markov subsequently excavated how much material had already been removed from a much larger area in the shelter and found only five these key sites. Nevertheless, we were able to carry layers in the center. He inferred, from the typology of out small-scale excavations at DDC 1 and 2 and at two the stone tools and pottery, that the cultural sequence smaller rockshelters nearby, DDC 3 and 4. We also lo- as a whole extended from the Upper Palaeolithic to cated and excavated test pits at three other sites in the the early Bronze Age, and that the transition from region and visited a fourth (see the end of this chapter the Mesolithic to the Neolithic occurred in layer 4 for brief descriptions of them). (Markov 1981). In 1997, we surveyed the interior of the shelter and excavated a first (2 x 1 m) test pit at the rear where Excavations at the Dam Dam Cheshme the roof was close to the present surface. The test pit Rockshelters was dug to a depth of 70 cm. In it, superficial dusty deposits gave way to compacted damp gray clay, with Given that our primary aim was to recover and occasional streaks of yellow mineralized material that date plant and animal remains that would illuminate proved to be weathered bedrock. The same situation 114 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

was found in a second (1 m2) test pit that we dug 1 m to the southwest of test pit 1. There, after excavating through a meter of weathered rock in various states of decomposition, we augered to a total depth of 2.70 m through weathered rock without encountering any archaeological deposits. We dug a third (2 x 1 m) test pit, between the two pools at the rear of the shelter, into a deposit that proved to be backfi ll from previous excavation, as was the deposit in a fourth (1 m2) test pit that we excavated at the eastern edge of the shelter. Thus all four test pits demonstrated, as Markov’s brief account (1981) of his excavation had suggested, that almost all the cultural deposits in DDC 1 had been excavated prior to our visit. We therefore decided to abandon the site and concentrate our efforts on the Area 2 Area 1 other DDC rockshelters. 0 10 20 Metresm

Dam Dam Cheshme 2 8.20 Dam Dam Cheshme 2 showing the locations of Areas DDC 2 is a deep rockshelter a few minutes’ walk 1 and 2 partially excavated in 1997, and (in gray) the northeast of DDC 1 (Fig. 8.19, color). It is situated at approximate combined extent of the areas previously excavated by Okladnikov, Markov, and Khamrakuliev; the the base of a cliff on the eastern side of a channel cut dotted line shows the outer limit of the overhang at the by an intermittently fl owing stream that emerges from rear of the rockshelter. a canyon in the mountains. A waterfall that fl ows after rain spills from the overhanging cliff onto the fl oor of the shelter, which is approximately 50 x 50 m in extent and occasionally used by shepherds as a pen for live- Okladnikov’s and Markov’s excavations, and a stock. Between 1949 and 1952 Okladnikov (1953:30) small trench dug in 1978 by S. Khamrakuliev (1979), excavated several test pits, including a 40-m2 trench resulted in the removal of a massive amount of sedi- in 1952, but the main investigations were undertaken ment from the shelter and the formation of spoil in 1963 and 1964 by Markov (1966a, 1966b) who exca- heaps at its entrance. As a result, little undisturbed vated over 250 m2 at the rear of the shelter (Fig. 8.20). archaeological deposit remains. It is concentrated at He reached bedrock at a depth of 3.2 m in the central the rear of the shelter under an overhang where its area and over 5.0 m in the southwestern part. surface is only a few cm below the roof. Most of the Markov recognized 23 cultural sub-layers which remaining deposit forms a north-south baulk c. 20 he grouped into 9 layers on the basis of changes in m in length and from 0.5 m to 1.5 m in height. It is the color and texture of the sediments, the presence divided into two parts by a former excavation trench of undisturbed sterile and mineralized layers, and that cut inward to where bedrock reaches the roof. differences in the nature of the archaeological fi nds. We decided to excavate two areas on either side of the In total, the fi nds amounted to 11,060 stone artifacts, gap formed by the trench, which we labeled Areas 1 several thousand fragments of bone, 609 fragments of and 2 (Fig. 8.20). pottery, a considerable quantity of perforated shells, Area 1 (Fig. 8.21) was longer (c. 5.8 m) than area and 2 bone needles. Pottery was restricted to the 2 (c. 2.4 m), and because both areas consisted of parts upper four layers, with just a single sherd in layer 5 of the deposit that had originally extended farther (this volume, pp. 206–7). Markov ascribed the lower across the back of the shelter, they were diffi cult to layers, devoid of pottery, to the Mesolithic, except interpret, but the deposits we excavated clearly pre- for the lowest, layer 9, which he regarded as possibly served the general stratigraphy of this part of the site. Upper Palaeolithic because it lacked geometric stone The layers in both areas were composed of silts and tools. He ascribed the upper layers to the early Neo- sands, the former probably derived from wind action lithic (layer 4), the late Neolithic and Eneolithic (layer and the latter from the waterfall above the shelter. 3), and the Bronze Age (layers 2 and 1). Small quantities of artifacts had been incorporated j e i t u n , s u m b a r a n d c h a n d y r valleys, a n d bo l s h o i balkhan r e g i o n : e x c av a t i o n & s u rv e y 115

well sorted, others less so. No fragments of charcoal or gypsum were present in these layers. There were few finds and none in the lowest four contexts. As in Area 1, there was little evidence in Area 2 of human activity. Many of the deposits were washed in or had weathered from the surrounding walls of the shelter and mixed with occasional artifacts that found their way to the back of the shelter. Most of the depos- its are probably relatively recent, as is suggested by the two AMS radiocarbon dates we obtained: one (OxA–12548) on sheep/goat bone from context 3 and one (Beta–172095) from a charred barley grain from context 102. They yielded dates respectively of 3191 ± 8.21 The south-facing section of Area 1 in Dam Dam 35 BP or between 1530 and 1400 cal. BCE, and 2850 ± Cheshme 2 prior to excavation, April 1997; the base of 50 BP or between 1190 and 900 cal. BCE (and see this the deposit can be seen tapering upward on bedrock volume, p. 198 and p. 201). toward the back of the rockshelter. (Photo by Patrick Blackman) Dam Dam Cheshme 3 DDC 3 (Fig. 8.22, color) is a small rockshelter located a short distance north of DDC 2 on the west- into the deposits, presumably as a result of people en- ern side of the same canyon. It had previously been gaged in activities in the front of the shelter throwing test excavated, probably by Markov. We excavated rubbish toward the rear. All the material excavated two trenches in the shelter in the hope of finding was dry-sieved through a 5-mm mesh and samples for evidence of, and dating, its occupation. Trench 1 was wet-sieving were taken from most contexts. excavated adjacent to a former trench (perhaps dug In Area 1 we encountered a series of yellow- by Markov), and trench 2 was placed slightly farther brown silts, fine in texture and containing few finds to the northwest and excavated through undisturbed (contexts 2–5). Underlying these were yellow sands sediment. Both trenches ran from the mouth of the which graded into clay (6–9) and these were overlaid shelter toward the rear. Trench 1 cut through a series by sands with a greater admixture of gravel (10–13). of very complex deposits made up of small hearths in- We then encountered a series of clays, often finely lam- terspersed with rocks, which were especially prevalent inated, that probably derived from weathering of the at the front of the shelter and are probably the result of walls of the shelter (14–22) and which were underlain roof fall. Trench 2 revealed a series of layers running by yellowish sands with some silt (23–26). At the base horizontally across the shelter. The main contexts of the deposit there was a lens of fine greenish silt (27) recognized in our excavations of trenches 1 and 2 are overlying compact gray sand (28) that lay on bedrock. described in Appendix 8.5. Sporadic finds of flint, pottery, and bone were made The excavation evidence, especially the hearths, throughout the deposit, and, with the exception of indicates that the shelter was frequently but not in- the stone artifacts most of which came from context tensively used. Apart from the hearths, there was very 22 (this volume, p. 204), there were no concentrations little evidence of occupation: only pottery (including of finds. Nor was there direct evidence of human oc- two sherds from wheel-turned vessels probably of Iron cupation, in the form of hearths or ashy layers, in this Age or later date), 10 stone artifacts, and very small part of the shelter. quantities of charred plant remains, wood charcoal, In Area 2 similar sets of layers were encountered, and animal bone (see this volume: Chapter 10, Sec- but they were not as deep. The uppermost layers were tions 1–5). We obtained one AMS date (OxA–12546) composed of brown and yellow sands with inclusions on a fragment of sheep/goat bone from context 52: of limestone and some gypsum and charcoal flecks 2978 ± 27 BP or between 1320 and 1110 cal. BCE (and (contexts 101–109). Below these the deposits became see this volume, p. 201). This date, and the presence stonier and more silty, with increased numbers of of potsherds throughout the deposits, suggests rela- limestone fragments (109–114). Some deposits were tively recent use of the shelter. We found no evidence 116 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia of Mesolithic occupation, and the general lack of ar- Most of the floor consists of bedrock but there are also chaeological material implies that it was not occupied several patches of sediment on it. A 2 x 1 m test pit continuously for long periods. Instead, it may have was dug in one of the patches in the southern part of functioned as a campsite for hunters, pastoralists, and the shelter. At the top of the deposit light-gray silt was other people who migrated between the piedmont underlain by a silty clay with occasional pebbles that and the mountains. became more abundant in the next 8–12 cm, where some specks of charcoal were encountered. At 40 cm Dam Dam Cheshme 4 the stones, including angular rock fragments, were DDC 4 is a small rockshelter at the base of a cliff still more abundant, and at 65 cm waterlogged clay at the head of the canyon in which DDC 2 and 3 are lo- weathered from the bedrock was reached. Two more cated. A test excavation revealed a series of sands and test pits were excavated in the center of the shelter re- gravels that appear to have been deposited as a result vealing gray sand to a depth of 25 cm, where bedrock of water intermittently flowing down the face of the was reached. No archaeological material was found in cliff from a waterfall above the cave. No artifacts were any of the test pits or in our exploration of the cave. recovered and we found no other evidence of human The lower shelter is more exposed, smaller (ap- use of this shelter, which appeared to have been test proximately 15 m wide, 10 m deep, and 10 m high) and excavated previously, possibly by Markov. also contains a pool. Bedrock forms most of its floor, but a 1.0 x 0.5 m test pit dug in an area of sediment went through a light-brown silt with gravel and rock Reconnaissance Survey for Other Sites fragments to a depth of 80 cm, where excavation was ended. At a depth of 30 cm several potsherds were Following the generally disappointing results of found which probably came from a single, possibly our excavations at the DDC sites, we devoted the rest medieval, vessel (this volume, p. 207). of the 1997 field season to searching for other sites A third shelter was located some 300 m farther that might offer better prospects for future research down the canyon on a meander of the stream channel. on the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in the region. It is about 25 m wide, resembles DDC 2 in appearance, Previous surveys by Russian and Turkmen archae- and is used as a sheep pen. There were signs, in the ologists had demonstrated the existence of several form of what appeared to be two partly backfilled rockshelter/cave and open sites around the margins pits, that the sediment on the floor of the shelter had of the Bolshoi Balkhan, and in the time available to previously been text-excavated. A small test pit dug by us we located and briefly investigated three sites along us in another patch of sediment went through sheep the southern flank of the massif and one north of the droppings and 15 cm of gray sand on top of bedrock, mountains (Fig. 4.1). Two proved to be rockshelter but no archaeological remains were found. (Bashkovdan) and cave (Charla’uk) sites and two were open-air sites (Joyruk and Oyukli). An attempt was Charla’uk made to visit a fifth site located close to the village of This site is a cave situated about 1 km up a short Adjikuli on the eastern side of the massif (Fig. 4.1), canyon in the escarpment east of Bashkovdan close where Vishnyatsky found three deflated Mesolithic/ to a waterfall at the head of the canyon. The cave Neolithic sites in the 1980s, but we were unable, for entrance is a horizontal fissure in the cliff some 3 m lack of time, to examine them. wide and 0.5 m high. The cave extends from the fis- sure into a circular chamber c. 30 m deep and 25 m Bashkovdan wide, with a roof that reaches a maximum height of 4 The name Bashkovdan (“the five pools” in Turk- m. A spring at the northern end of the cave flows into meni) refers to a channel in a canyon that penetrates a shallow pool in the center. The cave is totally dark the southern escarpment of the massif for some 2 km. and inhabited by bats, and we could only excavate About 200 m from the head of the canyon there are two with light from a generator. Two test pits were dug. rockshelters, one above the other. The upper shelter is The first was a 1-m2 pit near the eastern edge of the impressively large: approximately 50 m wide, 35 m deep pool. At the surface there was a 2–3 cm layer of yellow and 35 m high. Water seeps over its inner walls and is sand underlain by a 5-cm layer of red-brown material channeled into several pools surrounded by fig trees. identified as bat droppings. Below this was a 10–15 j e i t u n , s u m b a r a n d c h a n d y r valleys, a n d bo l s h o i balkhan r e g i o n : e x c av a t i o n & s u rv e y 117

cm layer of grayish sand, which gave way to yellower unable to carry out any excavations. A rapid surface sand containing pieces of stone that had probably collection yielded 10 flint artifacts and a few potsherds fallen from the roof. Bedrock was reached at a depth (this volume, p. 207) . No structures or stratified de- of 70 cm. The second test pit (2 x 1 m) was dug about posits were observed, but this large and complex site 4 m east of the first. Its stratigraphy closely resembled would probably repay further investigation. that of the first pit, except that the layer of yellow sand containing rocks was underlain by some 2 m of sand. At a depth of 2.5 m we decided to end the excavation. Conclusion Regrettably, we found no traces of ancient occupation in either of the test pits or in our exploration of the Two factors made our investigations in the cave and its surroundings. Bolshoi Balkhan mountains less productive than we had hoped. First, the scale of earlier Russian excava- Oyukli tions at both DDC 1 and 2 had left little unexcavated Oyukli, situated north of the massif (Fig. 4.1), is deposit. The deposit that remained was outside the an open-air site which had previously been visited by main areas of occupation of these rockshelters and several Russian archaeologists, notably Markov (1961; yielded little evidence of human activity. Our excava- Markov and Khamrakuliev 1980). When we visited tions at DDC 3 produced archaeological material that the site it extended over an area of about 50 x 50 m was more recent than the Mesolithic–Neolithic transi- on a deflated sand dune. Two 1-m2 test pits revealed tion, which may be why it had not been fully excavated sand to a depth of 1 m. The site appears to have no by the Russian archaeologists, whose interest, like stratigraphy and all the archaeological material we ours, also focused on the Mesolithic and Neolithic pe- observed—scatters of stone tools and potsherds (this riods. The second factor is that there may be relatively volume, p. 207)—was on the surface, which accords few undisturbed early deposits in this climatically with Markov’s report. Oyukli is probably a deflated and geomorphologically volatile landscape, as seems Neolithic site. to be indicated by our brief investigations of other sites in the Bolshoi Balkhan region. Many caves and Joyruk rockshelters either never accumulated deposits or have Joyruk (Djoyruk) is an open-air site located on had them subsequently eroded. It is also evident that the top of a high (15–30 m) sand cliff north of a large Russian archaeologists had carried out extensive sur- meander of the Uzboi channel close to the southeast veys in the area, and if they had found sites with early corner of the massif. It consists of a series of smaller stratified deposits, they would have reported them. sites that extend for several hundred meters along the The best hope for future excavations of Mesolithic and cliff top. For lack of time, we were only able to visit part Neolithic sites appears to lie in the open sites that are of the site, which appeared to be deflated, and we were known to exist along the former course of the Uzboi.

9 Jeitun: Dating and Analysis of Excavated Materials

n this chapter, the materials excavated and sampled at Jeitun by the British team are described and the results of Itheir analyses are presented. These reports combine presentation of technical data (some of which is contained in appendices) with interpretation of the results, and they form the basis for the conclusions about the nature of the site and the history of its occupation that are summarized at the end of the chapter. The radiocarbon chronol- ogy that we established for Jeitun is described first, followed by sections on sediments and soils, plant and animal remains, stone tools, and pottery.

Section 9.1 Dating the Site: Radiocarbon Chronology with Chris Gosden and John Meadows

Prior to our excavations no radiocarbon dates late Pleistocene or early Holocene. had been determined for Jeitun, and obtaining an From the outset of our research at Jeitun we AMS radiocarbon chronology was therefore one of regarded AMS radiocarbon determinations as key to our principal aims when we began research at the site. understanding the site itself and when agriculture was Masson had inferred, mainly on the basis of similari- practiced there. In 1990, we submitted 5 samples for dat- ties between the ceramic assemblages he excavated at ing, followed in 1992 and 1993 by a further 6, all taken Jeitun and those found at the Southwest Asian sites within the site (Harris et al. 1993:330; Harris, Gosden, of Jarmo and Tepe Guran, that Jeitun had been oc- and Charles 1996:437). The samples came from a vari- cupied in the 6th millennium BCE (Masson and Sari- ety of locations and deposits, partly from features as- anidi 1972:36, 171), and his division of its stratigraphy sociated with buildings and yard areas and partly from into five phases implied a long-lasting occupation. our test pits. All 11 dates were obtained from individual Expectations of longevity for Jeitun-Culture sites cereal and weed seeds or chaff fragments, which estab- were reinforced by the investigations by Berdiev and lished incontrovertibly that wheat and barley were being others between 1963 and 1973 of substantial tell sites cultivated at Jeitun by c. 6000 cal. BCE. In 1994 we ob- on the Kopetdag piedmont, two of which, Chopan tained 3 more AMS dates from charcoal in three buried and Togolok (although not adequately dated), were soils (palaeosols) that revealed traces of two artificially reported to have Early Jeitun levels (this volume, cut ditch-like features, one above the other, exposed in pp. 60–61). Such expectations were also derived the side of a modern irrigation ditch adjacent to the site from excavations at Neolithic sites in the Levant and (see below and this chapter: Sections 9.3 and 9.4). All Turkey, many of which had demonstrated long-term 14 samples were processed at the Oxford Radiocarbon (although discontinuous) occupation starting in the Accelerator Unit, University of Oxford, UK. 120 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Table 9.1 AMS radiocarbon results obtained on-site at Jeitun. All samples consisted of charred remains of cereal or weed seeds and/or chaff, identified where possible. The second column shows inferred relationships of the 1990 samples to Masson’s building levels/phases of occupation (I–IV) and of the 1992/93 samples to numbered contexts identified by the British team. Uncalibrated (BP) dates are conventional radiocarbon ages (Stuiver and Polach 1977). Calibrated date ranges were obtained by the maximum intercept method (Stuiver and Reimer 1986), using OxCAL 3.10 software (Bronk Ramsey 1995, 1998, 2001, 2005) and the INTCAL 04 calibration data (Reimer et al. 2004).

On-site Samples Calibrated Dates (cal. BCE)

Laboratory Probable phases Material dated δ13C Radiocarbon 1 sigma 2 sigma no. (I–IV) and (‰) ages (BP) (68% confidence) (95% confidence) context nos. OxA-2912 I T. monococcum -24.1 7100 ± 90 6060–5890 6210–5770 OxA-2913 II/III T. monococcum -25.6 7180 ± 90 6100–5980 6230–5880 OxA-2914 III/IV T. monococcum -25.2 7270 ± 100 6240–6020 6380–5920 OxA-2915 IV T. monococcum -24.3 7200 ± 90 6210–5990 6240–5890 OxA-2916 below IV T. monococcum -25.7 7190 ± 90 6210–5990 6240–5890 OxA-4690 12 Aegilops sp. -25.1 7035 ± 65 6000–5840 6030–5740 OxA-4691 17 indet. seeds -20.7 6850 ± 65 5780–5660 5890–5630 OxA-4692 37 Aegilops sp. -24.5 7025 ± 70 5990–5840 6030–5730 OxA-4693 TP4 Aegilops sp. -25.9 7000 ± 70 5990–5790 6020–5720 OxA-4694 111 Aegilops sp. -24.4 7125 ± 70 6060–5920 6100–5880 OxA-4695 TP7 indet. cereal grain and -24.7 7170 ± 70 6080–5990 6220–5900 chaff

9.1 Calibration of the Jeitun radiocarbon results (Table 9.1) by the probability method (Stuiver and Reim- er 1993), using the INTCAL 04 data (Reimer et al. 2004). j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 121

9.2 Simple Bayesian model of on-site radiocarbon dates from Jeitun, implemented in OxCAL 3.10 software (Bronk Ramsey 1995, 1998, 2001, 2005). Distributions in outline represent simple calibrations of the radiocarbon dates by the probability method, as shown in Figure 9.1. The solid distributions are “posterior density estimates” generated by the model that indicate the prob- able calendar dates of samples and events obtained by combining the radiocarbon dates with the relative dating information incorporated in the model structure. Note the satisfactory overall index of agreement (A=91.8%, the critical value of A being 60.0%), which indicates that the radiocarbon results are consistent with the relative dating of samples implied by the model structure.

The On-site Dates probable duration of occupation. The model makes no assumption about the age order of the 11 samples The 11 on-site dates are given in Table 9.1 with dated, but it does assume that they are representative the calibrations shown at one and two standard devia- of a single, continuous period of activity. This assump- tions. Their interpretation can be further refined by tion, implemented in the OxCAL 3.10 computer pro- looking at the probability that the true age of a sample gram using phase boundaries (Fig. 9.2; Bronk Ramsey falls on a particular date (Fig. 9.1). 2000), reduces the dispersion of the calibrated dates, Table 9.1 and Figure 9.1 show that the dates of some of which is caused by the statistical scatter in all the samples probably fall between 6300 and 5600 radiocarbon measurements. The satisfactory overall cal. BCE, but it is likely that the overall timespan index of agreement obtained (A=91.8%; the critical represented by these samples is relatively short. In value of A, 60%, is analogous to the 5% significance an attempt to define more precisely the period dur- level in a χ2 test: Bronk Ramsey 1995) indicates that ing which Jeitun is likely to have been occupied, we the radiocarbon results are consistent with the model have used Bayesian statistical methods to model the structure, and do not suggest discontinuity of occupa- 122 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

that we hoped would provide a phased chronological se- quence, which differentiated the two superimposed houses and also levels within them, and which might test Mas- son’s sequence of five discrete building levels and inferred phases of occupation. The 1992/93 samples came from the following numbered test pits and contexts.

OxA-4695 This sample was ob- tained from a burnt area be- neath remains of mudbrick architecture in test pit 7 at the eastern end of the site. It was taken at c. 4.70 m below 9.3 Duration of site occupation, derived from the model shown in Figure 9.2. datum in one of the lowest levels reached in any excava- tion of the site. The model estimates that occupation tion at Jeitun and it may therefore date some of the spanned 100–340 years at 68% probability or 30–440 earliest use of the site. years at 95% probability (modeled date estimates are conventionally italicized) (Fig. 9.3). OxA-4693 Although Masson (following Kuftin’s and Mar- This sample was taken from the lowest charcoal uschenko’s soundings of the Jeitun mound in 1952, lens of a small hearth encountered in test pit 4 in the this volume, p. 196) recognized five phases of oc- central area of the site. The hearth was below remains cupation based on what were interpreted as succes- of mudbrick architecture attributable to Masson’s sive levels of building construction, the radiocarbon phases 2 and 3 and it probably represents an earlier dates do not indicate either a long or a discontinuous phase in the life of the settlement. period of time. In fact if OxA-4691, which is slightly later than the other dates, is omitted, the results are OxA-4694 statistically consistent with a single radiocarbon date This sample came from context 111, which was (T’=11.0, T’(5%)=16.9, ν=9); Ward and Wilson 1978). the lowest deposit in the oven of House A and con- Although we can be confident that the radiocarbon sisted of a layer of sand containing lumps of mudbrick, results accurately date the cereal and weed seeds and burnt clay, and charcoal. chaff fragments themselves, the taphonomy of these samples is inevitably somewhat uncertain. We can OxA-4692 use the results to infer the dates of the depositional The source of this sample was context 37, a contexts from which they were recovered, but strictly sand layer near the oven and the adjacent platform of speaking the dates only provide maximum ages for House A, which contained many figurines, potsherds, those deposits. and flint blades. The sand may represent a period of The five samples (OxA-2912–6) obtained for dat- disuse in the life of the house after the initial floor ing in 1990 (before the British team undertook their layers were laid down. own excavations) lack context descriptions, and given their uncertain relationship to Masson’s phases, they OxA-4691 are not discussed further. In selecting samples during This sample was taken from context 17, which our excavations in 1992 and 1993 we chose contexts lay immediately beneath context 11 and consisted of a j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 123 layer of brown clay and sand. The layer contained sev- of postholes (e.g., those cut into context 17 mentioned eral potsherds and flint blades and had several holes above in relation to OxA-4691) that may signify short- cut into it, some of which may have been postholes lived structures erected and used after the destruction remaining from an ephemeral structure built after of one house and before the construction of another. House A went out of use. These types of evidence suggest very complicated pat- terns of on-site activity that only further fine-grained, OxA-4690 large-scale excavations could more fully reveal. This sample came from a small hearth (context Several possibilities arise from these observa- 12) within one of the upper mudbrick destruction lay- tions. First, that the occupants of Jeitun lived there ers (11) of House A. Context 12 was one of three ash continually throughout the site’s occupation, but lenses within context 11 that derived from small fires. rebuilt abandoned or collapsed houses rapidly. There The fires were probably lit while the building was out are ethnographic examples of such behavior, where a of use and they may be the result of ephemeral activity house might be abandoned on the death of important that took place soon after the destruction of House A. occupants and then rebuilt, or where the occupancy The main conclusion to be drawn from the on- of a house may be tied to the life-cycle of the group site dates is that Jeitun was occupied for, at most, 300 living in it (Boivin 2000). A second possibility (which or 400 years, and possibly for only 100 or 200 years. is not however supported by the modeled radiocarbon The dates suggest that very little time elapsed between dates) is that Jeitun was occupied, abandoned, and the first indications of human activity on the site— re-occupied by sedentary populations at successive the hearth encountered at c. 4.70 m below datum intervals throughout the history of the site. Third, in test pit 7 which appears to pre-date any mudbrick it may have been occupied only intermittently as architecture—and the construction of the uppermost one place visited in a seasonal subsistence cycle that buildings, probably soon after 6000 cal. BCE. The encompassed other sites, or, in a variation of that pat- results do not allow discontinuous occupation phases tern, part of the population may have lived there full- (or discrete building levels) to be distinguished. time while others followed a more mobile existence for part of the year. The question of the temporal nature of occupa- Interpretation of the On-site Chronology tion at the site—in particular whether Jeitun was a fully sedentary settlement, as has generally been assumed—is When we consider the layout and structure of the discussed more fully in the final section of this chapter site as a whole in relation to the radiocarbon dates, it and summarized in Chapter 11, but there is no doubt is clear that a large number of houses were built over a that the 14 radiocarbon determinations we obtained short period of time, with many superimposed on each enable Jeitun to be placed for the first time within an other; but it is impossible, from the results of our admit- absolute chronology, and that this allows comparisons tedly limited excavations, to provide firm evidence for to be more securely made with other Neolithic sites in discrete levels or phases of building or of changes in ar- Central and Southwest Asia and elsewhere. tifact forms (and see Section 9.12). The superimposed houses that we investigated are separated by layers of mudbrick debris, presumably derived from the decay The Off-site Dates or destruction of the buildings, and also by layers of windblown sand. The sand layers could have accumu- Table 9.2 shows the calibrated BCE and uncali- lated very rapidly, but they nevertheless indicate that brated BP values of the three off-site AMS dates we ob- occupation on any one area of the site was not entirely tained (OxA-4914, OxA-4915, OxA-4916). They came continuous. This inference is reinforced by the fact from charcoal in buried-soil horizons exposed in the that houses were generally built on top of one another, side of the modern irrigation drainage ditch close to although the walls of new houses were not aligned di- the eastern edge of the site (Fig. 3.1), and they date the rectly with or built on top of the walls of earlier ones, three poorly developed (immature) palaeosols and the as was done for example at Neolithic Çatalhöyük in two associated ditch-like features already mentioned. Turkey (Hodder and Cessford 2004). There are also in- The lower “ditch” was cut from the A horizon of the dications of more ephemeral use of the site, such as sets middle palaeosol (Soil II), and the upper one, which 124 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Table 9.2 AMS radiocarbon dates from charcoal recovered from three palaeosols exposed in the side of a mod- ern irrigation drainage ditch close to the eastern edge of the Jeitun mound. Section datum (present ground surface) at 182.7 m above msl, 7.3 m below the site datum. Calibrations according to the INTCAL 04 curve (Reimer et al. 2004) calculated using OxCAL 3.10 software (Bronk Ramsey 1995, 1998, 2001, 2005).

Off-site Samples Calibrated Dates (cal. BCE) Laboratory no. Depth in m below Uncalibrated 1 sigma 2 sigma section datum dates BP (68% confidence) (95% confidence)

OxA-4914 0.16–0.20 6940 ± 100 5970–5720 6010–5650 OxA-4915 0.51–0.65 7080 ± 65 6020–5890 6070–5800 OxA-4916 0.85–1.00 7140 ± 220 6230–5800 6450–5600

was shallower and wider, was cut from the Ag horizon Despite these difficulties, the first step in assess- of the upper palaeosol (Soil I). In addition to the cut ing the relationship between the ditch-like features features, all three soils contain evidence of human ac- and the site is to determine whether they were con- tivity in the form of scattered charcoal. Potsherds and temporary. Although the relatively low amounts of fragments of bone were also present and very small carbon present in two of the samples that were dated pieces of mudbrick were observed (in thin sections). resulted in larger error ranges, the fact that the dates These materials are likely to have been deposited accord with the stratigraphic sequence, from the old- during cultivation of the soils. However, Wilkinson’s est at the bottom to the youngest at the top, and even measurements of magnetic susceptibility (this chapter: more significantly that they all fall within the date Section 9.4) do not provide evidence of burning or ranges for the site itself, indicates that the paleosols other intensive human activity, and he infers that the and the ditch-like features are indeed contemporary charcoal (including the samples dated) was not pro- with the occupation of Jeitun. Furthermore, the im- duced in situ by the combustion of organic material maturity of the soils and their separation by deposits but originated in the settlement and was re-deposited of windblown sand suggests that areas of cultivable in the palaeosols by wind blow and/or overland flow land around Jeitun suffered sand encroachment and during intense rain storms. that cereal cultivation took place in an environment The discovery of the palaeosol sequence and of short-term environmental instability. This phe- especially of the ditch-like features is important for nomenon can be seen as part of the wider context our understanding of the site and the agricultural use of the location of Jeitun in an unstable environment of areas around it. It seems likely that the ditch-like subject to sudden floods and sand storms where features were used for purposes of water manage- the alluvium of the terminal fan of the Kara Su is ment, possibly irrigation if precipitation was insuf- overlain by the sands of the southern margin of the ficient or too irregular for rainfed cereal cultivation. Karakum. The palaeosol sequence shows that local Unfortunately the archaeobotanical evidence from accumulation of windblown sand was a discontinu- Jeitun is inconclusive on the question of whether the ous process, interrupted by pauses sufficiently long cereals were rainfed, irrigated, or grown on areas of for some soil development to occur. Evidently this high water table, or by some combination of these happened at least three times within the brief period methods (see Section 9.6). Nor could stratigraphic during which Jeitun was occupied, and it is likely that connection between the upper ditch and the Jeitun the topography and vegetation around the site also mound be definitely established because a large ridge altered in other ways that affected its inhabitants, of spoil from the modern irrigation ditch covered such as changes in the deposition and erosion of sedi- the area between them, and to determine whether it ments caused by short- and long-term fluctuations in did connect with the settlement would have required the discharge of the Kara Su, and perhaps as a result much more extensive excavation than we were able of overgrazing by domestic sheep and goats near the to undertake. settlement. j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 125

uring the 1990–1994 field seasons at Jeitun, Susan Limbrey undertook geoarchaeological investigations of Dsediments and soils both at the site and in its environs. She closely examined a sequence of deposits exposed in an excavated section near the center of the mound; sampled fragments of mudbrick and mortar from the re- mains of a wall of one of the Neolithic buildings on the site and from a house floor; studied a sequence of deposits exposed in the side of a modern irrigation drainage ditch close to the eastern edge of the mound where she found evidence of three buried-soil (palaeosol) horizons; and took samples for phytolith, particle-size and chemical analysis, and micromorphological examination. In Sections 9.2 and 9.3 she reports first on the on-site deposits, including the samples of brick, mortar, and floor material, and second on the off-site sequences. Also, in 1993 Keith Wilkinson took samples for magnetic-susceptibility measurement from the off-site sequence of palaeosols and excavated part of one of two ditch-like features that Limbrey discovered in the sequence. He describes his investigation in Section 9.4.

Section 9.2 Yard Deposits and in earlier excavations had been correlated by Masson Building Materials at Jeitun (1971) with his building phases 2, 3, and 4. Susan Limbrey The Upper Part of the Section This corresponds to Masson’s phase 2 and is Deposits were examined and sampled down a dominated by dark gray ash, with varying content of section in the north face of an area excavated ear- charcoal, gypsum, sand, humic material, and burnt lier by V. I. Masson and identified as a yard between and unburnt brick and mortar. There is an overall buildings. This face formed one side of the northeast slope up and a thickening to the west, but between extension, which was excavated back from it in 1991 three predominantly ash layers (contexts 22, 26, and (Fig. 8.2, trench 1991a), and context numbers were 30), contexts that are predominantly sandy (24 which assigned. Not all the contexts identified in excava- contains ash lenses and 27 which contains mudbrick tion reached the section, and some contexts of lesser fragments) thin westward. Toward the west, the lower extent occur within others, so for the section the boundaries of the ashes are clear, the upper ones dif- number sequence has gaps and overlaps. Study of fuse; toward the east, the distinction between ashy the deposits was aimed at understanding them in and sandy contexts is less well defined as the ashes terms of materials and mode of deposition, and was become thinner and poorer in charcoal. Pale gray ash complementary to phytolith analysis and the study of lenses taper in across the section from the west, above charred plant remains and animal bones (Sections context 26 and below context 30. Within the deposits, 9.5, 9.6, 9.7, and 9.9). Particle-size analysis was used to the ashy materials lie in lenses up to 2 m long. Within characterize the mineral components, and micromor- context 30, the material parted readily along a plane phological study to examine microstructure and the on which lay entire silica skeletons of graminaceous condition and organization of the materials. Build- leaf blades. Gypsum occurs as nodules, from more ing materials were also studied: samples of brick and than 1 cm in diameter down to small flecks. Burnt and mortar from a wall in direct relationship to the yard unburnt brick and mortar occur, from pieces a few cm deposits, and floor material from a nearby house. The across down to small fragments. Lumps, often flat- aim was to examine how the materials were made, to tened, of yellow concretionary material with embed- identify the raw materials, and to be able to identify ded sharp bone fragments, and other concretionary fragments of them occurring in the yard deposits. or compacted masses occur: the former are carnivore excreta, the latter are possibly also faecal. Faunal burrows, from the size of rodent or lizard down to Field Description of the Section through small arthropod, are common, but bioturbation has Yard Deposits not obscured stratigraphy, even fine laminae being clearly defined. Much bioturbation appears to be The deposits exposed in the section (Fig. 8.5 penecontemporaneous with deposition, in addition to and Fig. 8.6, color) fell broadly into three parts, which that which has clearly penetrated from later surfaces. 126 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

In context 26 there are clusters of gourd-shaped cells sands with thin layers and lenses of ash, gypsum, and composed of concentric layers of fine material which charcoal, with occasional cultural material, occur. A form the nests of solitary bees. darker zone some 30 cm down within the sands may be a buried soil. The Middle Part of the Section This corresponds to Masson’s phase 3 and is predominately sandy. Masson placed his 3/4 bound- Sampling ary between two sand layers, but it was found that these converged and both passed beneath the phase A column of samples was taken for phytolith 3 building to the west of the section studied. Ash analysis at a point 70 cm west along the section. Sam- layers and lenses taper in at first from the west, then pling was spaced to include each distinctive lamina from the east, and range from very pale gray to black, or lens, taking the middle part of the thicker ones, charcoal-rich deposits, and each is distinct and clearly so the gaps between samples were not uniform and differentiated. The sands (33 and 42) are sometimes areas where materials merged were avoided. A sample themselves ashy and lie in finely laminated form in from the present-day surface near the site was taken units up to 10 cm thick between the ashes. The sand for comparison. These samples were also used for is fine, well sorted, and colors are pale brown (Munsell particle-size analysis. Kubiena boxes (9 x 5 x 4 cm) color notation 10YR 6/3) to brown (10YR 5/3) and for micromorphological analysis, with bag samples grayish brown (10YR 5/2) where more ashy. Laminar adjacent to them, were taken of a group of contexts structure is common. Small white concretions and (26, 27, and 30) at approximately 220 cm west along reddish brown laminae and staining occur. A sandy the section. These contexts, in the upper part of the ash (38) lies between them. Within context 42, con- deposits, were sufficiently coherent to maintain their text 41, a prominent charcoal-rich ash, deepens at structure under drying and impregnation. The mid- intervals into pockets cutting into underlying sands dle, sand-dominated part of the section could not be and tapers out half way across the section, with a fine sampled successfully for micromorphology because pale gray ash on its surface extending a little farther it was too incoherent. In the lower part, contexts of west. Context 43, a thin, charcoal-rich black ash, also particular interest (44 containing the gypsum hearth, tapers out across the section within 42. The lowest 10 and 46, the brown humic material) were selected for cm of context 42 includes laminae of distinctly red- sampling. Several other small samples were taken dened sand. of components of the deposits occurring in coher- ent and distinctive form. From the wall revealed in The Lower Part of the Section excavation (context 18) a block sample was taken to This corresponds to Masson’s phase 4. Contexts include both brick and mortar, so that contact be- 44 and 45 form a complex of charcoal- and gypsum- tween them could be examined as well as each type rich materials, with thin sands between them. Context of material. 44 includes a gypsum-filled hollow with charcoal in Although the generally ashy or sandy nature of its base and a layer of charcoal spreading right across the contexts at the points where micromorphology the section below the reddened sands at the base of samples were taken, and at the position of the column context 43, and gypsum spreading westward from the chosen for phytolith analysis, are consistent, details hollow in an uneven layer, mixed with ash and sand. differ on account of lateral variation within each A wedge of sand comes in from the west between the context and the disposition of lenticular and tapering- charcoal and the gypsum. A similar “gypsum hearth” out laminae. For example, context 26 was described was noted at the same level beyond the section studied as “gray ash with charcoal” at the micromorphology in detail. The deposits of context 45 consist of thin sampling point, but as “gray, ashy/sandy” at the phy- ashes and sands lying approximately horizontally and tolith column. Brief descriptions of the contexts, giv- extending right across the whole section. Context 46 ing texture and color as they were represented at the is a distinctive brown humic material laminated with position of the phytolith-sample column, are provided gypsum and gray ash, continuous across the section in Table 9.3. and found in excavation to lap up against the stump The micromorphology samples were numbered of a building wall. Below this, predominantly clean and relate to their contexts as follows: j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 127

J1: this sample was taken in 1990 and is not corre- microscope. Colors are given in Munsell notation in lated with contexts identified in 1991; it consists dry condition. Micromorphology blocks were dried of dark gray ash, laminated sand, and light gray through acetone replacement of water, impregnated ash, with burnt material including goat drop- with Crystic resin by progressive concentration from pings; it is described in Limbrey (1992b:95). solution in acetone, and cured under stepwise in- J2: context 46, brown humic material and gypsum crease and decrease of temperature. Thin sections (and see Fig. 9.6, color). were prepared in the soil micromorphology workshop J3: context 44, gypsum hearth. at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. J4: contexts 26, 27, and 30; the sample was taken with the intention of capturing the structure Results of the solitary bees’ nest, which appeared to lie Particle-size analysis of the depositional con- within a disturbance of 27 and 30, but the slide texts of the phytolith samples (Table 9.3) gives a very cut from the block missed it. consistent strong dominance of fine sand, the samples J5: context 30; gray ash with charcoal and mudbrick below context 46 consisting of over 90% fine sand with fragments (and see Fig. 4a,b, color). the remainder being predominantly coarse silt very J6: context 26, with part of context 27; gray ashy similar to the blown sand of the present-day surface. sand Ash admixture introduces a wider size distribution, J9: from context 30, a flattened mass, thought in the with a marked silt increase which can be attributed field to be possibly faecal. to the silica skeleton and phytolith content. Building J11: context 18; brick and mortar from wall. materials contribute clay, whether from fragments in J12: no context number, material from a house the deposits or from the abrasion of structures in the floor excavated by the Russian team (and see course of use and contact with people and domestic Fig. 9.5, color). animals. Where gypsum content has a high proportion J7 was a sample of the predominantly sandy context of lenticular sparitic grains, the coarse and medium 42, and was not sufficiently cohesive to maintain sand content rises. Because the samples were taken its coherence under resin impregnation; J8 was a for phytolith analysis, included material was avoided; small cluster of bee nest cells; and J10 was a piece particles above sand grade were fragments of brick of yellow, bone-rich carnivore excreta; none of and mortar, pottery, bone, and charcoal, with a few these samples was sectioned. small angular fossiliferous limestone fragments. Soil concretions account for much of the small coarse sand component and, in sample P18, aggregated gypsum. Analysis The results of the particle-size analysis of the samples of mudbrick and mortar are shown in Table 9.4. Methods As already mentioned, pH values were deter- Partial particle-size analysis was carried out on mined for the mudbrick and mortar and also for samples from the phytolith column by dry sieving. samples from contexts 26, 30, 44, and 46 (Table 9.5). The samples were small, and the very low silt plus clay The pH values are surprisingly low, and show that content meant that, for many of them, much larger the soluble-salt concentration is low. The deposits samples would have been needed for full analysis. within the site are more strongly leached than the A modern surface sample was treated in the same alkaline soils of the buried-soil sequence (this chap- way. Samples of brick and mortar were analyzed by ter: Section 9.3), the site itself having provided a spe- wet sieving and determination of silts and clay by cialized environment. The finer texture and lower SediGraph X-ray particle-size analyzer. pH in water at porosity of the mudbrick has resulted in resistance

1:2.5 dilution and in CaCl2 buffer was determined on to leaching. It should be noted, however, that the sec- the samples taken from selected contexts for macro- tion studied in 1991 was in the area where Berezkin description of micromorphology samples (J2, J3, J5, had started a new excavation in 1989 (this volume, J6) and on the brick and mortar (J11). p. 98) and where Masson had previously removed Field descriptions were amplified by bench the uppermost two levels, so chemical conditions are examination of micromorphology blocks and bag probably not representative of those that prevailed samples taken adjacent to them, using a low-power through the greater part of the site’s history. 128 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Table 9.3 List of phytolith samples P1–P33 showing depths in cm below the section datum at 188.6 m above msl, context numbers, the results of particle-size analysis, and brief descriptions of the deposits.

Phytolith Depth below Context Coarse Medium Fine Silt + clay Characteristics of the deposits; colors, sample section no. sand % sand % sand % % below apart from P23, are all hue 10YR, no. datum 2.0–0.6mm 0.6–0.2mm 0.2–0.06mm 0.06mm value 5 or 6, chroma 1 to 4, ashes be- ing in the lower and sands in the higher chromas P1 0.0–2.0 14 3.0 8.0 77.6 11.4 pale brown fine ashy P2 2.0–4.5 14 0.1 16.0 67.2 16.7 light brownish gray fine ashy P3 4.5–6.5 14 5.6 12.8 69.2 12.4 grayish brown fine ashy P4 6.5–10.0 22 3.6 10.4 76.0 10.0 gray ash with charcoal, mudbrick P5 10.0–15.5 24 5.0 9.6 79.4 5.4 brown, sandy P6 15.5–24.0 26 3.2 5.0 83.2 8.6 gray, ashy sand P7 24.0–29.0 30 7.4 20.2 69.6 2.8 gray ash with charcoal and mudbrick frag- ments P8 29.0–39.0 33 4.2 9.0 82.6 4.2 pale brown slightly ashy sand P9 39.0–43.0 33 2.0 5.0 84.2 8.8 brown sand, but top is thin white ash P10 43.0–45.0 33 4.8 14.8 70.8 9.6 laminated brownish gray ash, charcoal, gypsum P11 45.0–47.0 38 2.6 7.0 85.6 4.8 grayish brown sandy, ashy P12 47.0–56.0 42 0.6 4.0 83.6 12.4 brown sand P13 56.0–59.0 – 4.8 18.0 51.4 25.8 grayish brown ash with charcoal, in context 42 P14 59.0–63.0 41 1.3 15.6 50.6 22.5 pale gray ash with charcoal, wihin context 42 P15 63.0–72.0 42 2.4 4.8 79.6 13.2 brown sand P16 72.0–76.0 43 1.0 9.6 80.2 9.2 laminated sand with slightly burnt sand and ash P17 76.0–79.0 44 1.4 0.8 70.6 27.2 mixed dark ash and sand P18 79.0–84.0 44 20.2 22.8 38.6 18.4 gypsum-filled hollow with charcoal at its base P19 81.0–84.0 45 0.8 4.2 83.0 12.0 ash, sand, stained by adjacent “hearth” P20 84.0–91.0 45 6.2 14.0 67.6 12.2 black/gray ash, with sand laminae P21 91.0–94.0 45 4.8 10.8 66.8 17.6 gray ashy, sandy, slightly burnt P22 94.0–96.0 45 3.6 9.4 81.2 5.8 yellowish brown sand P23 96.0–99.0 46 3.0 14.0 57.8 25.2 brown humic material, 7.5YR 5/4 P24 99.0–101.0 – 6.8 18.0 68.4 4.8 gray sand, laminae within brown humic material P25 101.0–107.0 – 0.2 0.6 93.2 6.0 yellowish brown sand P26 107.0–109.0 – 4.4 0.6 35.6 46.4 white ash lens P27 109.0–113.0 – 4.0 2.0 90.0 4.0 brown sand with white concretions P28 113.0–116.0 – 1.2 8.4 81.8 8.6 light gray, ashy P29 116.0–122.0 – 0.4 1.2 95.2 3.2 darker yellowish brown sand with charcoal P30 127.0–129.0 – 1.0 1.4 95.8 1.8 yellowish brown sand with charcoal and concretions P31 132.5–135.0 – 0.2 0.6 96.6 2.6 yellowish brown sand P32 141.0–143.0 – 0.2 0.6 95.6 3.6 yellowish brown sand P33 c. 158.0 – 0.4 0.8 95.2 3.6 yellowish brown sand Modern 0.2 0.2 96.2 3.8 pale brown sand surface

Detailed descriptions of the micromorphology which would be repetitive because common elements are given in Appendix 9.1 at the end of this Section. The occur throughout. The building materials are next main components of the deposits are represented in the described and these descriptions include fragments slides of samples J4, J5, and J6, and micromorphological within the other fabrics. Then, the gypsum hearth in descriptions of them are given by type of fabric rather context 44, the humic layer, context 46, and the putative than by context or by separate description of each slide, faecal mass from context 30 are described. j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 129

Table 9.4 Particle-size analysis of mudbrick and mortar. Size grades of particles (British Standard 1377): coarse sand 2.0–0.6 mm, medium sand 0.6–0.02 mm, fine sand 0.02–0.06 mm, coarse silt 0.06–0.02 mm, medium silt 0.02–0.006 mm, fine silt 0.006–0.002 mm, clay <0.002 mm.

Coarse sand % Medium sand % Fine sand % Coarse silt % Medium silt % Fine silt % Clay % Brick 0.0 0.4 32.0 17.6 4.7 4.7 40.6 Mortar 0.0 0.8 44.6 27.3 5.5 4.9 16.9

Interpretation The pale ashes are the product of complete com- bustion in a well-aerated fire, and these, produced in The characteristics of the sands are, as expected lower volume than the charcoal-rich ashes, occur as (and indeed experienced uncomfortably while work- generally thin laminae and lenses. Ash of this kind is ing on site), entirely consistent with their deposition highly susceptible to wind blow, and thin deposits do as windblown material, and they are fully comparable not necessarily represent an act of deliberate deposi- to the sands described in the report on buried soils tion. The sandy contexts have lenses and admixture (this chapter: Section 9.3), and the present-day sur- of ash, suggesting that ash was blowing around in the face around the site. The ash-dominated contexts, wind. The thicker masses of dark ashes are probably which in some cases were found under excavation to the result of deliberate hearth clearance, as excavation be spread from hearths within the yard area, are vari- evidence suggested (see Chapter 8, Appendix 8.1). Frag- ably composed of charcoal-rich dark gray ashes, and ments of mudbrick and mortar are common in these pale gray ashes. The micromorphology shows all the ashes, and are likely to derive from the process of clear- ashes to be very rich in siliceous plant residues, domi- ing oven superstructures or the clay bases of hearths. nated by material comparable to barley, with reed also Fragments of bone occur in the deposits, and present. The ashes are also rich in calcite spherulites, carnivore excreta containing fragmented bone were of the kind formed in the gut of large herbivores readily identified macroscopically. The faecal mass (Canti 1997). The degree to which combustion and examined in thin section must have been from a her- humification have acted upon the plant materials is bivore, because it was so rich in spherulites. The plant variable. Both dung and plant-processing residues tissue in articulated form was particularly marked used as fuels are involved, the latter either after use in this sample, which had not been burnt and had as fodder and so appearing in dung, or used as fuel retained its organization. directly, but the deposits also contain some unburnt, The gypsum hearth appeared to be in situ, hav- humified residues and dung, and much amorphous ing charcoal under and around the gypsum and evi- humus providing brown and yellow laminae and dence of heating of surrounding sands, but fragments staining. of mudbrick included in it suggest that the mass of charcoal and gypsum could have been dumped while hot from a clay hearth structure nearby. The burning Table 9.5 pH determinations from selected contexts. of gypsum to produce anhydrite shows how flooring plaster was prepared. Context Material pH in pH in The brown layer (context 46) that forms a basal water CaCl2 layer in the yard is distinctive in its continuity, its 18 brick 8.1 8.1 concentration of amorphous organic matter, its lami- 18 mortar 7.6 7.5 nation, and its extremely high concentration of cal- 26 sand 7.5 6.9 cite spherulites. It also shows evidence of iron-oxide 26 ash 6.7 6.6 staining, suggesting some stagnation of moisture in its lower part. It is likely that the area was used initially 30 dark gray ash 6.8 6.8 as an animal pen, with dung accumulating and being 44 sand from gypsum hearth 7.3 6.9 trampled, before less intensive use later as an ash dis- 46 brown humic material 7.2 6.6 posal and intermittent hearth area. 130 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

The mudbricks and mortar are made from pre- and then becoming the site of intermittent activity dominantly calcareous and gypsiferous alluvial de- around hearths, and perhaps also receiving dumps posits, a fine sand/coarse silt, and a calcareous clay of materials from ovens within the houses. One of the which occur nearby as components of the alluvial fan. uses of hearths was to prepare plaster for flooring by There is no evidence of the deliberate inclusion of the burning of gypsum. Fuel included wood and crop organic material. The brick is much better prepared residues, the latter both fresh and in the form of dung than the mortar, being well mixed with only some of grazing animals. The ubiquitous blown sand con- rounded pellets of separate clay, and having some tributed to all the deposits, but in the middle part of indication in the horizontal alignment of grains that the sequence it was dominant, although with sufficient it was tamped down during formation. The mortar admixture of ash to suggest that the site continued is poorly mixed, coarser and finer sediment roughly to be occupied throughout the period represented stirred together, with the clay not fully mixed in. The by the sequence. Perhaps it was just the use of this mortar layers were as thick as the bricks, so the mortar particular area that was from time to time reduced. must have been laid in a fairly stiff consistency, which, The presence of carnivore (presumably domestic dog) if it was prepared as need arose, would have made excreta and of herbivore excreta, in addition to the more thorough mixing difficult. Lack of any smear- dung used as fuel, is attested. There is no unequivo- ing or interpenetration of materials at the contact cal evidence of human excreta, but it is not ruled also suggests low water content: very wet mortar laid out because small fragments of excrement could be on dry bricks would have resulted in suction into the derived from any of the occupants of the site, human, brick, entraining clay into the pores; wetting the bricks domestic, or commensal. Building materials were lo- before applying mortar would also draw clay into the cally derived from deposits of the alluvial fan, and the pores of the brick unless very clear water were used, mortar included more shell material and had a higher which would not have been feasible. sand content than the mudbrick. The chemical envi- ronment of the deposits permitted the preservation of siliceous plant materials. In a saline/alkaline desertic Conclusions environment, and with a high content of ash, the pH close to neutral is surprising in pedogenic terms. It Study of these deposits has supported evidence is possible that the acid reaction and dissolution of from excavation that the area where they accumulated opaline silica itself contributed to buffering against was indeed a yard, first used for penning animals higher alkalinity. j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 131

Section 9.3 Buried Soils at Jeitun Susan Limbrey

odern irrigation drainage ditches close to the mound, the fullest expression of soil development was MJeitun mound gave access to several exposures observed and abundant potsherds occurred, together of sequences of sand accumulation within which soil with artificially cut features that had the appearance of development at three levels (designated Soils I, II, a vertical sequence of two ditches. The lower ditch-like and III) could be identified on the basis of color and feature was cut from and filled with the A horizon of texture. Three sections were closely examined and re- Soil II. It was straight-sided, flat-bottomed, and 30 cm corded between 1990 and 1993. The section recorded deep. The upper one was shallower and wider. It was in 1990 (see below) was in a ditch to the north of the cut from the Ag horizon of Soil I, was partly filled with mound, which was out of use and dry, and samples this material, and had a more complex upper fill that were taken for chemical and particle-size analysis had apparently slumped in from the sides. and micromorphological study. The second and third Two sections were recorded here, one in 1992 (see sections were on the western side of a wide ditch just below) and one, some 20 m farther north, in 1993. The east of the mound (Fig. 3.1) which drained part of the latter was cut back and excavated (Fig. 9.7 and Fig. 9.8, nearby area under irrigation. Much of this ditch was color), recorded, and samples taken for chemical and inaccessible because of the proximity of grapevine particle-size analysis and micromorphological study, cultivation and the need to respect the integrity of the the results of which are reported in detail here. Also, ditch side, but the part of the deposits that contained later in the 1993 field season Keith Wilkinson cut back the buried soils was visible standing out as more coher- the section and extended it c. 5 m to the west in order ent and less eroded than the overlying sands. Its depth to sample the sequence for magnetic-susceptibility was variable and its surface broadly undulating. Under measurement and carry out an exploratory excavation the disturbed recent dune sand, the soil was overlain of the upper ditch-like feature. The results he obtained by older, grayer sand that displayed dune bedding. In support the identification of three buried-soil horizons 1991 and 1992 the exposure on the western side of the (Section 9.4). Investigation of the sequence to greater ditch was cleaned down and examined at several points depth was limited by the water level in the ditch, and where it was most accessible, over a distance of some 50 wider detailed lateral investigation was prevented by m. At the point where the ditch was closest to the Jeitun stability and safety factors. Stratigraphic connection between the buried soils and the mound itself could not be established because spoil from the modern ditch had been piled up between them, and local traf- fic and other activities had severely disturbed the area between the spoil ridge and the site. The aims of my study of the sequence were to confirm that the field identification of soil develop- ment was justified, to date and characterize the soil horizons by a limited range of analyses, to identify by micromorphological examination the pedogenetic processes at work, and to assess the agricultural po- tential of the soils for Neolithic cultivation.

9.7 The buried-soil section under excavation, April 1993. The Field Description and Sampling upper and middle soils are exposed, and the upper one dips into the upper cut ditch-like feature to the right at The following description is of the section exca- the top of the scale bar. The trace of a decayed root cross- vated in 1993, inspection and description in the field es the base of the excavation diagonally; scale bar 30 cm. being amplified by further examination of samples 132 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Table 9.6 Summary of samples taken from the 1993 sediment/buried-soils section at Jeitun for chemical and particle-size analysis, micromorphology, and radiocarbon dating. The section datum was established at 182.7 m above msl (7.3 m below the site datum).

Depth in cm Soil Description Analysis Micromorpho AMS 14C below sample horizon sample logical sample dating section datum sample

0–7 Yellowish brown sand. Sharp boundary, discontinuous, much bioturbation. 7–4 Grayish brown (7.5YR 5/2) loamy sand with small white 1 J16, upper part concretions and small clayey inclusions. This horizon merges with the one above where it overlies and dips into the top of the cut features. Abrupt, even boundary. 14–20 IA Brown (10YR 5/3) loamy sand with faint grayer and yel- 2 J16, lower part OxA-4914, lower mottles. Charcoal present. Clear boundary. part 20–27 IAg Predominantly grayish brown (2.5Y 5/2) loamy sand, 3 OxA-4914, with lighter and darker areas and diffuse yellowish part brown and very fine sharp mottles of higher chroma. More charcoal than above; also potsherds. This horizon, and the one above, interdigitated with the upper part of the fill of the upper cut feature. Clear to gradual, un- even boundary. 27–32 IBg Light olive brown (2.5YR 5/4) with fine sharp gray mot- 4 tles (10YR 6/1) and very fine brownish yellow mottles (10YR 6/8) loamy sand. Clear boundary. 32–45 IBg/C Light olive brown (2.5YR 5/4) sand, mottled as above, 5, 6 predominantly brownish yellow and gray, mottles dy- ing out downward. A little charcoal. This horizon dips into the upper fill of the lower cut feature. Clear bound- ary. 45–51 IC/IIA Yellowish brown (10YR5/4) sand with faint grayer mot- 7 tles. This horizon was continuous with the fill of the lower cut feature, but did not occur distinctly on the north side of it. Clear boundary. 51–70 IIAg Yellowish brown (10YR 5/4) sand, with much gray (10YR 8, 9 OxA-4915 6/1) and fainter brownish yellow mottles (10YR 6/6) often surrounding the gray. The lower cut feature was cut into this horizon, with steep clean sides and flat bottom at c. 70 cm. Gradual boundary. 70–80 IIBg Colors much as above, but more gray and much more 10 yellow, with higher chroma (to 10YR 6/8) loamy sand. Clear boundary. 80–100 IIIA Gray and grayish brown (10YR 5/1, 5/2) and yellowish 11, 12 J17, upper three OxA-4916 brown (10YR 5/4) with yellowish staining around gray quarters patches (10YR 5/8) sandy loam. At the top of the hori- zon and locally further down were dark brown lenses (10YR 4/3, 4/?). Much charcoal and many potsherds, the latter mostly lying flat and in distinct levels. Grayer color, loamy sand at base of horizon. Sharp boundary. 13 100+ IIIBg Variable grayish brown (10YR 5/2) sandy loam with gray 14 J17, lower and yellowish brown mottles (10YR 5/1 and 5/8) with quarter clayey patches and gypsum crystallization. j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 133 in the laboratory. Sampling was carried out by soil out clear distinction of second and third A horizons. horizon and sedimentary unit. In the case of micro- They were marked by a gradual change from mainly morphology, samples for thin-section preparation reduced colors (the grayish and light olive brown 2.5Y which would not collapse under preparation could colors as in the 1993 section described above) to the be obtained only for the more coherent horizons of more oxidized colors, and the lower boundary was a the buried soils. Micromorphology blocks were taken gradual transition to underlying material. It was pos- in Kubiena boxes giving slide areas of 8.5 x 5.5 cm. sible to record this section to greater depth. From 155 Samples were taken for radiocarbon dating from cm below the surface of the upper soil, interstratifica- three levels at which charcoal fragments were most tion of sandier and clayier layers was recorded down to abundant and where potsherds were concentrated. 240 cm. No charcoal or sherds were encountered. Further information is given where the other profiles The section in the dry ditch recorded in 1990 examined amplify the section described here. Colors was notable for its darker colors in the lower soil are given in Munsell color notation, in moist condi- horizons, the uppermost soil being only slightly ex- tion. The section datum was in blown sand, at 7.29 m pressed, the second soil being dark brown and very below site datum. dark grayish brown (10 YR 3/3, 4/2) and containing The section was not accessible for recording in traces of charcoal, and the lowermost soil having very detail below horizon IIIBg (Table 9.6). Laterally from dark gray mottling and a very sharp convoluted lower the lowest position recorded, it was observed that an boundary about 25 cm below its upper boundary to a underlying series of clay- and sand-rich layers sloped mottled horizon. This section was strongly affected by gradually up toward the south. Throughout the section, bioturbation. No sherds were found. the presence of recent and older roots was associated with locally more intense color variation, including black and dark brown staining as well as concentric Analysis gleying around the extended deep roots of certain shrubs, some roots being still present, others marked Methods only by the distinctive tubular gley pattern. Burrowing pH determinations were carried out at 1:2.5 by invertebrates marked particularly the upper part of dilution in distilled water and in 0.01M CaCl2 (Table the section, but from the upper soil downward was not 9.7). Chloride was tested for by adding AgNO3 solu- sufficient to obliterate soil boundaries. tion to leachates of samples and relative amounts The section records three soil profiles. The lower- are indicated in Table 9.7. Particle-size analyses of most appears to be developed in blown sand overlying samples from the 1993 section were carried out with a complex of alluvial layers; it is rich in charcoal and no pretreatment. Previous analysis of samples from potsherds, and its depth suggests continuing build-up the sections studied in 1990 and 1991/1992 had been during active soil development and human interaction. carried out after decalcification in buffered acetic The second, or middle, soil appears to follow a further acid. Calcium carbonate and gypsum occur both as build-up of blown sand, and its development is partly detrital grains and as pedogenic neo-formations, in superimposed upon the lowermost soil. It contains sand and silt grades. Decalcification therefore results charcoal, but no sherds were found in it. The lower few in relative reduction of these grades and increase centimeters of another blown-sand deposit are partly of clay. After experience with the sections sampled incorporated into the top of the A horizon of the sec- earlier, it was decided that a better representation of ond soil, and a third soil, which is also rich in charcoal the materials would be obtained by not decalcifying and contains sherds, formed on this sand. the samples. It is accepted that some of the pedogenic The section recorded in 1992 was some 20 m gypsum will have gone into solution during analysis. south of the 1993 section. It was predominantly gray- Sand fractions were determined by sieving. Silt and ish brown, becoming more mottled with depth, and clay fractions were determined by SediGraph X-ray showed greater complexity in the upper soil, which was particle-size analyzer. expressed over 30 cm depth. There were intercalations The micromorphological samples were dried of sand within it, and much segregation of gypsum in through acetone replacement of water, and impregnated lenses 5–10 mm thick. Bioturbation introduced sand with Crystic resin by progressive replacement of acetone, in vertical channels. The lower soils were simpler, with- followed by curing under stepwise increase and decrease 134 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia of temperature. Two thin sections (samples J16 and J17), correlates with finer soil texture, and so with retention cut from the blocks in vertical orientation, were prepared of saline soil solution. The samples are dominated by in the soil micromorphology workshop at the University fine sand, with substantial amounts of coarse silt, tail- of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. They were examined ing off in medium and fine silt, and variable but low under a polarizing microscope, from low magnification amounts of clay. Apart from potsherds and charcoal, up to x 400. The horizons sampled as blocks were parts there were only traces of material above the sand of those identified in the field as having the most marked grade in two samples, 7 and 11, and these were concre- pedological significance and containing archaeological tions, not detrital grains. Coarse sand was present at material. These horizons were sufficiently coherent to 0.1% or less, and medium sand was also consistently maintain structure under sampling, drying, and resin very low except in the lowest three samples. The dis- impregnation. The intervening materials collapsed on tribution is therefore unimodal, the mode lying in the drying, and samples taken for micromorphology would finer end of the fine sand grade, and skewed toward have collapsed in acetone. Loose mounts in clove oil the finer particle sizes. This distribution is typical were made from the soil samples taken from the rest of blown sands of desert regions. In the lowest two of the section. Whereas in these most of the structural samples, the distribution is modified by a shift of the properties were lost, sufficient information was retained mode toward the coarse silt grade, suggesting that the to allow useful observations to be made. lower soil was formed in part on the alluvial material that was observed below the soil. Changes in particle Results size through the section support the identification of The results of chemical and particle-size analysis soil development made in the field, there being more of samples from the 1993 buried-soils section are given clay in the soil horizons, which are otherwise distin- in Table 9.7. guished by color and pattern of mottling. The data presented in Table 9.7 show that pH in Examination of the sand separates, and iden- water and in CaCl2 buffer indicate, as expected, the tification of minerals in thin section, illustrates the presence of free calcium carbonate and the variable character of the sands of the region: rich in quartz and presence of soluble salts. The presence of chlorides feldspars and in ferromagnesian minerals, particularly

Table 9.7 Chemical and particle-size analysis of samples from the 1993 buried-soils section at Jeitun. Size grades of particles (British Standard 1377): coarse sand 2.0–0.6 mm, medium sand 0.6–0.02 mm, fine sand 0.02–0.06 mm, coarse silt 0.06–0.02 mm, medium silt 0.02–0.006 mm, fine silt 0.006–0.002 mm, clay < 0.002 mm.

Sample pH in pH in Chlorides Coarse Medium Fine Coarse Medium Fine silt Clay % no. water CaCl2 sand % sand % sand % silt % silt % %

1 8.3 8.1 +++ Trace 0.3 75.1 9.7 1.5 1.6 11.8 2 8.5 8.1 +++ Trace 0.3 74.2 12.9 1.9 1.8 8.9 3 8.7 8.1 +++ 0.1 0.4 71.6 18.0 1.7 1.3 9.0 4 8.6 8.1 ++ Trace 0.2 77.1 12.0 1.6 1.8 7.3 5 8.8 8.3 ++ Trace 0.2 88.4 7.5 0.6 0.7 2.2 6 8.9 8.3 + Trace 0.2 92.1 5.9 0.4 0.3 1.0 7 8.6 8.4 ++ 0.0 0.3 90.7 6.9 0.5 0.3 1.3 8 8.7 8.3 +++ Trace 0.2 78.4 13.7 1.4 1.5 4.8 9 8.5 8.3 +++ Trace 0.2 80.0 6.4 1.1 1.0 3.4 10 8.7 8.4 +++ Trace 0.3 83.4 10.1 1.4 1.5 3.5 11 8.0 8.4 ++ Trace 0.4 83.3 5.9 1.6 1.6 7.1 12 8.7 8.5 ++ Trace 1.3 77.0 16.0 1.6 1.4 3.1 13 9.1 8.5 ++ Trace 2.4 53.4 27.9 3.3 2.6 10.4 14 9.3 8.6 +++ 0.0 1.5 51.0 35.4 3.3 1.9 6.9 j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 135

biotite and horneblende, and rock fragments from the from the lowest one, Soil III (Fig. 9.9, color)—includ- range of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary ing the distinctive features of each fabric, and with rock types in the catchment of the Amudarya river brief comments on the loose preparations of samples and the local streams that cross the piedmont from taken between them, are provided in Appendix 9.2. the Kopetdag mountains. These are the biotite-rich micaceous sands of the Karakum desert, described by Lobova (1960 [1967]). The micas provide a source of Pedogenesis clay under pedogenesis, and micromorphology shows the abundance of exfoliating biotite. The following pedogenetic processes were iden- In general, the micromorphological results show tified: gleying, crystallization of pyrites, humification that the characteristics described below were common of organic matter; crystallization of calcium carbonate to all types of fabric present except the lower part of and gypsum; disintegration of biotite; redistribution sample J17. Some of the descriptive micromorphologi- of hydrated iron oxide material forming limpid yel- cal terms used below (and in Appendix 9.2 at the end low material which partially coats and connects sand of this Section) are explained in Section 9.2, and a grains, oxidation of pyrites within coatings, biotites, more complete explanation of the technical terminol- and organic fragments. Attribution of particular ogy is given in Bullock et al. (1985). processes to periods before, during, or after human Pr i m a ry Mi n er a l s: Quartz and calcite predominate, occupation at Jeitun can be suggested. plus feldspars and muscovite, and there are abundant Destruction of biotites has provided raw materials ferromagnesian minerals including biotite, augites, for clay formation, and has released iron, to be involved horneblendes, and amphiboles, as well as composite in the pedogenic processes. A sequence involving coat- grains from igneous and metamorphic rocks and ing of sand grains and formation of pyrites, as part limestone. of the complex of processes occurring in gypsiferous Fi n e Mat e r i a l : Light brown, with speckled calcitic organic-rich floodplain soils, and the subsequent oxi- birefringence occurs as partial or complete grain coat- dation of pyrites to form the red framboids observed in ings and bridges, and to variable extent in inter-grain the lower two soils, is postulated. In the sand accumu- spaces. Limpid yellow and yellowish brown material, lation between the soils, which is derived in part from both isotropic and birefringent, occurs to varying de- deflation of the soils, the distinctive limpid yellow grain gree, as partial grain coatings and locally as detached coatings (Fig. 9.9, color), detached fragments of them, fragments. Isotropic red material occurs locally. and the red framboids occur to diminishing extent. In Tex t u r e: Moderate to well sorted, predominantly the upper soil, these processes were no longer active. fine sand and coarse silt, with coarse material as a Precipitation of gypsum is a conspicuous feature of the size continuum with a sharp cut-off near the upper soils, as it is of those of the region today. Pedogenetic limit of coarse silt, fine material in the silt grade being gypsum occurs in a range of crystal sizes, and forms largely micritic calcite and micro-sparitic and micritic both part of the fine material of the soil fabric and gypsum. void infills. Calcitic fabric is also general, with localized Sh e l l Fr agmen ts: Mollusc shell fragments occur in infill features. There is some tendency for calcite and all fabrics, some of them of greater size than all other gypsum to be mutually exclusive. coarse material, indicating autochthonous origin. Irrigation of adjacent fields has strongly affected Pat t e r n s o f Rel ated Distribution a n d Mic ro - groundwater levels in recent years; it is therefore not structur e: Related distribution is either gefuric and easy to determine the extent to which gleying is at- chitonic, i.e., sand and silt grains partially or wholly tributable to the water relations of the distributary fan coated in fine material, which also forms bridges of the Kara Su, rather than to present-day irrigation. between them, or open to closed porphyric, i.e., sand There is, however, little evidence of gley phenomena and silt embedded in fine material, separated or in clearly subsequent to the bioturbation within the bur- contact. Porosity is simple packing voids, vughs, oc- ied A horizons, except that which is associated with casional chambers, channels, and rough unaccom- roots penetrating from the recent surface. Because modated planar voids. the oxidative process affecting the framboids was Detailed descriptions of the two thin sections— active prior to or in part contemporaneous with the sample J16 from the upper buried soil, Soil I, and J17 period of postulated Neolithic cultivation, limitation 136 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia of crop health by waterlogging is unlikely to have been roots had access to the water-storage capacity of the a problem then. fan. The topography of the fan would have provided sufficient drainage to promote leaching of soluble salts, and changing locations of cropping areas as Dating and Agricultural Potential of the the fan evolved would have limited salt accumulation Buried Soils resulting from any irrigation practices that may have been applied. Encroachment of blown sand, perhaps AMS radiocarbon dates were obtained from promoted by degradation of vegetation and soils samples of charcoal from each of the buried soils by grazing animals and by firewood procurement (Tables 9.6 and 9.8). The three dates lie in correct in a zone around the settlement, as happens today stratigraphic order: lower soil 6230–5800 cal. BCE at around pastoralists’ settlements in the Karakum, may 1 sigma (OxA 4916), middle soil 6020–5890 cal. BCE have created a substrate for soils with poorer access (OxA 4915), upper soil 5970–5720 cal. BCE (OxA to groundwater, and it is tempting to associate the 4914); uncalibrated BP equivalents 7140 ± 220, 7080 ± upper ditch-like feature (Fig. 9.7 and Section 9.4) 65 and 6940 ± 100. But carbon yields were low in two with attempts to bring water in. The sharp profile in of the samples so error factors are wide, and the cali- its lower part rules out initial use in this way, and its brated dates substantially overlap each other. However, upper fill records the transport of adjacent soil into they are in broad agreement with other dates from the the remaining shallower profile, although without site, perhaps with its later phases (Section 9.1). clear evidence of fluvial processes. The purpose and The dating and the presence of cultural mate- use of the ditch therefore remains enigmatic. There is rial in the soils, such as potsherds and mudbrick, in- no evidence that salinity was sufficiently developed to dicate that each in turn formed a local surface during cause severe problems for cereal cultivation, and both Jeitun-period activity in the area or while its deposits the phytolith evidence and in particular the presence were subject to erosion. Most of the sherds were lying of silicified cell walls forming silica skeletons, which flat, and varied in size up to a maximum dimension were observed in abundance in the micromorphology of about 5 cm; very small fragments of mudbrick oc- of the yard deposits (Section 9.2), does indicate that curred occasionally, mostly seen only in thin sections, crops were growing in saline soils. and charcoal and bone fragments ranged from micro- scopic in size up to 1–2 cm long. Phytoliths were rather rare (Section 9.5). The simplest hypothesis is that Conclusions these materials were deposited during cultivation of the soils while the settlement was occupied, not after it The soils studied in this limited area near the Jei- was abandoned. If the latter had been the case, more tun mound can be regarded as representative of those and larger fragments of mudbrick, ash, and dung that could have been utilized for cereal cultivation residues, including abundant siliceous material and more widely on the alluvial fan, with selection of field separation of the charcoal and the sherds by processes locations responding to changing fan topography and of fluvial and aeolian transport, would be expected. to the encroachment of blown sand. The possibility Absence of evidence for ash and dung also suggests can be considered that reductions in soil resource, as that manuring of the soils was not practiced. the blown sand accumulated, confined the fan and The earliest (lowest) of the soils, which formed restricted the availability for cultivation of the alluvial on alluvial material, would have been suitable for soils of higher value. Perhaps this stimulated attempts crops while the alluvial fan was active. Its structure at water management, but it may have led eventually would have provided areas free from flooding where to abandonment of the site. j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 137

Section 9.4 Investigation of a Palaeosol Sequence at Jeitun: Excavation of a Ditch-like Feature and Measurement of Magnetic Susceptibility Keith Wilkinson

he discovery by Susan Limbrey (Section 9.3) of vated part of it, the most complete cross-section of the Ttwo ditch-like features cut into parts of two pa- feature, and the only artifacts found, were preserved laeosols exposed in the side of a modern irrigation in the original section studied by Limbrey. drainage ditch close to the eastern edge of the Jeitun mound (Figs. 3.1, 8.2) was particularly interesting be- cause it provided tentative evidence that the inhabit- Magnetic Susceptibility Study ants of Jeitun modified their environment off-site for purposes of water management (see below and Sec- Prior to the excavation, samples were taken tion 9.1 for discussion of the radiocarbon chronology from the sequence exposed in the side of the modern of the palaeosols). It was therefore decided to carry ditch for the measurement of magnetic susceptibil- out an exploratory excavation of the upper ditch-like ity. The purpose of the sampling exercise was first to feature to examine its orientation, to try to determine elucidate further the developmental history of the its function, and in the hope of recovering more pot- three palaeosols discovered and sampled by Limbrey, sherds or other cultural material. and second to try to assess the effects that Jeitun’s Neolithic inhabitants had on sediment deposition and soil formation. The sediment/soil sequence and the Excavation results of the chemical and particle-size analyses and micromorphological study undertaken by Limbrey are The excavation took place over two days during described in Section 9.3, and the sequence is repre- the final week of the 1993 field season. An area 3 m x sented schematically in the left-hand column of Figure 3 m was investigated immediately behind and extend- 9.11A. The upper and lower ditch-like features appear ing c. 5 m west of the face of the section studied by to have been cut into the A horizons of, respectively, Limbrey, where she had first recognized the ditch-like Soils I and II, whereas Soil III pre-dates this phase of feature. The feature was exposed in plan after c. 80 cm activity. Sediments accumulated by alluvial processes of windblown (aeolian) sand had been removed. It was underlie Soil III. oriented toward the mound along an approximately northwest-southeast axis, and was differentiated from the surrounding sediments on the basis of the finer grain size of its fills, which were predominantly of silt to fine-sand size. This suggests that they had accumu- lated as a result of particles settling out from suspen- sion in a low-energy alluvial environment, and implies that the cut feature was probably a ditch constructed for purposes of irrigation and/or drainage. The fea- ture was first planned at a scale of 1:20 and the fills were then carefully excavated. No potsherds or other artifacts were recovered, although occasional granular (2–4 mm size) charcoal fragments were noted, particu- larly toward the base of the feature. On completion of the excavation, the plan view (Fig. 9.10) showed that 9.10 The completed excavation of the upper ditch-like fea- the western side of the feature had been partially trun- ture in the buried-soil section close to the eastern end cated, but that the eastern part of the cut survived to a of the Jeitun mound; view along the “ditch,” April 1993. depth of c. 30 cm. It is ironic that, despite having exca- (Photo by Keith Wilkinson) 138 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

9.11 Schematic representation of the buried-soil section at Jeitun showing the results of low-frequency magnetic-susceptibility measurements plotted against depth and radiocarbon chronology; A: the entire section, B: the upper part of the section containing the two ditch-like features.

There is evidence of human activity in all three sediment complexity (typically every 4–8 cm), and soils in the form of scattered charcoal, and Soils I and then extracting and sealing them with an airtight III also contain potsherds. The density of charcoal is lid. Two series of samples were taken: one of 20 greatest in the A horizon of Soil III. These data, to- samples through the entire section (Figs. 9.11A, gether with three AMS radiocarbon determinations on 9.12B), and one of 8 samples through the deposits charcoal from Soils I–III (Fig. 9.11, Table 9.8) suggest of the two ditch-like features (Figs. 9.11B, 9.12B). that all three palaeosols developed contemporaneously Laboratory measurement of low-frequency magnetic with the Neolithic occupation of Jeitun. susceptibility (χlf) was carried out on the samples The samples for magnetic-susceptibility mea- at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, in 1993 using surement were taken from the section studied by a Bartington MS2 magnetic-susceptibility meter Limbrey, which was cleaned, cut back, and (as al- and MS2B sensor. This sampling approach was less ready mentioned) extended c. 5 m to the west (Fig. than ideal and is not the method recommended in 9.12). The sampling was carried out by the simple standard texts (e.g., Walden 1999; Gale and Hoare expedient of pushing 10 cl Perspex pots into the 1991:221–26), but it did have the advantage of sig- face of the section at intervals that reflected soil/ nificantly reducing the quantity of material to be j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 139

9.12 Section through the buried-soil sequence at Jeitun, as cut back and extended in April 1993. In A the horizontal scale bar=1 m, the vertical scale bar=50 cm. The outlined box in A is the area shown at greater magnification in B. B shows the location of 27 of the 28 samples taken for low-frequency magnetic-susceptibility measurement (the 28th, taken at 1.4 m depth, is below the level of the photograph). The eight samples shown top-right in B were taken through the upper and lower ditch-like fea- tures. (Photo by Keith Wilkinson)

exported from Turkmenistan, and it speeded up the Results process of analysis. Potential problems that resulted from the sampling procedure are: (a) measurements Assuming that the sediment source, and hence could only be made on the basis of volume, not mass, the parent material, is consistent throughout a strati- and (b) voids may be present in the sample material graphic sequence, magnetic properties of the compo- as a result of the inclusion of coarse material (no nent soils and sediment units will depend upon grain sieving was undertaken to standardize grain size). size, minerals resulting from soil formation, and any These constraints mean that the results cannot be burning that may have taken place. Despite the fact compared with recognized standards and samples that the situation is complicated in the drainage-ditch from other sites. sequence at Jeitun by two sediment sources (alluvial loams at the base and aeo- lian sands at the top), parent Table 9.8 AMS radiocarbon dates from charcoal recovered from three palaeosols material is predominantly exposed in the side of a modern irrigation drainage ditch close to the eastern of aeolian deposits. It can end of the Jeitun mound. Section datum (present ground surface) at 182.7 m therefore be assumed that above msl, 7.3 m below the site datum. Calibrations at 1 and 2 sigma according differences in grain size, min- to the INTCAL 04 curve (Reimer et al. 2004) calculated using OxCAL 3.10 software eralogy, and fire history are (Bronk Ramsey 2005). the main causes of variation in the magnetic-susceptibility Laboratory Depth in m below Uncalibrated Calibrated Calibrated no. section datum dates BP dates BCE (1σ) dates BCE (2σ) profile. In semi-arid and arid environments soil-forming OxA – 4914 0.16–0.20 6940 ± 100 5970–5720 6010–5650 processes result in the chem- OxA – 4915 0.51–0.65 7080 ± 65 6020–5890 6070–5800 ical alteration of minerals OxA – 4916 0.85–1.00 7140 ± 220 6230–5800 6450–5600 within the A horizon to form 140 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

clays that are then translocated to the B horizon on a highest (c. 62 SI units x10-6). It is also significant that time-trangressive basis. These clays are commonly rich there is no evidence of gleying in this sand unit. Taken in ferrimagnetic iron minerals and hence have higher together these data suggest that the windblown sand magnetic susceptibilities than either the A horizon or has itself been pedogenetically altered by present-day the unaltered parent material. The time dependency soil-forming processes. of this process means that the more mature a soil, The magnetic samples taken through the upper the greater the magnetic susceptibility (White and ditch-like feature are in practice from Soil I and the Walden 1994). However, gleying (caused by high water overlying sand. The samples from the base of the tables), which results in the reduction of ferric iron feature have similar magnetic-susceptibility values oxides to ferrous forms, may well have countered this to those taken just west of it, but it was noticeable effect, particularly in Soils II and III. The formation that those from the A and upper B horizons in the of gypsum in the B horizon of Soils I and III may also feature (i.e., the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th bars in Fig. 9.11B) have acted to reduce magnetic susceptibilities by dilut- measured on average 7–10 SI units x 10-6 greater than ing the concentration of ferrimagnetic minerals. those from outside it. Variations in the properties of The magnetic susceptibility of the section mea- parent materials probably account for these differ- sured just west of the two ditch-like features shows a ences, and, as has already been stated, parent material broad trend of measurements slowly increasing up- outside the feature is predominantly aeolian sand. ward through the sequence (Fig. 9.11A). The values re- However, it is likely that—assuming the ditch was dug corded for the basal deposits of around 20–23 SI units for purposes of drainage and/or irrigation—alluvial x10 -6 are consistent throughout the c. 60 cm of sedi- silts and fine sands were deposited in it when it was ment that underlies the soil profiles, and can therefore in use. The soil that subsequently developed in the be considered as typical of unmodified alluvium (i.e., deposits of the ditch-like features would have inher- where no soil formation has taken place). ited the comparatively fine texture of its silty parent There is a pattern in the magnetic-susceptibility material, just as the same soil outside the feature results in Soils I–III. This is manifested by relatively would develop in aeolian fine sands. Such variations high (>30 SI units x10-6) readings in the upper parts in grain size readily explain the c. 25% difference in of the A horizons and relatively low (<25 SI units x10- the magnetic-susceptibility measurements. 6) readings in the lower A and B horizons. The single sample from the base of Soil III records the lowest reading anywhere in the sequence, possibly as a result Conclusions of dilution by gypsum. The one part of the sequence that appears as an exception to this pattern is the The magnetic-susceptibility data support Lim- lower A horizon and the B horizon of Soil I, where brey’s conclusions that the three palaeosols developed readings are between 26 and 33 SI units x10-6. This in aeolian and, in the case of soils in the lower cut exception has several possible explanations: (a) lim- feature, alluvial parent material during the Neolithic. ited clay translocation has taken place, and/or (b) clay None of the soils, with the possible exception of Soil translocation that has occurred is of ferromagnetic III, has magnetic properties that indicate any great minerals, and/or (c) reducing conditions manifested maturity, an observation supported by the radio- by gleying have dominated the soil-forming environ- carbon dates (Table 9.8). The fact that three soils ment. The particle-size data presented by Limbrey in developed over a relatively short period of time dur- Table 9.7 suggest that significant clay translocation has ing the occupation of Jeitun is a result of the rapid only taken place in Soil III, while in the other two soils burial of each in turn by aeolian sand, resulting in clay contents are higher in the A than the B horizon. their removal from active soil-forming processes. This It therefore appears that factors (b) and (c) are the suggests that stable and unstable episodes, perhaps of most likely explanation of the patterns observed. The cultivation and abandonment, alternated during the particle-size data are also of interest when consider- period of human habitation at the site. ing the magnetic-susceptibility record in indicating Despite the presence of charcoal and potsherds that the highest clay contents are in the aeolian sand in parts of the sequence, the magnetic-susceptibility at the top of the sequence—precisely at the location results are an order of magnitude lower than would be where the magnetic-susceptibility readings are at their expected had people directly influenced sedimenta- j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 141 tion and soil formation. One can therefore infer that 9.11), for which there is only a 17% chance of oc- the charcoal found in the sequence almost certainly currence by random means—although it should be originated elsewhere on the site and was redeposited, emphasized that statistically the three dates are con- rather than being the result of in-situ combustion of temporaneous (Table 9.8 and Section 9.1). Second, organic material. Aeolian or short-lived processes of the pottery found in the sequence had apparently not overland flow during intense rainstorms are the most broken down into finer particles (micro artifacts in likely mechanism for transport of the charcoal. This the sense of Stein and Teltser 1989), as this would have observation has implications for the radiocarbon resulted in magnetic-susceptibility measurements chronology of the sequence in that the charcoal that considerably higher than those observed. This find- was dated is likely to date human activity elsewhere on ing suggests that the potsherds are located where they the site. However, two lines of evidence suggest that were placed or discarded by Neolithic people, thereby such activity was more or less contemporary with the confirming synchrony between the existence of the episodes of soil formation observed in the sequence. palaeosols and occupation of the Jeitun mound—a First, the radiocarbon dates are sequential, with the conclusion supported by Limbrey’s study of the bur- oldest at the base and the youngest at the top (Fig. ied soils. 142 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

he study of plant remains formed a major part of the environmental-archaeological investigations undertaken Tat Jeitun between 1989 and 1994. The main objective of the archaeobotanical work was to recover systemati- cally, identify, and analyze charred plant macro-remains, principally seeds and chaff, from on-site deposits. The results of this part of the project are presented in Section 9.6 by Michael Charles and Amy Bogaard, and in Section 9.7 Eleni Asouti reports the results of her analysis of samples of wood charcoal from Jeitun. Micro plant remains, in the form of phytoliths and pollen grains, were also targets for investigation. Mary Larkum analyzed phytolith samples obtained from the on- and off-site deposits studied by Susan Limbrey, and her results are presented first, in Section 9.5, because they are linked so closely to Limbrey’s data. Finally, the (generally negative) outcome of a trial sampling of sediments close to the site to determine whether pollen and charcoal-particle analysis was feasible as a means of reconstructing local vegetation and fire history is reported in Section 9.8.

Section 9.5 Phytolith Analysis of deposited within idioblasts (silica-accumulating cells), Samples from On- and Off-site or in the intercellular spaces of the growing plant, where they gradually form bodies that frequently Deposits at Jeitun retain the original cell shape after the organic tis- sue has decayed or been burned (Pearsall 2000:356). Mary Larkum They occur in the stems, leaves, and inflorescences of plants, and can be preserved as separate bodies or as As part of the investigations undertaken by the contiguous cells, referred to as silica skeletons, which British team at Jeitun in 1991 and 1993, Susan Limbrey can aid plant identification and provide information took sediment samples for particle-size and phytolith about growing conditions. analysis in the course of her wider study of on- and The formation of phytoliths in plants and their off-site soils and sediments (Sections 9.2, 9.3). Most preservation in soils both depend largely on soil of the samples (numbers P1 to P33) came from the conditions. Acidic soil environments tend to have vertical section through yard deposits near the center more free silica available to enter plants (Piperno of the mound excavated in 1991; one sample each 2006:8), but saline growing conditions, as at Jeitun, (unnumbered) came from mudbrick and mortar in do not favor silica deposition. Because they are inor- the remains of a building adjacent to the section; and ganic, phytoliths often survive in sedimentary condi- a further 14 samples (S1 to S14) were taken from the tions that would destroy other plant products such off-site sequence of blown sands and buried soils close as pollen. Moreover, they are released from plants to the site. I subsequently analyzed, at the UCL Insti- through the processes of decay, burning, or animal tute of Archaeology (under the guidance of Dr. Arlene digestion. Once deposited, they move little in stable Rosen), 10 of the P samples, the 2 samples of brick and soils and can thus record depositional information. mortar, and 3 of the S samples. In this Section the basis In archaeological research, phytoliths can provide of phytolith analysis and the methods used are first data on former climate and vegetation as well as on described, followed by a summary of the sedimentary past settlement, including the use of space within contexts of the 15 samples and the results obtained, sites, and on building materials, technology, agricul- and concluding with interpretation of the results in ture, animal husbandry, diet, and seasonal human relation to the local environment of Jeitun and human activities. activities on and in the vicinity of the site. Types of Phytolith Phytolith Analysis A descriptive list of types of phytolith with com- Phytoliths are opal-silica bodies of epidermal ments on their taxonomic significance and/or func- plant cells. Silica is carried into the plant as mono- tion is provided in Appendix 9.3 at the end of this silicic acid through the uptake of ground water and section. j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 143

9.13 SEM micrographs of phytoliths and spherulites from yard deposits and mudbrick at Jeitun: (a) leaf bulliform phytolith of reed (Phragmites sp.), sample P4, magnification x50 (lab. no. JE-01-11); (b) faecal spherulite from a sample of mudbrick, x100, (JE- 01-1); (c) multi-cell phytolith from wheat husk, P10, x50 (JE-01-7); (d) multi-cell phytolith from barley husk, P4, x50 (JE-01-11) . (Photos by Mary Larkum)

Grasses and Sedges (Monocotyledonous Plants) shape; (b) chloridoid grasses with saddle-shaped cells; The photosynthetic pathways (C3 or C4) of (c) panicoid grasses with variations of cross- and lobe- grasses (Gramineae) differ between genera and have shaped cells (bilobes, polylobes). Pooid grasses are C3 been divided into three categories by Twiss (1992), as plants that occur primarily in temperate zones and follows: (a) pooid grasses with cells of circular, rectan- at high elevations. The subfamily Pooideae contains gular, elliptical, crenate, trapezoidal, and/or oblong some 160 genera, including the cereals barley (Hor- 144 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia deum), wheat (Triticum), rye (Secale), and oats (Avena). Faecal Spherulites Chloridoid grasses grow in semi-arid environments Faecal spherulites consist of calcium carbonate where rainfall is irregular and low, and most are C4 and their presence in samples of soil or sediment indi- species. Panicoid grasses flourish in tropical and semi- cates a component of animal dung (Fig. 9.13B). They arid regions near sources of water and include both form when excess calcium from the animals’ intake C3 and C4 plants. of plant foods, and calcite from any ingested soil, is This study is mainly concerned with pooid neutralized and crystallizes out as calcium carbon- grasses, particularly barley and wheat. The only non- ate in the anterior gut. Studies conducted by Canti pooid grass identitifed in the phytolith assemblage is (1997, 1998, 1999) showed that ruminant herbivores the common reed, Phragmites australis (syn. P. commu- such as sheep, goats, cattle, and deer produce more nis), which grows close to Jeitun today. It is a C4 pani- spherulites than carnivorous and omnivorous species coid grass that contains saddle-shaped short cells and such as pigs, badgers, dogs, cats, foxes, and humans. grows in marshes, along stream channels, and in other Bird droppings sometimes contain calcite spherulites damp areas. Long cells, which have no particular char- as well as urea (e.g., pigeons, Goren 1999), but spheru- acteristics pertaining to subfamilies of the Gramineae, lites do not occur in the faeces of caecal digesters such appear as rods: smooth- and sinuate-edged from parts as rabbits and hares. of leaves and stems and dendritic-edged from inflores- Faecal spherulites are seldom preserved in soils cences. Bulliform phytoliths (Fig. 9.13A) form in the and sediments that are subject to bioturbation be- leaves and trichome cells and are found in many plant cause they are unlikely to survive digestion by soil- parts, including the leaves of reeds and other grasses ingesting meso-organisms such as earthworms, and and the awns of grass inflorescences. Cone phytoliths because low pH values promote their dissolution. are commonly found in members of the sedge family However, the generally high pH values of ashy deposits (Cyperaceae). in archaeological contexts (as at Jeitun, Table 9.5) aid their preservation. Spherulites are best viewed under Woody (Dicotyledonous) Plants cross-polarized light where they may exhibit first- and Woody plants frequently appear in the phytolith second-order interference colors of calcite, and an record as 4- to 8-sided polyhedral epidermal cells and extinction cross (Canti 1998). Most spherulites fall in cells shaped like jigsaw-puzzle pieces, both of which the size range of 5 to 20 microns, but larger ones, up form in the leaves of deciduous trees (Bozarth 1992). to 50 microns, occur. They were counted on the slides Tracheid structures act as veins carrying water and made for this study in order to identify any component nutrients within many arboreal and herbaceous taxa. of animal dung in the samples. Honeycomb-shaped aggregates are most common in dicotyledonous plants, as are opaque perforated Calcitic Druses platelets, segmented hairs, and scallop-shaped cells. Calcitic druses are crystal aggregates of calcium Wood can also appear as amorphous aggregates that oxalate that differ from spherulites in their generally are often speckled with birefringence under cross- larger size, above 20 microns, and in their visible pat- polarized light (Albert and Weiner 2001; Karkanas terning. They are formed of coarser crystallites that et al. 2002). do not lie in the well-organized radiating pattern that produces a well-defined extinction cross. They are easily dissolved in soils, but inclusion in dung can aid Other Types of Micro-Remains Associated their preservation. Possible druses were observed (but with Phytoliths: Faecal Spherulites, Calcitic not counted) with spherulites in some of the P samples Druses, and Starch Grains from Jeitun (see Appendix 9.1 for further discussion of this possibility by Limbrey). Microscope slides prepared for phytolith analysis sometimes contain, in addition to silica cells, carbon- Starch Grains iferous matter of both plant and animal origin such as Starch grains are also visible under cross-polar- faecal spherulites derived from mammal faeces, calcitic ized light and have a recognizable extinction cross, druses from the heartwood of trees and other woody but they differ from spherulites in general appearance plants such as grape vines, and grains of plant starch. and in that they are always gray to white in color. Anal- j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 145 ysis of starch grains was not part of this study although Counting Methods and Identification their presence was noted and individual grains on the A minimum of 200 single cells and, where pos- slides were counted. sible, up to 100 multi-cells were counted for each slide. There were 2,304 fields per slide at x400 magnifica- tion. For this study I frequently chose to count all avail- Methods able fields to characterize the slides due to a paucity of single and/or multi-cells. The cells were identified by Laboratory Processing morphological criteria with the aid of reference slides All the microscope slides were prepared employ- and photographs in Arlene Rosen’s unpublished col- ing the methodology for phytolith analysis used in the lection at the UCL Institute of Archaeology and pub- Sedimentology Laboratory at the UCL Institute of lished photographs (Rosen 1992, 1993, 1999; Yongi Archaeology. Sediment was sieved through a 0.25-mm and Houyuan 1992). sieve. Approximately 800 mg of sifted sediment was processed for each slide with the exact weight noted in laboratory records. Ten % HCl (hydrochloric acid) Sedimentary Contexts and Analytical was used to dissolve the pedogenic carbonates. Clays Results were deflocculated and removed by settling the sand and silt and pouring off the suspended sediment. As explained at the beginning of this Section, Organic matter was burnt away in a muffle furnace. the samples described here are a subset of those taken Phytoliths were isolated from the resulting ash by at Jeitun by Limbrey in 1991 and 1993. The samples centrifuging with 3 ml of SPT (sodium polytungstate) selected for phytolith analysis consist of 10 from the solution adjusted to 2.3 specific gravity. After drying, section through yard deposits in trench 1991a in the the total mass of isolated phytoliths per sample was central area of the site (Figs. 8.2, 8.5, and Fig. 8.6, weighed. A subsample of approximately 2 mg of phy- color), 2 mudbrick and mortar samples from the toliths was mounted on microscope slides in Entellan remains of a building adjacent to the section, and 3 mounting medium. off-site samples from a sequence of blown sands and Additional slides were prepared from samples buried soils close to the eastern side of the Jeitun JE-01-5 (S11), JE-01-13 (P19), and JE-01-9 (P23) mound. Brief descriptions of the sedimentary contexts using sediment that was sieved through a 0.63-mm of the 15 phytolith samples analyzed (based on the sieve to filter out sand-size particles. Clays were fuller descriptions provided by Limbrey in Sections 9.2 then removed by settling in water to concentrate and 9.3) are given in Appendix 9.4, together with sum- the phytoliths and spherulites, but the chemicals maries of the results of the analyses. The numbers of (mentioned in the preceding paragraph) were ex- types of phytolith per gram for each sample are given cluded. The deflocculated samples were then oven in Appendix 9.5, in which the designation “unidenti- dried. Organic matter was burned from the dried fied husks” refers to all silica skeletons that could not samples in a furnace, and the isolated phytoliths be positively identified because they were either too and spherulites were again oven dried before mount- degraded or lacked diagnostic criteria. ing 2 mg per sample in Entellan. JE-01-5 (S11) was remade because the first slide seemed to be missing Yard Deposits: The P Samples the fine fraction from the original sample. However, In Section 9.2 Limbrey describes the section on reprocessing, the slide had the same appearance, through yard deposits in trench 1991a where the so the processing outcome can be attributed to the sampling column was placed at a point 70 cm west nature of the sediment and not to a laboratory error. along the section. She explains that the samples were JE-01-13 (P19) was remade to search for calcitic not spaced at uniform intervals down the column be- spherulites because they were conspicuously absent cause the aim was to include each distinctive lamina from a context in which their presence seemed likely. or lens and to avoid areas where materials merged. The remade slide featured numerous aggregates of Depth measurements were taken from the local sec- spherulites and other calcitic material that would tion datum, leveled to the site datum. All Munsell have been removed from the original slide with the color notations recorded for the column are of the application of HCl and SPT. matrix in dry condition, and the relationships of the 146 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Table 9.9 List of the 10 phytolith samples selected for analysis The lowest soil appeared to have developed that were obtained from the section through yard deposits in blown sand overlying a complex of alluvial excavated at Jeitun in 1991. The section datum was at 188.6 m layers and it contained abundant charcoal and above msl. potsherds. The middle soil, which contained charcoal but apparently no potsherds, had Field Lab. no. Depth in cm Context Munsell pH developed on another accumulation of blown no. below sec- no. color sand and was partly superimposed upon the tion datum notation lowest soil. The upper soil was rich in both P4 JE- 01-11 6.5–10.0 22 10YR 5/1.5 – charcoal and potsherds and had formed on a P5 JE-01-16 10.0–15.5 24 10YR 6/4 7.2 further deposit that overlaid the middle soil. P6 JE-01-15 15.5–24.0 26 10YR 5/2 6.8 Sampling of the section was carried out P7 JE-01-14 24.0–29.0 30 10YR 5/2 6.8 by soil horizon and sedimentary unit to a depth of c. 100 cm measured down from the local sec- P10 JE-01-7 43.0–45.0 33 10YR 6/2.5 – tion datum, which stood at 7.3 m below the site P14 JE-01-8 59.0–63.0 41 10YR 5/2 7.2 datum. Fourteen samples were described and P18 JE-01-12 79.0–84.0 44 5YR 7/2 – analyzed by Limbrey and three AMS radiocar- 5YR 5/5 bon dates were obtained from charcoal, one P19 JE-01-13 81.0–84.0 45 5YR 7.5 – from each of the buried soils (Table 9.8). The 5YR 4/3 three samples chosen for phytolith analysis (S2, P23 JE-01-9 96.0–99.0 46 7.5YR 5/3 – S7, and S11) also came from each of the three 7.5YR 5/4 buried soils. The colors noted in Appendix 9.4 for S2, S7, and S11 are given in Munsell nota- P28 JE-01-10 113.0 –116.0 ––– tion for the matrix in moist condition.

phytolith (P) samples to context numbers (where as- Interpretation signed) is shown by Limbrey in Table 9.3. Table 9.9 below lists the 10 P samples that were selected for Despite the small numbers of samples analyzed, analysis, together with their laboratory sample num- it is possible to draw from the phytolith data some bers, depths below the site datum, context numbers, inferences concerning local environmental condi- Munsell notations of the sample matrix, and pH tions and subsistence activities at Jeitun during the (where known). Neolithic occupation of the site.

The Mudbrick and Mortar Samples Local Environmental Conditions These samples came from a wall of a build- All the phytolith samples contain cells of C3 and ing (context 18) adjacent to the section from which C4 grasses and other plants representative of both dry the P samples were taken. The samples, which were and moist conditions. This accords with the location obtained in 1991, were not given P numbers and are of Jeitun in the ecotone between the arid Karakum identified in Appendix 9.4 only by their laboratory desert and the somewhat wetter piedmont zone of the numbers: JE-01-1 (the mudbrick sample) and JE-01-2 Kopetdag range. Bilobe cells from C4 taxa represent (the mortar sample). plants adapted to desert conditions, and rondels from C3 plants, and especially the frequent occurrence of Off-site Dune Sands and Buried Soils: The phytoliths derived from reeds and sedges, probably S Samples reflect the proximity of the local channel of the Kara In 1993 Limbrey took a series of samples (S1– Su and the presence of ground water beneath dune S14) from a section that she cut into a sequence of slacks. blown sands and buried soils exposed in the side of a The salt-tolerant tree tamarisk (Tamarix sp.), modern irrigation drainage ditch close to the Jeitun which also thrives in moist soils and is abundant mound (Fig. 3.1 and Section 9.3). She identified three near the site today, was not identified in the analyzed buried-soil profiles on the basis of color and texture. samples; nor were the xerophytic black and white sak- j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 147

sauls (Haloxylon spp.) of the Karakum (this volume, suggests that her sample J2 in context 46, from which pp. 10–11), despite my having made reference slides sample P23 also came, may indicate initial use of the for these genera from specimens of Tamarix annifera, area as an animal pen (this chapter, p. 129). T. palestrina, and Haloxylon articulatum held in the There are many dendritic phytoliths (from grass reference collection at UCL. This negative result can inflorescences) in seven of the P samples (4, 5, 6, 10, probably be explained by the fact that saline growing 14, 19, and 28). They may indicate deposition in spring conditions, as at Jeitun, do not favor silica deposition and/or early summer during the flowering period, and only silica-accumulating plants are represented although they might have entered the deposit later in the phytolith record (thus preventing the identifi- as by-products of stored grain crops or fodder plants. cation of salt-tolerant vegetation by means of phyto- Samples P4, P10, and P14 contain particularly large lith analysis). However, tamarisk is well represented numbers of dendritics that may have been deposited in the samples of wood charcoal from Jeitun (Table as a result of the processing of grain in the yard areas. 9.16), suggesting that it was abundant locally during Sample P19 from context 45 directly adjacent to con- the Neolithic. Many of the xerophytic salt-tolerant text 44 (the gypsum hearth) contains numerous silica plants that now grow at and near the site are also not skeletons of barley and, especially, wheat type. They represented in the phytolith record, presumably be- may testify to the use of grain-processing residues cause they too usually do not accumulate silica. and/or dung for fuel in the adjacent hearth where The off-site S samples from the buried soils gypsum is likely to have been burned to make plaster which contain large numbers of C3 rondels and for house floors. some cells of Cyperaceae suggest that the soils were The cereal phytoliths also suggest inferences sufficiently moist, at least during part of the year, about cereal cultivation at Jeitun. The P samples as to support the growth of plants with relatively high a whole contain more silica skeletons of barley than moisture requirements, probably including culti- of wheat type. This may reflect the fact that barley vated cereals. is more tolerant of drought and soil salinity (as at Jeitun) than wheat, and the fact that it has tradition- Subsistence Activities: Evidence of Plant ally been grown for animal fodder as well as human Exploitation food (Palmer 1998; Rosen 1999:14; Zohary and Hopf Cer e a l Cr o p s : In their analysis of the macrobo- 2000:59). Also, the inclusion of large silica skeletons tanical assemblage recovered at Jeitun (Section 9.6), with 100 or more contiguous cells in many lenses of Charles and Bogaard identified remains of naked the P sample column may imply that cereal cultivation and hulled varieties of barley, einkorn wheat, another at Jeitun involved irrigation, and was not dependent type of glume wheat of uncertain origin (this volume, only on ground water and the low annual rainfall of p. 76; Jones, Valamoti, and Charles 2000), and a few c. 200 mm. Soil water normally contains more silica specimens tentatively identified as emmer wheat and than does rainwater and, when combined with high free-threshing wheat of T. aestivum/durum type. The evaporation rates in arid environments, enhances phytolith samples confirm the presence of both wheat silica uptake and phytolith development within cells. and barley (Figs. 9.13C, D). Both the on-site P and the Experiments by Rosen and Weiner (1994:126–30) have off-site S samples contain large numbers of rondel shown that husk aggregates comprising 100 or more phytoliths from C3 pooid grasses. These cells may contiguous phytolith cells are significantly greater have derived wholly from domesticated barley and/ in number under conditions of irrigated agriculture or wheat or also from associated weeds of cultivation. than of rainfed cultivation. The cereal phytoliths are likely to have been deposited Reeds: The P samples contain a great many cells of in two ways: as a result of the processing of cereals in reed (Phragmites sp.). Reed multi-cells are not rep- domestic yards, and as components of goat and sheep resented in any of the S samples, although samples dung. S2 and S7 do contain characteristic large keystones The association of faecal spherulites with cereal and numerous saddle single cells. Leaf phytoliths phytoliths in two of the P samples (19 and 23) supports (Fig. 9.13A) are more abundant than stem phytoliths the inference that dung was a common component of throughout the P samples, which may indicate that yard deposits, a presumption that is borne out by Lim- reed was an important source of animal fodder. How- brey’s micromorphological studies. For example, she ever, there are several ways in which reeds could have 148 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

entered a deposit: (a) grazed by livestock and excreted but also dung, and possibly other vegetable matter such in dung; (b) the leaves added to dung-fuel cakes to act as grain-processing residues, reeds, and sedges may also as a combustible temper; (c) leaves and stems used for have been burned in the adjacent hearth. fodder, in the making of mudbricks, and as kindling Mu dbr ic k a n d Mo r t a r : The mudbrick sample JE- 01- fuel; (d) stems used as building material, in basketry, 1, from the wall of the building adjacent to the section and for floor mats; and (e) by natural deposition from from which the P samples were taken, contains leaf decomposing plants that grew along water channels and stem parts from both woody plants and grasses. and in other moist areas. It is probable, in view of the The inclusion of dendritics from grass inflorescences observed association of reed phytoliths with faecal may indicate that brick-making was a spring and spherulites, that reeds entered the samples at Jeitun summer activity, although this supposition cannot be mainly as components of animal dung, which may have tested without analyzing further mudbrick samples. In been used as fuel and perhaps in brick making. Reeds addition to plant matter, dung, indicated by the pres- may also have been used as floor matting, possible ence of faecal spherulites in the sample (Fig. 9.13B), evidence of which was found on the floor of House A may have been added to the mud during manufacture at Jeitun (this volume, App. 8.2, p. 240). to increase the tensile strength of the bricks (Rosen, Wild Gr a sses a n d Ot h e r He r b a c e o u s Pl a n ts: pers. comm. 2003). Several species of wild grasses, sedges, and other The mortar sample JE-01-2 (from the same herbaceous plants grow in the vicinity of the Jeitun location as JE-01-1) also contains leaf and stem parts mound today, and the following taxa have been identi- from both woody plants and grasses. No dendritic fied among the excavated plant macro-remains (Sec- cells were observed, but the sample contains charcoal. tion 9.6): the wild grasses Aegilops sp., Aeluropus sp., It is possible that charcoal was deliberately added to Bromus spp., Eremopyrum sp., and Stipagrostis sp., and the mixture, although Limbrey (pers. comm. 2004) other herbaceous plants such as Alyssum sp. (alison), regards this as unlikely as the quantities of charcoal Scirpus maritimus (syn. Bolboschoenus maritimus, sea club she observed in samples of mudbrick and mortar are rush), Suaeda sp. (sea blite), and Trigonella/Astragalus too small to support this suggestion. It is more likely spp. (legumes). Numerous wild grass cells are present that the charcoal intruded from an adjacent fire at in the phytolith samples, but most of them lack iden- the time of manufacture. Only the analysis of further tifying characteristics, with only Bromus and Aegilops mortar samples could determine whether charcoal appearing in the P and S samples. was a routine component of mortar. The phytolith record suggests that the majority of wild plants probably entered the P samples as com- Subsistence Activities: Evidence of Animal ponents of dung. Aegilops (identified by papillae size) Exploitation and sedge phytoliths are present in sample S2 but not The zooarchaeological evidence from Jeitun in either S7 or S11. However, there is evidence of both shows that the only animal domesticates present dur- C3 and C4 single-cell phytoliths in all of the P and S ing the Neolithic were sheep, goats, and dogs, and samples, and they may represent seasonal fluctuations there is also evidence in the bone assemblage of a in moisture levels between the moisture-loving C3 range of small- and medium-size wild mammals such grasses and the xerophytic C4 grasses. It must be em- as gazelle, wild cat, fox, hare, ground squirrel, and phasized however that, as previously stated, the large long-eared hedgehog (Section 9.9; Kasparov 1992). number of C3 rondel cells may all have derived from The animal dung identified in the phytolith record cereal crops, despite the fact that the samples contain by the appearance of faecal spherulites in samples no direct evidence of domestic wheat or barley in the P19, P23, and in the mudbrick sample JE-01-1 almost form of silica skeletons. certainly derived from domestic sheep and goats. The Fu e l: Amorphous aggregates of woody material (Al- spherulites are associated with suites of phytolith cells bert and Weiner 2001) and platey cells (Bozarth 1992) from plants likely to have provided grazing or fodder, present in sample P18 (the gypsum hearth) indicate such as reed leaves, cereal straw, and wild grasses, that wood was used as fuel. Moreover, sample P19, which and are in contexts that imply the use of dung for fuel is immediately adjacent to the hearth, contains faecal and perhaps in brick-making. Moreover, the greater spherulites and charcoal as well as phytoliths from both abundance overall of phytoliths from C3 compared woody plants and grasses, suggesting that not only wood with C4 plants suggests that animals may have grazed j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 149 along the banks of the piedmont streams and even at suggests that some form of irrigation agriculture may higher elevations in the Kopetdag foothills. Sample have been practiced. S7, from the middle buried soil, also contained faecal The many dendritic cells from inflorescences spherulites, probably derived from sheep and goats, present in the P samples imply that crops were pro- but S7 and S11 did not. cessed in yard areas between the houses. Barley is more abundant than wheat in most of the samples. It is often associated with phytoliths of wild grasses Conclusion and reeds and with faecal spherulites, suggesting that it may have been grazed by sheep and goats and/or The picture of Neolithic subsistence at Jeitun eaten as fodder. Sample P19 includes more phytoliths deduced from the other sources of archaeobotanical, of wheat than of barley type in a context that sug- geoarchaeological, and zooarchaeological evidence gests grain processing for human consumption and reported in this chapter is supported and elaborated the possible use of processing residues for fuel, while by this analysis of the phytolith samples. The pres- phytoliths from P18 imply that both dung and wood ence of pooid and panicoid phytoliths in the samples were burned in the gypsum hearth. Faecal spherulites indicates that the inhabitants of the site made use of found in the mudbrick sample JE-01-1 show that dung plants from both dry and moist local environments was also used in brick-making, possibly to increase the and managed supplies of ground and surface water to bricks’ tensile strength, and the presence of dendritic grow both wheat and barley. Moreover, the presence cells in this sample may indicate that bricks were made of cereal silica skeletons with over 100 contiguous cells in spring and/or summer. 150 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Section 9.6 Charred Plant Macro-Remains from Jeitun: Implications for Early Cultivation and Herding Practices in Western Central Asia Michael Charles and Amy Bogaard

nformation on the beginnings of farming in Central of seeds and/or chaff were visible in the sieves at this IAsia is limited, and the archaeobotanical evidence stage, the remainder of the sample was processed; if from Jeitun can potentially be used to address major the flot did not appear to be this rich, no more soil was questions about how the process took place, such as processed. When only bucket flotation was possible, a what elements of the so-called Neolithic agricultural sample of 20 l (where available) was taken from each package spread eastward from Southwest Asia. The deposit and about 2.5 l processed by hand initially. westward expansion of agriculture from Southwest If any seeds/chaff were observed in the flot at this Asia into Europe during the Neolithic has been exten- stage, a further 7.5 l of soil were processed. A decision sively discussed (e.g., in Ammerman and Biagi 2003; was then made as to how much of the remaining soil Barker 1985; Colledge and Conolly 2007; Bogucki should be processed: if it seemed likely that a further 1996; Halstead 1989). Preliminary results of the in- 10 l would generate a minimum of 30 seed/chaff vestigations of charred plant remains carried out at items, more soil was processed. On average, 17 l were Jeitun during the 1990s have already been published processed per sample when machine flotation was (Charles and Hillman 1992; Harris et al. 1993:330–33; possible and 6.5 l per sample when bucket flotation Harris, Gosden, and Charles 1996:436–39). Here we was carried out. present the current dataset in more detail, with em- phasis on the most basic issue of interpretation: the Laboratory Scanning, Sub-sampling and Sorting taphonomic origin of the crop and wild plant remains Samples chosen for sorting were those estimated recovered. By determining the likely source(s) of to contain at least 100 identifiable botanical items charred plant remains, subsequent interpretation of based on a scan of the coarse (>1 mm) and fine (<1 the evidence in terms of agricultural practices, such mm) flots under a low-power microscope. Moderately as evidence for crop husbandry and livestock feeding rich samples were then sorted in their entirety under regimes, can be refined. a low-power microscope; for very rich samples contain- ing many hundreds or thousands of items, the coarse and/or fine flots were randomly subsampled to pro- Methods duce fractions estimated to yield at least 100 crop and 100 wild plant items (seeds, fruits, chaff) per sample. On-site Sampling The aim was to analyze subsamples that contained suf- All deposits, from material in yard areas between ficient crop and wild plant items to be reasonably rep- buildings to mudbricks, were systematically sampled resentative (cf. van der Veen and Fieller 1982) while for the recovery of charred plant remains. Approxi- allowing sufficient time to analyze subsamples from mately 220 samples from c. 150 different contexts were all of the rich samples. Counts from subsamples were processed using either machine or bucket (manual) multiplied as appropriate so that coarse and fine flot flotation, and, with both techniques, geological sieves material could be added together. The multiplication with 1 mm and 0.3 mm mesh sizes (retaining the factor was never greater than eight (for example, if all coarse and fine flots, respectively) were used to recover of the coarse flot was sorted, at least one eighth of the the charred plant remains. Due to the absence of a fine flot would also be sorted). Random sub-sampling reliably functioning flotation machine throughout all of flots was carried out with a riffle box. As the fine our excavation seasons, the minimum amount of soil flots often contained large numbers of very small processed per sample fluctuated considerably. When seeds, it was sometimes convenient to sieve these flots machine flotation was possible, a sample of 30–60 l at 0.5 mm to separate out moderately fine (<1 mm – (where available) was taken from each deposit and >0.5 mm) and very fine (<0.5 mm – >0.3 mm) material about half processed immediately. If at least 30 items prior to sorting. Each of these size fractions would be j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 151

subsampled if necessary, but again the multiplication into one of the four groups. This classification is based factor between the coarsest and finest material did on similarity in wild seed-type composition between not exceed eight. the Jeitun samples and the ethnographic samples from Amorgos. Identification In the discriminant analysis described above, Cereal grain and chaff identifications were each Jeitun sample can only be classified into one of made with the help of reference collections, various the Amorgos processing groups. In order to deter- reference works (e.g., Jacomet 1987), and discussions mine whether the Jeitun samples represent a coherent with Gordon Hillman and Glynis Jones. The embryo group distinct from the Amorgos groups, a second ends of cereal grains were counted. Rachis internodes discriminant analysis was carried out in which the (where a single node=1) and glume bases (where an in- Jeitun samples were entered as a separate group to be dividual glume base=1 and a spikelet fork=2) were used discriminated together with the four other (process- as the basic chaff units. Embryo ends were used as the ing) groups (cf. Charles 1998). In this analysis the Jei- scorable unit for grass seeds, while for dicotyledonous tun samples could be classified into the Jeitun group taxa an estimate was made of the minimum number of or into one of the Amorgos groups. seeds. Sheep/goat dung pellets and pellet fragments The ordination technique of correspondence in the coarse flot were quantified by volume (ml). analysis was used to explore internal variation among For wild plant remains, species identifications the samples (Jones 1991; Jongman et al. 1987; Lange were made with the help of the seed reference col- 1990). Correspondence analysis arranges samples lection at the Department of Archaeology, University along axes on the basis of species composition and of Sheffield, UK, and various seed atlases and other vice-versa. CANOCO for Windows (ter Braak and publications (Anderberg 1994; Beijerinck 1947; Berg- Smilauer 1997–99) and CANODRAW (Smilauer 1992) gren 1969, 1981). Common types that occurred in at were used to conduct the analysis and plot the results, least five samples > ( 10% of samples) were targeted respectively. In all correspondence-analysis diagrams, for identification. Plant nomenclature and ecological axis 1 was plotted horizontally and axis 2 vertically. information for the species were obtained from the Species present in at least 10% of samples were in- Flora of Turkey (Davis, Cullen, and Coode 1965–88), cluded; rare species tend to skew the plots and obscure the Flora of Iraq (Townsend and Guest 1966–85), and major trends in the data (Gauch 1982:213–14; Jong- Identification of the Plants of Turkmenistan (Nikitin and man et al. 1987:109–11). Geldykhanov 1988).

Statistical Methods Results Using the method demonstrated by Jones (1984, 1987), the Jeitun samples were compared with ethno- Thirty-nine samples in total were analyzed. The graphic data relating to traditional cereal processing archaeobotanical composition of common taxa pres- in Amorgos, Greece, in order to determine which pro- ent in the samples is summarized in Appendix 9.6, cessing stages were represented in the samples. The together with the densities of identifiable plant items seeds of the wild plant taxa were categorized accord- per liter of soil processed. The samples exhibit a large ing to attributes determining their behavior during range of densities (counts of identifiable plant items the crop-processing sequence: their size, headedness, per liter of soil processed), from 3 items per liter to and aerodynamic properties. A discriminant analysis 1,682 items per liter, indicating different depositional was performed (using the “direct” method from SPSS: histories. Eighteen samples contain at least 100 items Norusis 1992) on the dataset comprising the Jeitun per liter—a high density of remains that could reflect samples and the Amorgos samples from the different single depositional events rather than the accumula- crop-processing stages. The discriminant analysis tion of plant remains over time. maximizes the separation between the four known groups representing the four major by-products/ Cultivated Plants products of crop processing (winnowing by-product, The dominant crop type, in terms of both pres- coarse sieve by-product, fine sieve by-product, fine ence in samples (38 out of 39) and relative frequency sieve product) and classifies each of the Jeitun samples within samples, is glume wheat. This is chiefly repre- 152 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

A A

B B

C C

9.14 Glume wheat spikelet forks from Jeitun: (a) 9.15 Glume wheat grain from Jeitun: (a) two-grain einkorn, (b) einkorn, (b) emmer, (c) “new” type. (Drawings one-grain einkorn, (c) possible (cf.) emmer. (Drawings by by Jane Goddard) Jane Goddard) sented as chaff (spikelet forks and individual glume sidered in the light of this work. bases, 38 samples), with grain present in most samples Spikelet forks resembling einkorn (Fig. 9.14a), (35) but in small numbers. Initial reports (Charles emmer (Fig. 9.14b), and the new type of glume wheat and Hillman 1992; Harris et al. 1993:330–33; Har- (Fig. 9.14c) have now been positively identified at Jeitun. ris, Gosden, and Charles 1996:436–39) identified Most of the well-preserved chaff is of the einkorn type, the glume wheat material as predominantly Triticum but many specimens were poorly preserved and hence monococcum (einkorn wheat), with a small proportion identified as “glume wheat indeterminate”. Furthermore, of T. dicoccum (emmer) type. Subsequently, a new type terminal glume bases (with glumes at a 90° angle to the of glume wheat has been recognized (Jones, Valamoti, rachis, cf. Cappers, Van Thuyne, and Sikking 2004) occur and Charles 2000) and the Jeitun material was recon- in 15 samples and presumably derive from emmer or the j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 153

are no grains typical of emmer, although five poorly preserved specimens have ten- tatively (“cf.”) been identified (4 samples, Fig. 9.15c). None of the identifiable grain resembles the “new” type described by Köhler-Schneider (2001:119, Plate 3; 2003: Fig. 5a). A A few rachis internodes (present in three samples) were tentatively identi- fied as free-threshing wheat T.( aestivum/ durum). Other cereal crops present are naked and hulled varieties of barley (Hor- deum sativum, terminology after Charles 1984). Naked barley is represented as both grain (17 samples, Fig. 9.16a) and rachis internodes (11 samples, Fig. 9.16b). The majority of the barley rachis internodes have robust and elongated lateral floret “stalks” with raised rear glume insertion points. They correspond, therefore, to the naked form of lax-eared six-row barley, B also known as four-row barley (Jacomet 1987). A further indication that these rachis internodes derived from six-row barley is that the glume bases bracketing the central grain have a vertical orienta- tion, rather than diverging orientations as found in the two-row form (Fig. 9.16b). While the naked barley rachis internodes appear to be of the six-row type, no defi- nite asymmetrical grains of naked barley were observed. Hulled barley grains were observed in 11 samples (Fig. 9.16c). None of the barley rachis lacking thickened lateral floret bases, and hence potentially deriving from hulled barley, was suffi- C ciently well preserved to be identified as two- or six-row. No definite asymmetrical 9.16 Barley material from Jeitun: (a) naked barley grain, (b) naked 6-row bar- grains of hulled barley were observed. ley rachis, (c) hulled barley grain. (Drawings by Jane Goddard) Wild Taxa and Dung new type of glume wheat, because the terminal spikelet in The coarse flots were characterized by two types einkorn is infertile (Percival 1974:172) and unlikely to be of wild plant: goat-face grass (Aegilops sp.) in 34 sam- preserved by charring. In this report, counts of terminal ples and caper (Capparis sp.) in 32 samples. Both the spikelet forks are given, but the remainder of the chaff grain and chaff of Aegilops were present (Appendix is referred to simply as “glume wheat” (Appendix 9.6). 9.6). The relative abundance of Capparis seeds in the The most frequently occurring glume-wheat grain type samples might indicate that the fruits were collected derives from two-grain spikelets and resembles two grain for human food (Blakelock and Townsend 1980:140; einkorn (32 samples, Fig. 9.15a); einkorn from one-grain Rivera et al. 2002:308–9), and the seeds have also been spikelets is also common (23 samples, Fig. 9.15b). There reported from Neolithic sites in Turkey, Jordan, and 154 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Iran (Helbaek 1970:230). Other common wild plants include the grasses Bromus spp. and Eremopyrum sp., alison (Alyssum sp.), and club rush (Scirpus maritimus syn. Bolboschoenus maritimus). Analysis of the fine flots (<1 mm) produced sev- eral other types of wild plants in addition to substantial quantities of cereal chaff (small glume bases). In partic- ular, the fine flots yielded many seeds of the grassesAe - luropus and Stipagrostis as well as small-seeded legumes (Trigonella/Astragalus spp.), crucifers (indeterminant types), and two types of sea blite (Suaeda spp.). In three samples, seeds of Aeluropus sp. and Suaeda spp. were 9.17 Triangular plot of Jeitun samples based on relative fre- observed in a matrix of fragmented dung pellets. quency (%) of glume wheat, barley, and free-threshing Whole or fragmentary charred pellets of dung wheat material (grains and chaff) in samples containing were observed in 25 of the 39 samples. Where whole at least 50 crop items in total (n=31). pellets were not preserved, the dung could still be identified from the surface texture of the fragments and the distinctive shape of the pellet ends. The dung and oven structures at Jeitun, which may indicate that pellets closely resemble modern sheep and goat dung, early stages of crop processing (i.e., initial threshing and the remains of both animals are common in the and winnowing) also took pace at the site (Charles and archaeological bone assemblages from the site (Sec- Hillman 1992; Harris et al. 1993:332). tion 9.9; Kasparov 1992). Using the method developed by Jones (see Meth- ods, above) based on wild seed types, 38 of the Jeitun Crop Composition and the Identification of Crop samples—those with more than 10 seeds of wild taxa Processing Stages with definable physical properties (Table 9.11)—were The crop composition of 31 samples containing at classified by the discriminant functions extracted to least 50 crop items each is summarized in Figure 9.17, a distinguish the four crop-processing groups from triangular plot indicating percentages of glume wheat, Amorgos (winnowing by-products, coarse sieve by- barley, and free-threshing wheat (combined grain and products, fine sieve by-products, fine sieve products). chaff totals for each crop type) per sample. Figure 9.17 Figure 9.18a shows the results of the discriminant shows that the samples are dominated by glume wheat analysis: the Jeitun samples and the ethnographic (≤85% crop content). Table 9.10 shows the percentages samples from Amorgos are plotted on the first two of glume wheat grains and glume-wheat glume bases discriminant functions. Most of the Jeitun samples (of the total glume wheat material) in the samples and cluster in the winnowing by-product group. In Table the ratios of glume bases to grains per sample. Given 9.12a, the classification of each Jeitun sample is indi- that the glume wheat grains from Jeitun derive from cated together with the statistical probability of that one- or two-grain spikelets, the ratio of glume bases to classification. Most samples are classified as winnow- grains in unprocessed material would be in the range ing by-products with high probability (p >0.99). Three of 1:1 to 2:1. Table 9.10 shows that virtually all the samples are classified as other categories but all with samples have ratios exceeding 2:1, suggesting that the low probability (0.75 or lower): two samples (8911 and glume wheat has been dehusked and that the chaff-rich 9447) are classified as fine-sieved by-products and one by-products of this processing are represented. sample (9034) as a coarse-sieved by-product. In traditional glume-wheat processing (Hillman As noted above, the Jeitun samples tend to be 1981, 1984a, 1984b), threshing the crop breaks the ears dominated by glume-wheat glume bases. Other ap- into spikelets, which then require pounding before plications of Jones’ (1984, 1987) method of identify- separating the chaff from the grain. The glume-rich ing crop-processing stages from archaeobotanical crop material in the Jeitun samples, therefore, must samples dominated by glume-wheat glume bases have derive from a late stage of crop processing (following suggested that they represent the by-products of fine spikelet pounding). It is worth noting that cereal- sieving, not of winnowing (cf. Bogaard 2004:68). straw impressions have been identified in mudbrick The classification of glume base samples as fine sieve j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 155

Table 9.10 Relative frequency (percentage) of glume-wheat Table 9.11 The classification of wild taxa grain and glume bases in samples containing at least 50 according to their size, headedness, and crop items. Glume-wheat glume base to grain ratios are aerodynamic properties (after Jones 1984). given in the final column. Seeds smaller than 2 mm in diameter are considered “small.” Sample Glume-Wheat Glume-Wheat Glume-Wheat No. Grain (%) Chaff (%) Chaff : Grain Small, Free, and Light Ratio Aeluropus sp 9238 1 99 197 Stipagrostis sp 9320 1 99 143 Small, Headed, and Light 9237 1 99 89 Erodium type 1 9111 2 98 64 Suaeda type 2 9217.2 2 98 61 Small, Headed, and Heavy 9107 2 98 41 Alyssum sp 9121 3 98 39 Suaeda type 1 9044 3 97 30 Big, Headed, and Heavy 8911 3 97 29 Capparis sp. 9228 4 96 27 Small, Free, and Heavy 9217.1 4 96 26 Astragalus/Trigonella indet 9423 4 96 22 Bromus type 1 9225 4 96 22 Bromus type 2 9032 5 95 20 Centaurea sp 9118 6 94 17 9132 6 94 16 Chenopodium album 9447 7 93 14 CYPERACEAE 9117 8 92 12 Eremopyrum sp 9442 8 92 12 Galium type 1 9126 8 92 11 Galium type 2 9025 9 91 10 Heliotropium sp 9444 11 89 8 Melilotus/Trifolium indet 9042 11 89 8 Polygonum cf aviculare 9227 12 88 7 Scirpus maritimus 9023 13 87 7 Big, Free, and Heavy 9232 14 86 6 Aegilops sp 9122 16 84 5 Asparagus sp 9034 18 82 4 9125 19 81 4 9052 34 66 2 To summarize thus far, the results of the crop- 9201 0 100 processing analysis (Fig. 9.18a, Table 9.12a) indicate that the wild plant seeds in the Jeitun samples re- semble those in ethnographic winnowing by-products by-products is in agreement with the ethnographic (i.e., rich in taxa with small free light seeds), but the observations of Hillman (1981, 1984a, 1984b), which crop component of these samples (mainly glume indicate that glume material is separated from grains wheat glume bases) could be interpreted as fine sieve by fine sieving (following spikelet pounding). How- by-product material. The classification of most Jeitun ever, experimental work by Küster (1985) and Meur- samples as winnowing by-products, therefore, suggests ers-Balke and Lüning (1992) shows that winnowing is that the crop and wild plant material may not in gen- capable of separating grain and glume material. eral derive from the same source. 156 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Table 9.12a The classification of samples by the discrimi- nant function extracted to distinguish the four groups of ethnographic samples from Amorgos.

Crop-processing Stage (or Sample Probability predicted group member- ship) Winnowing by-product 9023 1.00 9025 1.00 9032 1.00 9.18a Scatter plot of the archaeological samples from Jeitun 9042 1.00 and the ethnographic samples from Amorgos on the 9044 0.96 first two discriminant functions. 9052 0.99 9107 1.00 9117 1.00 9118 1.00 9121 1.00 9122 1.00 9125 1.00 9126 1.00 9129 0.94 9131 1.00 9132 1.00 9.18b Scatter plot of the archaeological samples from Jeitun and the ethnographic samples from Amorgos on the 9201 0.97 first two discriminant functions. In this analysis, the 9212 1.00 Jeitun samples are entered as a separate group to be 9214 1.00 discriminated. 9217.1 1.00 9217.2 1.00 As described above in Methods, another way of 9225 1.00 comparing the Jeitun and Amorgos samples is to enter 9227 1.00 the Jeitun samples as a separate group in discriminant 9228 1.00 analysis. In this analysis, the discriminant functions 9232 0.55 are extracted to distinguish five groups (i.e., the four 9237 0.99 processing groups plus the Jeitun sample group). In 9238 1.00 the resulting plot of samples on the first two discrimi- 9304 1.00 nant functions (Fig. 9.18b), it is evident that the ar- rangement of the crop-processing groups is changed 9320 1.00 considerably in comparison with the previous analysis 9323 1.00 (Fig. 9.18a) and that the Jeitun samples form a distinct 9324 1.00 cluster. This result suggests that the Jeitun samples 9423 1.00 are a coherent group that differs in wild seed-type 9442 1.00 composition from all the ethnographic processing 9444 0.99 groups. The classification results (Table 9.12b) show 9448 1.00 that all but one of the archaeological samples are placed in the Jeitun group rather than in any of the Coarse-sieve by-product 9034 0.75 ethnographic processing groups. Analogous results Fine-sieve by-product 8911 0.75 were obtained at Abu Salabikh in southern Iraq, where 9447 0.54 it was concluded that many of the wild plant seeds in j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 157

Table 9.12b The classification of samples by the discrimi- the assemblage originated from a source other than nant function extracted to distinguish the four groups crop processing (Charles 1998). of ethnographic samples from Amorgos plus the Jeitun The classification of the Jeitun samples in the two group. discriminant analyses (Figs. 9.18a, b, Tables 9.12a, b)— combined with their crop composition (Fig. 9.17, Table Crop-processing Stage (or Sample Probability 9.10)—suggests that at least some of the wild plant predicted group membership) seeds were not harvested and processed with the cereal Jeitun group 8911 0.00 material in the samples. As noted above, wild plant seeds were observed in the matrix of charred dung 9023 0.21 pellets in some samples. A possible source of charred 9025 0.22 plant remains other than crop processing, therefore, 9032 0.45 is animal dung, which may have been burned as fuel. 9034 0.00 This hypothesis is considered further below. 9042 0.75 9044 0.01 Exploring Internal Variation in Sample 9052 0.06 Composition 9107 0.03 A correspondence analysis was performed on all 39 samples; taxa present in at least 10% of samples (30 9117 0.70 in total) were included. These taxa are listed in Table 9118 0.50 9.13a, and Table 9.13b shows how similar categories 9121 0.19 of taxa were amalgamated in some cases in order to 9122 0.56 simplify the analysis. 9125 0.87 In the correspondence-analysis plot of samples 9126 0.38 from the initial analysis (not shown), seven samples 9129 0.05 emerged as outliers: 9117, 9126, 9227, 9304, 9323, 9131 0.67 and 9324, which contain unusually high quantities 9132 0.12 of Aeluropus sp., and 9232, which contains unusually high quantities of Suaeda spp. (see Appendix 9.6). 9201 0.02 The decision was taken to remove these samples from 9212 0.65 the analysis in order to explore variation among the 9214 0.46 remaining samples. A correspondence analysis, there- 9217.1 0.15 fore, was run with the remaining 32 samples and 30 9217.2 0.97 taxa. Both the sample (Fig. 9.19a) and the species (Fig. 9225 0.74 9.19b) plots from this analysis show an even spread of 9227 0.80 points, with no strong outliers. 9228 0.05 In Figure 9.19b, the crop taxa (in particular, 9232 0.00 barley rachis and glume-wheat glume bases) and cer- tain wild plant taxa (especially Aegilops sp.) are located 9237 0.25 toward the right (positive) end of axis 1, whereas other 9238 0.26 wild taxa are located toward the left (negative) end. 9304 0.58 This suggests that some wild taxa are more closely as- 9320 0.94 sociated with crop material than others. 9323 0.94 9324 0.86 Investigating the Sources of Wild Plant Seeds in 9423 0.13 the Samples 9442 0.39 In order to investigate the origin of the Jeitun wild taxa in more detail, it is necessary to consider their 9444 0.06 ecology. Wild taxa that did not arrive on site as har- 9448 0.61 vested crop weeds may potentially be distinguished by Fine-sieve by-product 9447 0.07 their pattern of growth or seasonality. The flowering/ 158 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Table 9.13a Codes for taxa included in the correspon- Table 9.13b List of the taxa included in the amalgamated dence analysis. groups used in the correspondence analysis.

Code Type Name Name of Amalgamated Group Taxa Included in Group Bar_G Barley grain Glume wheat grain Emmer grain, cf. Bar_R Barley rachis internodes Einkorn 1-grain culm_no Culm nodes (>1 mm diameter) Einkorn 2-grain Glwht_C Glume wheat glume bases Einkorn indeterminate Glwht_G Glume wheat grain grain Wht_Br Basal wheat rachis Glume wheat indeter- Ce-Gr_G Cereal/large Gramineae minate grain Aegi_Chf Aegilops glume bases Emmer grain, cf. Aegi_sp Aegilops sp. Aelu_sp Aeluropus sp. Glume wheat glume bases Terminal glume bases Alys_sp Alyssum sp. Other glume bases Aspa_sp Asparagus sp. Brom_1 Bromus type 1 Barley grain Hulled barley grain Brom_2 Bromus type 2 Naked barley grain Capp_spi Capparis sp. Barley indeterminate Cent_sp Centaurea sp. grain Chen_alb Chenopodium album Barley rachis internodes Naked barley rachis Cruc_1 CRUCIFERAE type 1 Barley indeterminate Cype_F CYPERACEAE indet rachis Erem_sp Eremopyrum sp. Erod_1 Erodium type 1 Melilotus/Trifolium Small-seeded LEGUMINOSAE indeterminate Gali_1 Galium type 1 Trigonella/Astragalus Gali_2 Galium type 2 indeterminate Heli_sp Heliotropium sp. Poly_avi Polygonum cf. aviculare Suaeda Suaeda type 1 Reed_Cu reed culm nodes (Phragmites/Arundo) Suaeda type 2 Scir_Mar Scirpus maritimus Suaeda indeterminate sleg small-seeded LEGUMINOSAE Stip_sp Stipagrostis sp. Suaeda Suaeda seasonality relative to the time of harvest (Table 9.14). Early taxa are those whose flowering/fruit- ing periods include harvest time (May) but do not fruiting times of specialized crop weeds tend to coin- extend beyond it. They may represent arable weeds cide with that of the crop, while the fruiting times of that were harvested with the cereal crops when in other wild plants may encompass a much wider time pe- fruit. Intermediate taxa begin flowering/fruiting in riod. In present-day Turkmenistan, along the foothills April before the cereal harvest but continue beyond of the Kopetdag, the cereal harvest typically occurs in it, until June or July. They may have been harvested early May. Using flowering/fruiting data from relevant with the cereal crops when in fruit but their origin is floras (see Methods, above), the archaeobotanical taxa uncertain because they continue fruiting after the were classified as early, intermediate, or late in their harvest. Late taxa begin flowering/fruiting in May j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 159

or June and continue until August or later. They are unlikely to have been harvested with the cereal crops when in fruit. The ability of wild-plant season- ality to explain the spread of species points in the correspondence-analy- sis plot was explored by coding the wild taxa as early, intermediate, or late (Fig. 9.20); a few taxa could not be classified due to their ambigu- ous level of identification. In Figure 9.20, there is a separation of early and late taxa along axis 1: the few early taxa tend to occur toward the positive (right) end of the axis, to- gether with the cereal components, while late taxa tend to occur toward the negative (left) end. Intermediate taxa are generally distributed along axis 1. These patterns are consistent with the hypothesis that early taxa were harvested with the cereal crops, whereas late taxa derive from some other source(s), possibly charred sheep/goat dung. The meaning of the first axis is further clarified in Figure 9.21, where sample points are shown as pie-charts indicating the propor- tions of different seasonality catego- ries, crop material, and unclassified taxa (including culm nodes, which may derive from cultivated or wild grasses) in each sample. There is a clear trend along axis 1 in the rela- tive amounts of late taxa versus crop material: late taxa predominate in samples toward the negative (left) end, whereas crop material predomi- nates in samples toward the positive (right) end. Early taxa tend, like crop material, to increase toward the posi- tive (right) end of axis 1, although proportions of early taxa are highest in two samples located toward the positive (top) end of axis 2. These 9.19a (top) Correspondence analysis plot of 32 samples. Species codes are given in two samples also contain significant Table 9.19b proportions of late taxa and relatively 9.19b Correspondence analysis plot of 30 taxa (present in >10% of samples).. little crop material. Overall, however, 160 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Table 9.14 Seasonality of the Jeitun wild plants (Nikitin and Geldykhanov 1988; Townsend and Guest 1966–85). The month of typical winter cereal harvest in the Kopetdag foothills is indicated by shading.

Seasonality Class Months of Flowering/Fruiting Early Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Aegilops sp. XX Alyssum sp. XXX (X) (X) Eremopyrum sp. XX Intermediate Asparagus sp. XXX (X) (X) Bromus type 1 XXX (X) Bromus type 2 XXX (X) Centaurea sp. XXXX Chenopodium album (X) XXX (X) (X) (X) Erodium type 1 XXX (X) Galium type 1 XXX (X) (X) Galium type 2 XXX (X) (X) Polygonum cf. aviculare XXX (X) small LEGUMINOSAE (X) XX (X) (X) (X) Late Aeluropus sp. XXXX Capparis sp. XXXXX Heliotropium sp. XXXXX Scirpus maritimus XXXXXX Stipagrostis sp. XXXX Suaeda spp. XXXX (X)

( ) = rarely it appears that early taxa are more closely associated assemblage (Table 9.11), three are late taxa and the with crop material than late taxa. fourth is intermediate in flowering/fruiting times The seven outlier samples excluded from the (Table 9.14). The classification of the samples as win- main correspondence analysis (see above) contain nowing by-products, therefore, is largely caused by the little crop material and are dominated by one or both presence of probable dung-derived taxa. of the late taxa, Suaeda spp. and Aeluropus sp. These Finally, in order to investigate the possibility samples, therefore, like those located toward the that sample composition relates to archaeological negative (left) end of axis 1 in Figure 9.21, are rich context, the correspondence analysis plot of samples in taxa unlikely to derive from harvested crops/crop was coded to show the major context types represented processing. (ash dumps, yard deposits, floor deposits, hearths, It was suggested above that the presence of unknown) (Fig. 9.22). There is no obvious relationship dung-derived wild taxa in the Jeitun samples relates between archaeological context and sample content, to the classification of most samples as winnowing by- with the possible exception of samples from floor products, characterized by a predominance of taxa deposits, all three of which occur toward the positive with light seeds separated off by winnowing (Jones end of axis 1, although not at the extreme positive end 1984, 1987). Of the four taxa with light seeds (i.e., (Fig. 9.22). Overall, therefore, it appears that the trend small free light and small-headed light) in the Jeitun along axis 1 noted above (in the relative amounts of j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 161

9.21 Correspondence analysis plot of samples shown as pie charts indicating proportions of different seasonality categories, crop material, and unclassified taxa.

9.20 Correspondence analysis plot of taxa coded according to seasonality categories (see Table 9.15).

late taxa versus crop material) does not relate directly to context type. Similarly, coding of the correspon- dence analysis plot of samples according to density (number of items per liter soil processed) does not show any clear patterning (plot not shown).

Discussion

Assessing the Role of Animal Dung as a Source of Charred Plant Remains There are three pieces of evidence which suggest that charred animal dung is a major source of plant remains in the Jeitun assemblage: the presence of late taxa (Aeluropus sp., Suaeda spp.) in the matrix of frag- mented dung pellets in a few samples, the dominance 9.22 Correspondence analysis plot of samples coded accord- of late taxa in some samples, and the “anomalous” ing to context type. classification of the Jeitun samples in crop-processing analyses. It should be emphasized that late taxa could have reached the site by a variety of routes; however, rial in archaeobotanical assemblages: the presence the fact that some late taxa have been found in dung of recognizable animal dung (and especially the indicates that sheep and goats ate the seeds of these observation of charred plant remains within dung), late-maturing wild plants. incompatibility between archaeobotanical samples The three characteristics of the Jeitun assem- and ethnobotanical crop-processing products or by- blage listed above fulfill three criteria proposed by products, and the presence of late-maturing wild Charles (1998) for recognizing dung-derived mate- plants that are unlikely to have been harvested with 162 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia crops when in fruit. A fourth and final criterion is of animal and crop husbandry at Neolithic Jeitun (see the mixing of crops which, for practical reasons, are below). unlikely to have been processed together (e.g., glume wheat and free-threshing cereals). In crop terms, the The Crop Spectrum and Its Interpretation Jeitun samples are heavily dominated by glume wheat, Previous archaeobotanical work at Neolithic with only low levels of free-threshing cereals (barley sites in southern Turkmenistan has been restricted to and free-threshing wheat) present. There is no firm the examination of cereal remains and impressions evidence, therefore, for deliberate and systematic mix- in mudbrick at Jeitun itself and three other Jeitun- ing of crops in these samples. Culture sites, Bami, Chopan, and Chagylly (Lisitsina While it appears likely that the seeds of late- 1978:92; Masson 1971:79). Barley and wheat were re- maturing wild plants derive from charred animal ported as present at Jeitun, Chopan, and Bami (identi- dung, it remains to determine how this material came fied just asHordeum sp. and Triticum sp.), and two-row to be mixed with the crop material. There are three barley and bread and club wheat at Chagylly (identi- possibilities: fied asH. distichum L., T. aestivum L., and T. compactum 1. both late taxa and crop material (together Host.). By comparison with these earlier reports, our with early taxa/crop weeds) are present in the same investigations at Jeitun have confirmed the presence dung pellets. For this to occur, livestock would need to there of (six-row) barley and of only three specimens be eating plant material from these two sources at more tentatively identified as free-threshing T.( aestivum/T. or less the same time, for example by grazing late-sum- durum) wheat. mer plants supplemented by eating cereal material, or The plant remains now recovered at Jeitun and consuming a mixed fodder containing such material; reported here represent a substantial addition to the 2. late taxa and crop material (crop weeds) body of evidence for plant use in Neolithic western derive from two different categories of dung, one con- Central Asia. In terms of the range and relative abun- taining late taxa, the other containing cereal material dance of seed crops at Jeitun, the results of the present and early taxa; analysis reinforce those previously reported (Charles 3. only late taxa are observed in dung pellets. and Hillman 1992; Harris et al. 1993:330–33; Harris, Such dung-derived material would have been mixed Gosden, and Charles 1996:436 –39), namely that glume with cereal material either deliberately (to make dung wheats constituted the main crop in the assemblage. cakes for fuel) prior to deposition or by accident fol- The other definitely attested cereal crops present, al- lowing deposition (e.g., cereal residues discarded into though at low levels, are naked and hulled barley. There dung fires, spent fuel and processing waste mixed in is no evidence to suggest that pulses were cultivated. midden deposits). As already stated, einkorn appears to have been the The negative relationship between late taxa dominant glume-wheat crop at Jeitun (see also Charles and crop material observed in the correspondence 2007:40, 47). While it must be stressed that a restricted analysis could accommodate all three of these pos- range of deposits is represented by the samples under sibilities. Because these two types of material derive discussion, the minor role of emmer is striking, given from two different sources originally, they could have its ubiquity in Neolithic sites in Southwest Asia and Eu- been combined in varying proportions in the same rope and its reputation as “the main crop in the spread dung pellets or archaeological deposits. There is some of the Neolithic agricultural technology from the Near negative evidence to suggest that sheep and goats were East nuclear area” (Zohary and Hopf 2000:48). not fed cereal material as none was observed in the The crop spectrum at Jeitun, and to a lesser ex- matrix of fragmented pellets, but more experimental tent at the approximately contemporary site of Ali Kosh work is needed to investigate the ability of different in the Deh Luran plain of Iran (Helbaek 1969), is very cereal components to survive livestock digestion (see narrow compared with the diverse cereal and pulse e.g., Valamoti and Charles 2005). It is not possible on assemblages known from sites in the Southwest Asian present evidence to decide which of the three possibili- Fertile Crescent and southeastern Europe (Charles ties is best represented in the Jeitun assemblage. The 2007). Assuming that the limited crop spectrum at most secure conclusion is that the late taxa, at least, Jeitun is not an artifact of differential preservation, derive from charred animal dung, and this observa- it may imply that einkorn and barley were selected as tion has important implications for the reconstruction crops due to their tolerance of low soil fertility and j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 163 low water availability (Percival 1974; Carter and Stoker Table 9.15 Ecological data for wild plant taxa at Jeitun 1985), although such extrapolations to Jeitun based on (Townsend and Guest 1966–85): (a) early flowering modern crop ecology may be misleading. taxa, (b) late flowering taxa. Southern Turkmenistan is not conventionally a: Early-flowering Taxa included in maps indicating the natural distribution Genus Species Minimum Moisture Salt (“primary habitat”) of wild einkorn, wild emmer, or Requirement Tolerant wild barley (Zohary and Hopf 2000: Maps 1, 3, 5), but Aegilops spp. damp the ecological requirements of at least some of these Alyssum spp. damp yes wild cereals do not exclude western Central Asia as a Eremopyrum spp. dry rarely natural home. Indeed, Harris and Gosden (1996:372) have pointed out that southern Turkmenistan is part b: Late-flowering Taxa of the larger biogeographical region in which most Genus Species Minimum Moisture Salt of the crops of Neolithic Southwest Asian agriculture Requirement Tolerant originated. Furthermore, Hillman (1996:188–89) has Aeluropus spp. damp yes speculated that wild barley might have spread west- Capparis sp. damp ward in early postglacial times from refugia in this Heliotropium spp. damp region, if such existed, as well as from other refugia Scirpus maritimus damp yes farther west. Stipagrostis spp. dry Suaeda spp. damp yes Rainfed Agriculture versus Cultivation of Irrigated and/or Flooded Areas A distinction has been made based on flower- was occupied, and that arid conditions similar to the ing/fruiting times between wild plant seeds likely to present were established later (this volume, pp. 25–26; have arrived on site as arable weeds harvested with Dolukhanov 1981:375; Nesbitt and O’Hara 2000:107– the cereal crops, and those coming into fruit after 8). Second, the high water requirements of club rush the harvest and likely to have arrived on site by other and other late taxa (Table 9.16b) may be irrelevant to routes, such as in animal dung. The ecological char- the reconstruction of crop-growing conditions because acteristics of potential weed taxa of arable cultivation these plants are unlikely to have been harvested in fruit can be used to investigate crop-growing conditions. as crop weeds (Table 9.14). One of the most common The most probable weeds of crops grown at Jeitun are probable weeds of cereal cultivation, Eremopyrum, typi- Aegilops and Eremopyrum (Table 9.15a); the other early cally grows in dry habitats (Table 9.15a). taxon in the assemblage, Alyssum sp., is less closely A study of the impact of irrigation on modern associated with crop material in the correspondence arable weed floras in southern Jordan (Charles et al. analysis (Fig. 9.19b) and so its identification as a crop 2003) revealed that one distinctive effect of prolonged weed is less certain. water availability in irrigated fields is to encourage the It was previously argued that rainfed winter cul- growth of annuals that continue flowering relatively late tivation of cereals was unlikely at Neolithic Jeitun, on in the growing season (after May), into the dry season. the grounds that: (a) climatic conditions in the past These annuals are unlikely to succeed in rainfed fields were not substantially different from the present, with due to extreme summer dryness. At Jeitun, drought- average annual precipitation too low (at <250 mm/ avoiding annuals of this type (i.e., those that begin year) to sustain crops without irrigation and/or access flowering before harvest time), which could potentially to high levels of groundwater; and (b) the wild plants have been harvested in seed with crops, occur in the recovered from Jeitun include moisture-loving species intermediate seasonality category (Table 9.14). The late such as club rush capable of growing in areas of high species are unlikely to be harvested with crops when water table and salinity, such as interdune flats near in seed (and so may not reflect arable field conditions the site, or in deliberately irrigated plots (Charles and at all) and they are, in any case, mostly perennial taxa Hillman 1992; Harris et al. 1993:327–28; Harris and that can avoid drought by other means. Several species Gosden 1996:374–75). However, it is probable that an- with intermediate seasonality at Jeitun appear to be nual (mainly winter) precipitation in southern Turk- associated with crop remains in the correspondence menistan was higher in the mid Holocene when Jeitun analysis (e.g., Chenopodium album and Polygonum cf. 164 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

aviculare, Fig. 9.19b). However, the mere occurrence of itats because they constitute major grazing resources such intermediate species cannot be taken as evidence in otherwise unpalatable vegetation. Aeluropus is a that crops were irrigated and/or grown in areas of high low-growing plant pre-adapted to grazing as a means of water table. To take this type of analysis further, either regeneration (the seeds are located close to the leaves) some form of comparison with modern rainfed and and so it is particularly likely to have been grazed in situ irrigated fields, or a comparison of weed ecology be- rather than collected and fed as fodder. The presence of tween Jeitun and another site where rainfed cultivation Aeluropus and Suaeda suggests that grazing pressure was was almost certainly practiced (cf. Hoppé 2001) would sufficient to require the exploitation of relatively un- be needed. Moreover, a full analysis of all functional productive areas around the site for livestock feeding. attributes relevant to watering regimes (Charles et al. On the other hand, the seeds of plants from relatively 2003) would be required to evaluate the moisture levels productive habitats (Capparis and Heliotropium) suggest associated with cultivation plots at Jeitun. that such conditions were also available near the site, The question of whether the cereals at Jeitun perhaps on land left fallow after cultivation. were rainfed, irrigated, or grown on areas of high water table, or cultivated by some combination of The Seasonality of Occupation of the Site these techniques, cannot be determined from the The presence of cereal chaff and culm nodes present archaeobotanical evidence; but our analysis in addition to grain suggests that wheat and barley has advanced understanding of the conditions under were cultivated locally by the inhabitants of the Jeitun which crops were grown at Jeitun by establishing the settlement. This implies that part or all of the com- probability that certain wild plants arrived on site in munity was present at the site at least from the autumn animal dung rather than as harvested crop weeds. through to early summer. In addition, the presence Future investigation of Neolithic crop cultivation in of dung-derived, late-maturing, probably grazed wild southern Turkmenistan could profitably explore the plant species appears to reflect post-harvest, summer/ implications of the modern Jordanian study (Charles early autumn occupation during which sheep and goats et al. 2003) for the interpretation of potential arable were herded near the site. These inferences from the weeds as evidence for agricultural moisture regimes. crops and dung concerning the seasons of occupation of the site could be challenged; the chaff and dung, for The Ecology of the Late Taxa and Implications for example, could have been brought from elsewhere (for Livestock Feeding example, as fodder and fuel respectively). It is unlikely, The ecological requirements of the late taxa however, that the dung was brought from any distance, (Table 9.15b) contrast with those of the probable crop given the consistent presence of wood charcoal in the weeds (Table 9.15a). All but Stipagrostis spp. typically deposits, which suggests that wood fuel was not scarce occur in damp places and of the late taxa three (Ae- (and see Section 9.7). Overall, the archaeobotanical luropus spp., Scirpus maritimus, and Suaeda spp.) are evidence suggests that the settlement was occupied by salt-tolerant and associated with brackish conditions. at least part of the community throughout the year. In a damp habitat such as a river bank, brackish condi- Year-round occupation has also been inferred from tions could develop as a result of seasonally low water the lack of evidence for seasonal slaughter of domestic levels and increased evaporation. Damp conditions sheep and goats (Legge 1992; Harris et al. 1993:335). of variable salinity could, therefore, be encountered Of course, presence is much easier to infer archaeologi- along river and stream courses such as those present cally than absence, and the possibility of longer-distance in the vicinity of Jeitun during the Neolithic (this herding to other areas, such as the Kopetdag moun- volume, pp. 31–32). tains, for summer pasture cannot be excluded. In considering the suitability of the late taxa for consumption by sheep and goats at Jeitun, it is relevant to note that they were all commonly eaten by livestock Conclusions in Iraq during the 20th century and that at least four of them (Aeluropus spp., Heliotropium spp., Stipagrostis The analysis of 39 samples from Jeitun points spp., and Suaeda spp.) are considered highly valuable as to the cultivation of a narrow range of crop types, grazed plants (Townsend and Guest 1966–85). Aeluro- primarily glume wheat, together with low levels of pus and Suaeda are particularly important in saline hab- naked barley, hulled barley, and possibly free- thresh- j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 165 ing wheat. The samples appear to contain a mixture archaeobotanical results obtained so far raise as many of wild plants: crop weeds harvested with the cereals questions as they answer. Key questions include the and wild plants that predominantly fruit after the apparent selection of crops in a marginal environ- crop harvest (late taxa) and were probably brought ment (e.g., was einkorn cultivation an adaptation to onto the site in animal dung. More data on the ecol- local conditions?), to what extent crop and animal ogy of the potential arable weed species at Jeitun are husbandry were integrated (e.g., was cereal material required in order to reconstruct the nature of crop- routinely fed to livestock?), and the nature of land growing conditions and husbandry practices. The late use in the vicinity of settlements and in the wider taxa are mostly typical of damp, in some cases saline, landscape (e.g., was cultivation confined to areas of conditions such as prevailed along watercourses— high water table and/or to irrigated plots? was herd- conditions that would have provided valuable summer ing local and small-scale?). Systematic recovery of grazing in the vicinity of the site. bioarchaeological data at other Neolithic sites in the Jeitun represents a single dataset on the begin- region is now needed in order to refine and broaden nings of farming in western Central Asia and the the interpretations proposed in this report. 166 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Section 9.7 Remains of Wood Charcoal from Jeitun: Identification and Analysis Eleni Asouti

he analysis of macro-remains of wood charcoal local piedmont river, the Kara Su, where it discharges Tis a valuable means of investigating the past into the desert (see Chapter 3 for an account of the composition and human use of vegetation in the local environment of Jeitun). Climatic conditions in vicinity of archaeological sites (Asouti and Austin present-day Turkmenistan are markedly continental, 2005). It is particularly useful in arid and semi-arid with cold winters and very hot summers. Extreme environments, where reconstructing vegetation his- aridity is the main feature of the climate, brought tory by means of pollen analysis—a common prac- about by low precipitation (Fig. 1.7) and high evapo- tice in less arid regions—is often made difficult or ration, combined with low air humidity and frequent impossible by poor pollen preservation and lack of droughts, especially during the summer (Orlovsky distinct, datable stratigraphy in aeolian, alluvial, and 1994:34 –45). saline deposits. This is the situation in the vicinity The vegetation on the southern edge of the of Jeitun, where trial sampling for pollen sequences Karakum desert (in the immediate proximity of Jei- in one of the swampy depressions that exist close to tun) is characterized by sand-tolerant psammophytes the site proved unsuccessful (Section 9.8). However, and salt-tolerant halophytes. They include a variety of samples of wood charcoal were obtained at Jeitun trees, shrubs, semi-shrubs, and herbs such as species of during the recovery of charred plant remains by Ammodendron, Haloxylon, Calligonum, Ephedra, Salsola, flotation, and analysis of them has yielded some Stipagrostis, and Carex. Areas of desert shrub vegeta- evidence of the nature and probable use of local tion are often dominated by black and white saksauls vegetation during the occupation of the site in the (Haloxylon aphyllum and H. persicum), the former typi- early Neolithic period. cally growing on sand dunes and the latter on alluvial In this Section, the results of the microscopic soils (Figs. 1.12, 1.13, color). Saksauls can form dense identification and analysis of wood charcoal macro- woodlands when protected from browsing livestock, as remains retrieved from 25 flotation samples obtained in the Repetek Sand Desert Reserve in the Southeast at Jeitun are described. In addition to the Jeitun Karakum (Fig. 1.14, color). Desert vegetation domi- samples, a small number of botanical identifications nated by semi-shrubs, principally sagebrush (Artemisia were made from charcoal samples recovered in the spp.), is extensively developed on sandy and rocky sur- Dam Dam Cheshme rockshelters in the Bolshoi Bal- faces in the Karakum and on the Kopetdag piedmont, kan massif in western Turkmenistan (this volume, pp. and halophytic taxa such as Salsola and Anabasis spp. 199–200). grow on saline surfaces among sand dunes and along stream channels. Broadleaf deciduous trees are restricted today to Present-day Climate and Vegetation small areas of forest of maple, ash, elm, walnut, and other woody taxa in deep, relatively moist valleys in Before presenting the results of the analysis of the Kopetdag mountains. At lower altitudes riparian the charcoal samples from Jeitun, relevant features of forests (tugai) of tamarisks, poplars, willows, oleasters the present-day climate and vegetation of southern (Russian olive), and sometimes oriental plane extend Turkmenistan are summarized, to set the results of along the larger river and stream channels north into the analysis in their environmental context (and see the desert (Fig. 1.8, color). Xerophytic woodlands Chapter 1 for more detailed descriptions). The Jeitun dominated by junipers exist today in the Kopetdag mound is situated in a transitional zone between the range and the Bolshoi Balkhan massif, and stands of piedmont of the Kopetdag range to the south and the pistachio (Pistacia vera) persist only in the Kopetdag Karakum desert to the north, in an area of dune sand foothills and on the Badghyz plateau (Popov 1994; at the outer edge of the alluvial fan deposited by the Figs. 1.9, 1.10, color), although they formerly grew ex- j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 167 tensively on the Kopetdag piedmont. Tugai dominated microscope) facilities at the Institute of Archaeol- by tamarisks is the only type of arboreal vegetation ogy, UCL. that occurs in the vicinity of Jeitun today (Fig. 3.5, color), and it is likely to have done so in the early Neo- lithic when the site was occupied (see below). Results

Sample Composition and Taphonomic Methods Observations The charcoal material from Jeitun that was ex- Selection and Laboratory Preparation amined came from 24 flotation samples (split samples of Samples were combined for the purpose of this study) amount- The methods by which the excavated material ing in total to 1,799 charcoal fragments (Table 9.16). was sampled on-site are described by Charles and Six taxa were identified: tamarisk Tamarix), ( Bogaard in Section 9.6. The samples for charcoal poplar (Populus), willow (Salix), alder (Alnus), un- analysis were derived from Charles’ collection of differentiated chenopods (Chenopodiaceae), and a macrobotanical samples from Jeitun held at the De- monocotyledonous plant closely resembling common partment of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, UK. reed (Phragmites). SEM microphotographs of selected They represented two distinct groups of archaeologi- specimens are reproduced in Figure 9.23. cal deposit: (a) material excavated in 1990 in external Identification was possible only to the generic (non-domestic) areas, which consisted mostly of refuse level because preservation of the charcoal fragments accumulated in yards between buildings, and (b) was very poor and because of a lack of detailed refer- material excavated in 1993 and 1994 which consisted ence material and studies of wood anatomy for this of a mixture of domestic (hearth and oven fills) and part of Central Asia. Chenopodiaceae could only be non-domestic (yard) deposits. identified to family level. The differences between in- Each flotation sample was passed through a dividual genera in the Chenopodiaceae are frequently stack of geological sieves with apertures of >4 and >2 concentrated in the presence or absence of rays and mm with a brass receiver at the bottom for retaining the occurrence of helical thickenings (Schweingruber the <1 mm material. The >4 and >2 mm fractions 1990), which are very difficult to trace in small frag- were then sorted in their entirety with the aid of a ments of badly distorted charred twig and/or small low-power binocular microscope in order to sepa- round wood (as characterize most chenopod shrubs). rate charcoal, seeds, mollusk shell, bone, fruits, and Table 9.16 shows that there is very little variation fragments of burnt dung. Each class of material was in sample composition that can be attributed to differ- bagged separately and materials other than charcoal ences between domestic and non-domestic contexts. were returned to Sheffield. Tamarisk is the dominant taxon in terms both of pres- Depending on their size, charcoal fragments ence in samples and numbers of fragments, followed were either hand- or pressure-fractured with a car- by chenopods. The remaining taxa appear more errati- bon-steel razor blade in order to produce clean sur- cally in the samples, which could suggest that tamarisk faces, when possible in all three anatomical planes and chenopods were collected more intensively by the (transverse, radial longitudinal, and tangential). Neolithic inhabitants of Jeitun than the other taxa rep- The surfaces were then examined under a high- resented. However, due to the accumulation of mineral power, epi-illuminating Olympus BHMJ microscope precipitates, charcoal preservation is poor, as is shown at magnifications of x50, x100, x200, and x500. by the very high proportion of fragments that are inde- Identifications were made by comparing the charcoal terminate (52%), which suggests that the Jeitun charcoal fragments with charred specimens and thin sec- assemblages have undergone substantial post-deposi- tions of fresh wood in the C. A. Western wood refer- tional reworking and deterioration. This may explain ence collection held at the Institute of Archaeology, both the low number of taxa identified and why very UCL, and with anatomical descriptions of wood in few samples contain relatively well preserved charcoal Fahn, Werker, and Baas (1986), Greguss (1959), and fragments, free of excessive accumulation of mineral Schweingruber (1990). Individual specimens were inclusions, such as the yard sample 34 which contains a photographed using the SEM (scanning electron large concentration of alder charcoal (Table 9.16). 168 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Table 9.16 Charcoal samples and botanical identifications from material excavated at Jeitun in 1990, 1993, and 1994. The numbers recorded in the rows for each taxon refer to charcoal fragments per sample.

Sample no. 8 16 17 18 19 24 28 33 34 38 40 41 Context 118 yard yard yard ext. hearth Year excavated 1990 1990 1990 1990 1990 1990 1990 1990 1990 1990 1990 1990 >4 (weight /g) 0.5 8.48 1.11 42.44 2.02 1.24 4.43 0.34 0.55 0.85 0.39 0.71 >2 (weight /g) 1.1 11.16 1.55 36.13 4.28 1.72 3.82 0.18 0.91 1.52 0.16 1.88 Total weight 1.6 19.64 2.66 78.57 6.3 2.96 8.25 0.52 1.46 2.37 0.55 2.59 Tamarix 19 36 18 54 10 13 10 3 6 4 5 3 cf. Tamarix 26 15 11 19 5 7 13 3 8 7 5 12 Salicaceae - 30 6 Populus Salicaceae - Salix 2 Alnus 69 cf. Alnus 1 2 2 cf. Phragmites 3 1 2 2 4 Chenopodiaceae 2 4 6 4 19 7 4 3 13 8 Indet. 49 41 45 23 44 58 39 18 72 24 13 73 Total 96 96 80 100 60 100 100 28 170 50 25 100

Sample no. 43 45 46 56 4 9 25 25 27 34 44 45 Context yard yard? yard? yard hearth oven fill threshold 175 178 195 195 235 Year excavated 1990 1990 1990 1990 1993 1993 1993 1994 1994 1994 1994 1994 >4 (weight /g) 0.31 0.75 0.12 8.52 2.85 5.08 5.01 3.73 0.28 0.32 0.24 >2 (weight /g) 0.38 0.72 0.43 0.82 2.9 2.14 5.16 1.05 0.52 2.071 0.56 0.45 Total weight 0.69 1.47 0.55 9.34 5.75 7.22 10.17 4.78 0.8 2.071 0.88 0.69 Tamarix 9 12 3 7 9 21 21 47 4 7 4 4 cf. Tamarix 20 7 18 7 5 25 16 26 5 1 20 16 Salicaceae - 1 Populus Salicaceae - Salix Alnus cf. Alnus cf. Phragmites 2 1 1 Chenopodiaceae 2 5 4 3 11 1 7 1 4 Indet. 30 31 44 41 52 51 52 26 24 27 30 29 Total 59 50 67 60 70 100 100 100 40 38 60 50

Interpretation existed along piedmont rivers in the vicinity of the site, such as the local channel of the Kara Su. The clear Local Vegetation and Firewood Collection in the predominance of tamarisk and the regular occurrence Early Neolithic of chenopods in the charcoal samples support this Despite the poor preservation of most of the inference. Both flourish on saline, sandy-loamy depres- charcoal, and the probable biases in the representation sions and tolerate all but extreme seasonal flooding. of taxa, it is reasonable to infer that tugai vegetation The presence of reeds and especially alder further j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 169

9.23 SEM micrographs of identified charcoal specimens from Jeitun; TS=Transverse Section, RLS=Radial Longitudinal Section. Up- per row, left, and center: Alnus TS, RLS, right: Tamarix TS. Middle row, left: Populus TS, center: Salix TS, right: cf. Phragmites TS. Lower row, left, center and right: Chenopodiaceae TS. (Photos by Eleni Asouti) suggests that more continuously inundated surfaces deterioration than denser woods such as tamarisk and such as marshes and swamps may have existed near the most of the chenopods, and are therefore less likely to site. The low frequencies of willow and poplar in the be preserved in identifiable form. samples could indicate that alluvial surfaces such as le- It is also reasonable to infer that the inhabitants vees were relatively rare in the vicinity, because neither of Jeitun collected most of their firewood in the near tree can withstand prolonged flooding, but structurally environs of the site. However, given the poor preserva- light woods, such as those of the Salicaceae (willows tion of most of the charcoal, it is not possible to reach and poplars), are more prone to post-depositional secure conclusions as to the intensity of firewood col- 170 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia lection, and the relative contributions of firewood and identified by the presence of fungal hyphae (see Fig. dung to fuel consumption (cf. Section 9.6). Riparian 10.1). Nevertheless, it remains possible that firewood vegetation would have been available and accessible collection was conditioned to some degree by the year-round in the vicinity of the settlement, although seasonal abundance of readily collectable, and there- its abundance may have varied with the frequency and fore less labor-demanding, fallen branchwood, as has intensity of flooding following seasonal increases in been inferred for the Neolithic sites of Çatalhöyük the discharge of piedmont streams, especially in the (Asouti 2005) and Pinarbaşı in central Anatolia, Tur- local channel of the Kara Su. key (Asouti 2003). Modern ecological observations An attempt was made to identify microscopic have recorded massive natural pruning of branches traces of fungal hyphae in the charcoal fragments and fruits of saksaul shrubs (Haloxylon spp.) in winter in order to evaluate whether deadwood may have when average daily temperatures fall below 5° C, and been an important source of fuel (for details of the in spring occasional late frosts can be sufficiently se- methodology used, see Asouti 2005). However, this vere to kill the one-year shoots of saksauls and other did not produce positive results, mainly because of woody plants (Orlovsky 1994:39, 41). It is thus possible the poor preservation of the charcoal fragments, that the Neolithic inhabitants of Jeitun took advantage although a specimen of Rhamnaceae charcoal from of such seasonal abundances of easily collected dead- the Dam Dam Cheshme 1 rockshelter in the Bolshoi wood, although this supposition cannot be supported Balkhan massif provides a rare example of deadwood, by the charcoal evidence currently available. j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 171

Section 9.8 Pollen and Charcoal-particle Analysis: Sampling Off-site Deposits at Jeitun David Harris

ne of the objectives of the preliminary investiga- trees intermixed with reeds grew in the swamp, and salt Otions carried out during our first visit to Jeitun encrustations lined the water’s edge. A 1-m2 trial pit was in 1989 was to determine whether pollen was suffi- dug 5 m from the southern edge of the swamp where ciently well preserved in sedimentary contexts near the soil surface was dry and lacked any efflorescence of the site to allow changes in vegetation to be studied salt. Water was encountered at depths of 25 cm on the by standard palynological techniques. We were also northwestern side and at 45 cm on the southeastern interested in the possibility of analyzing charcoal side of the pit. Samples for pollen and charcoal-particle particles preserved in the sediments as a means of analysis were taken at 5 cm intervals from the surface to investigating fire history (Harris 1992). The only -25 cm in the northwestern corner and from -30 cm to contexts that appeared to merit investigation were -45 cm in the southeastern corner of the pit. swampy depressions that exist among the dune sands in the vicinity of the site. Silty clays accumulate in the depressions as a result of intermittent flooding and, at Laboratory Methods and Results the time of our visit in April, some of them contained standing water that had been discharged via the chan- Pollen Analysis nel of the local river (the Kara Su) from the area of Approximately 2.0 g of sediment from each irrigated grapevine cultivation north of the site (see sample were subjected to standard acetolysis and Chapter 3). Small stands of tamarisk trees, reeds, hydrofluoric acid digestion. Samples were stained and sedges grow around and in the depressions. We with 1.0% aqueous safranine and examined with a expected that the alkaline and aerobic conditions of phase-contrast microscope of x400 magnification. the sediments, and the arid climate in which annual Where necessary, oil-immersion at x1000 magnifica- potential evapotranspiration greatly exceeds precipi- tion was used. Identifiable pollen was only present in tation, were unlikely to favor the preservation of pol- the sample taken at 1 cm below the surface. A pollen len. Nevertheless, we decided to dig a trial pit at the count of 150 grains was made on that sample and six margin of one of the depressions and take samples to taxa were identified (Table 9.17). determine whether pollen was preserved to any depth. The results of this investigation were, as expected, Charcoal-particle Analysis largely negative, but they are of some interest and The method adopted in this experiment was to are presented here. A colleague at the UCL Institute count the number of charcoal particles with a long of Archaeology, Patricia E.J. Wiltshire, subsequently axis of more than 5 microns for five traverses of each analyzed the samples in the Institute’s pollen labora- slide-mounted pollen sample at depths below the sur- tory, and the results of her analysis are incorporated face of 1, 10, 20, 30, and 40 cm. This was considered ac- in this Section. I am indebted to her for assisting our ceptable because the amount of sediment used in each investigation in this way. sample was approximately the same. Table 9.17 shows the average values of the five counts per sample. Sampling Discussion The depression chosen for the investigation was located approximately 5 km south-south-east of Jeitun Pollen and some 200 m east of the road from Ashgabat. In The fact that identifiable pollen was restricted to April 1989 its center was filled with standing water to the uppermost sample indicates that the alkaline and a depth of <1m (Fig. 3.6, color). Several small tamarisk aerobic conditions of the silty clay deposited in the 172 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Table 9.17 Proportions of pollen types at 1 cm with broken pollen grains and black spherules (which depth, and average counts of charcoal par- may be microbially derived metallic sulphides formed ticles at 1–40 cm depth, below the surface in anaerobic conditions). The presence of fungal re- of a partially flooded depression near Jeitun, mains, pollen fragments, and black spherules implies April 1989. a wetter, possibly anaerobic environment of standing water—conditions that are likely to have existed in the Pollen Taxon % Total Pollen vicinity of Jeitun during the mid-Holocene Climatic Chenopodiaceae 29.7 Optimum (this volume, pp. 25–26). Tamarix 24.2 Gramineae 21.9 Charcoal Artemisia 17.2 The experiment in charcoal-particle analysis Unidentified 3.9 was undertaken to investigate the feasibility of infer- Cyperaceae 1.6 ring fire history from variations in the amounts of charcoal observed in the sediment profile. Despite Convolvulus 1.6 its relative sparsity, the vegetation around Jeitun contains many highly combustible shrubby species, Depth (cm) Charcoal Count as well as herbs that burn readily when they have died –1.00 48 back due to drought. The frequency with which the –10.00 75 vegetation may have been burned (set alight either –20.00 69 by people or by lightning) and the extent to which –30.00 76 windblown charcoal particles may have derived from –40.00 56 wood fires in settlements is unknown, but if the fre- quency of fires could be inferred from variations in the abundance of charcoal in the sedimentary record, intermittently flooded depression were not conducive it would add significantly to our knowledge of vegeta- to the preservation of pollen grains. The pollen in tion change and, perhaps, of human exploitation of the uppermost sample was moderately well preserved, plant resources. although many of the Chenopodiaceae grains were Clearly the results of this analysis are inconclu- distorted, with exaggerated enlargement of the pores. sive, partly because the variation in the abundance of Many of the Gramineae grains were “ghosted” to vary- charcoal particles is too small to be significant and ing degrees, which indicates progressive oxidation of also shows no trend, and partly because the profile the pollen exine. None of the grains showed signs of could not be dated. We therefore could not determine microbial decomposition, which is to be expected in how many years of sediment accumulation were rep- dune sediments where the microbial flora is usually resented in its 40 cm depth. The analysis did however very sparse and generally confined to the rhizosphere. demonstrate that the vegetation had frequently been The low taxonomic diversity in the pollen sample burned. Indeed, it is likely that burning has more may be the result of oxidation having caused certain often been caused by human actions than by lightning palynomorphs to disappear rapidly, and the more strikes and it is possible that fire has been a component resistant grains may therefore be over-represented. of the local ecosystem since prehistoric times, as is sug- This may account for the low proportion of sedge pol- gested by the abundance of charcoal in off- as well as len (1.6%) which at first sight seems surprising in a on-site deposits at Jeitun (see Sections 9.2–9.7). swampy habitat rich in Cyperaceae, but sedge pollen has only a moderate-to-low amount of sporopopol- lenin in the exine and can therefore disappear readily Conclusion in an aerobic environment where sediments are only intermittently waterlogged. Although the trial pollen and charcoal analyses It may also be significant that in the sample at described here did not provide any direct, datable evi- 30 cm below the surface there were abundant fungal dence of vegetation change and fire history in the vi- remains derived from aquatic organisms or from cinity of Jeitun, their outcome was not wholly negative. vegetation falling into the swamp (or both), together Attempts at pollen analysis are unlikely to yield such j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 173 evidence close to the site, but there may be anaerobic There is also potential for further investigation of fire organic deposits containing fossil pollen elsewhere history by analyzing the abundance of charcoal par- in the piedmont zone, particularly in the less arid ticles, in conjunction with fossil pollen, if long, datable foothills and humid valleys of the Kopetdag. If op- cores can be obtained from appropriate sedimentary portunities arise for fieldwork in those environments environments. Such evidence of long-term changes in in the future, a search for potential pollen-analytical vegetation and episodes of burning could add greatly sites should be undertaken, even though any resulting to our understanding of the environmental context data would relate more to regional vegetation history of Jeitun-Culture sites and the beginnings of agro- than to vegetation change in the area of Jeitun itself. pastoralism in southern Turkmenistan. 174 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

he study of animal bones was an important part of the environmental-archaeological investigations at Jeitun Tfrom 1989 to 1994. In the early years of our collaboration with Russian and Turkmenian colleagues, Alexei Kasparov was responsible for retrieving, identifying, and interpreting the excavated animal bones. Tony Legge, who was a member of the British team in 1990, worked with Kasparov on site that year and they both contributed reports to the publication of the preliminary results of the Jeitun project edited by V. M. Masson (Kasparov 1992; Legge 1992). In 1993 and 1994, when further excavations were undertaken at Jeitun by the British team, Keith Dobney was responsible for the zooarchaeological work at Jeitun, and in Section 9.9 below he and his colleague Deborah Jaques report the results of their analyses of the bone assemblage recovered in those years.

Section 9.9 The Vertebrate probably occurred at Jeitun, where the bones are likely Assemblage from Excavations at to have been consumed by domestic dogs or other car- nivores, rather than by humans. The bones suffered Jeitun, 1993 and 1994 from a high degree of fragmentation. Most fragments were less than 25 mm in any dimension, and in many Keith Dobney and Deborah Jaques deposits more than 50% of the fragments recovered were burned. The brittle nature of the bones, and A small assemblage of animal bones, consisting their propensity to break easily, has contributed to of a total of 548 identified fragments, was recovered the high proportion of small fragments recorded for during the 1993 and 1994 excavations at Jeitun. The many of the deposits. bones were recovered from deposits both within and around the two house structures (A and B) at the site’s northwestern margin. House A, excavated in 1993, lay Methods above House B, which was excavated in 1994 and is the lowest architectural feature investigated (see Chapter All excavated sediment from each context was 8 for a description of the excavations of Houses A and dry-sieved through 3–4-mm-aperture mesh. In addi- B). Although bones were recovered from 70 contexts, tion, “whole earth” samples (i.e., ones from which no representing a range of types of deposit, including finds or other material had previously been removed) floors, hearths, and yard deposits adjacent to the two from each context were separated for wet-sieving, houses, the small size of the identified assemblage using a flotation machine. The size of these samples prevented any meaningful analysis of inter-contextual was usually limited to 50–60 l, although smaller sam- variation of the remains. ples were taken when they represented the entire de- Preservation of the bone was generally good, posit from a single feature. Ten liters of each sample and we scored material from most deposits as “good” was wet-sieved to 1 mm, and the remaining sediment or “fair.” Only two deposits (contexts 30 and 180) was then sieved to 3–4 mm. The heavy residues of produced poorly preserved bones. Bone from context both were left to air dry, and subsequently sorted for 30 was extremely fragile and “crumbly,” and material vertebrate remains (and other finds). from context 180 was very fragmented and damaged The entire assemblage that resulted from both by fresh breakage. Other deposits produced better dry- and wet-sieving was preliminarily sorted and preserved material, but many fragments were rather identified during the field season of 1994 using a battered in appearance. Several gazelle phalanges, small portable comparative bone collection. All the from contexts 123 and 126, showed damage charac- material was then returned to laboratories in Brit- teristically associated with acid etching. Such chemical ain where further, more detailed identification and degradation could be the result of the sediments from analysis was undertaken. Vertebrate data were re- which the bones were recovered being acidic, but this corded electronically directly into a series of tables seems unlikely as other bones from the same deposits using a purpose-built data-input system and Paradox were unaffected. Acid etching can also occur when software. Semi-subjective, non-quantitative data were bones are consumed and pass through the gut. This recorded for the material from each context regard- j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 175 ing the state of preservation, color, and the appear- of the assemblage. Unidentifiable fragments were also ance of broken surfaces (“angularity”). Additionally, not systematically recorded. semi-quantitative information was recorded for each context concerning fragment size and evidence of dog gnawing, burning, butchery, and fresh breakage. Results and Discussion Identification of the ungulate remains was mostly undertaken using the comparative collections of the Previous studies of animal bones recovered Environmental Archaeology Unit, University of York, during the earlier Russian excavations at Jeitun by UK, and the Department of Archaeology, University Shevchenko (1960), Kasparov (1992), and Legge of Durham, UK, and the carnivore, insectivore, and (1992) highlighted the potential of zooarchaeology rodent remains were compared with the extensive to contribute to our understanding of the origins and skeletal collection housed at the Harrison Institute development of early agriculture and pastoralism in (Harrison Zoological Museum), Sevenoaks, Kent, UK. the southern zone of western Central Asia, and Harris Detailed recording of the assemblage followed the et al. (1993:334) highlighted several specific questions protocol outlined by Dobney (2007). Skeletal elements that the animal remains from this and other related were recorded using the diagnostic-zones method sites are potentially capable of answering. These, they described by Dobney and Rielly (1988). suggest, largely parallel the research questions asked Caprine (sheep/goat) tooth-wear stages and age of the macro plant remains (Section 9.6). However, categories were assigned following those outlined by because the small size of the present assemblage Payne (1973, 1987). Mammal bones were described as largely precludes the use of most standard statistical “juvenile” if the epiphyses were unfused and the as- techniques of zooarchaeological analysis, many of sociated shaft fragment appeared spongy and porous. these questions cannot be addressed in detail using They were recorded as “neonatal” if they were also of these data. As a result, much care must be taken when small size. Measurements (unless otherwise specified) attempting to draw any conclusions from such a lim- followed von den Driesch (1976). Additional measure- ited dataset, but some interesting observations can ments, not detailed by von den Driesch, followed those nevertheless be made about the vertebrate assemblage described by Dobney (2007). recovered. The results of the analyses discussed in Although similarities between the bones of this report are presented in Tables 9.18 and 9.19 and sheep and goat often make it difficult to distinguish in the accompanying Appendices 9.7–9.10. Table 9.18 between them, certain elements can readily be dif- shows the range of taxa and numbers of identifiable ferentiated and recorded to species level with the fragments retrieved by means of dry- and wet-sieving. aid of good comparative specimens and using the Both wild and domestic animals are represented, all criteria outlined by Boessneck (1969). For the Jeitun of which correspond well with the species previously assemblage, sheep/goat differentiation was typically recovered and reported from the site. attempted for horncore, distal humerus, distal radius, metacarpal, distal tibia, calcaneum, astragalus, meta- Domestic Animals tarsal, and all phalanges. Because remains of both It is clear from Table 9.18 that sheep and goat are sheep and goat were represented in the assemblage, the principal, or only, domestic animals represented the fragments identified as sheep/goat cannot be as- in the bone assemblage from the 1993 and 1994 exca- sumed to be either one or the other on the balance vations, with domestic dog also possibly present. The of probability. caprines are identified as domestic (rather than their The simple counting of all recorded identifi- wild counterparts, Ovis vignei and Capra aegagrus) on able fragments (number of individual skeletal parts the basis of their small size, and because one of the two or NISP) is the only quantitative method used in the fragments of goat horncore found showed the char- analysis of this assemblage. At best, quantification acteristic corkscrew shape that is regarded as a mani- using simple variations in numbers of fragments festation of domestication. Kasparov, who studied the provides data of limited value with regard to absolute animal bones recovered at Jeitun in 1989 and 1990, numbers of individuals present in the assemblage. identified most of the caprine bones as from domestic Estimation of the minimum number of individuals sheep and goats, but he also identified a few, mainly on (MNI) was not undertaken because of the small size the basis of their large size and heaviness, as from wild 176 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Table 9.18 Jeitun: list of animal taxa and the numbers of identifiable fragments O. vignei and C. aegagrus (Kasparov from dry- and wet-sieving (D/S, W/S) procedures; D/S>3 mm=fragments 1992:51, 61–64). In an earlier study recovered from dry sieving through 3–4 mm-aperture mesh; W/S>3 of animal bones from Masson’s mm=fragments recovered from the 3–4 mm-mesh residues from wet excavations at Jeitun in 1957 and sieving; W/S<3 mm=fragments recovered from 1 mm-mesh residues from 1958, Shevchenko was unable to wet sieving. distinguish between the remains of wild and domestic sheep and Taxa D/S>3mm W/S>3mm W/S<3mm goats because the bones were too fragmentary and she stated that Hemiechinus auritus long-eared 11 2 1 Gmel. hedgehog there was no direct evidence of the presence in the material of Rodent 8 46 4 domesticates (1960:475). Whether cf. Spermophilopsis lep- ?long-clawed 12 21 O. vignei and/or C. aegagrus are todactylus ground squirrel definitely represented in the Jeitun Small mammal 3 10 11 assemblages remains uncertain, Lepus tolai Pall. tolai hare 12 9 – but Kasparov argues cogently for the presence of a small number cf. Lepus sp. ?hare 6 7 – of bones of wild adult caprines Large Canidae dog family 1 – – among the more numerous re- cf. Canidae ?canid – 1 – mains of domestic sheep and goats (which include juveniles), so it is Vulpes cf. corsac corsac fox 12 2 – possible that the absence from the Felis cf. silvestris/manul wildcat/manul 7 1 – 1993/94 assemblage of bones at- cf. Felis sp. ?cat – 2 – tributable to the wild species may be the result of the small sample cf. Suidae ?pig 1 – – size and/or of the limited range of Caprine sheep/goat 95 1 – types of context. sheep/goat/ Changes in the relative pro- Caprine/gazelle 53 47 1 gazelle portions of domestic sheep to do- Capra f. domestic goat 7 –– mestic goats can provide valuable insights into the economic priori- cf. Capra f. domestic ?goat 7 – – ties of ancient and modern pasto- Ovis f. domestic sheep 3 2 – ralist communities. For example, cf. Ovis f. domestic ?sheep 1 – – a general emphasis on sheep and Gazella cf. subgutturosa goats can indicate a focus on sec- gazelle 9 1 – Guld. ondary products such as wool or hair. Higher proportions of sheep cf. Gazella sp. ?gazelle 5 1 – over goats may occur where herd- bird 2 – ing decisions are motivated by amphibian 1 – – interest in meat and wool produc- cf. amphibian ?amphibian 1 – tion (Redding 1981). Alternatively, an increase in the importance of Agrionemys horsfieldii steppe tortoise 100 9 – goats (and possible changes in de- cf. Agrionemys horsfieldii ?tortoise 2 – – mographic make-up of the sample) Lizard sp. ?Dhub Lizard 4 1 – may indicate a rise in the impor- tance of milk production. snake – 1 – Masson (1971:86, cited in Fish fish – 4 – Kohl [1984:53]) suggested that Total 360 171 17 domestic goats were the dominant species at Jeitun. High proportions j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 177 of juveniles, reported by Kasparov (1992), suggest that 1993/94 assemblage (a metatarsal and the root of a animals were killed very young in the spring, which tooth) and more specific differentiation between wolf may reflect an emphasis on milk production, although (Canis lupus), jackal (Canis aureus), and domestic dog a high infant mortality rate could explain the presence was not feasible. of these immature individuals. However, detailed analysis of a larger assemblage of caprine mandibles Wild Animals from the excavations at Jeitun in 1989–90 led Legge A range of both small and medium-size wild (1992) to suggest that there was no clear seasonal mammals is represented in the assemblage. They pattern to caprine culling, that goats and sheep were include wild boar (not conclusively identified in this exploited for meat as well as milk, and that the site was assemblage but reported from Jeitun by Shevchenko occupied year-round. 1960:470–73 and Kasparov 1992:51, 57), gazelle, wild Although the small size of the assemblage from cat, fox, hare, hedgehog, and ground squirrel, as well Jeitun precludes more detailed analysis and inter- as numerous fragments (mainly of carapace) of tor- pretation of caprine exploitation strategies, several toise and several bones from a large lizard and from conclusions can be drawn. First, domestic goats and an unidentifiable bird (Table 9.18). All these animals sheep were an important resource for the inhabitants have been reported from the site previously, and they of Jeitun throughout the occupation of the site. Sec- can still be found in southern Turkmenistan today ond, the preponderance of goats over sheep noted in (this volume, pp. 13–18). Although the Karakum previous studies is corroborated by the few definitive desert may not appear to be a likely habitat for wild identifications made on the 1993/94 assemblage (i.e., boar, it is probable that in the Neolithic period dense 14 goat : 4 sheep bone fragments). Third, limited age- tugai thickets consisting mainly of tamarisk, willow, at-death data (based on dental-wear stages from only poplar, and reeds were established along both the per- 9 isolated teeth and 2 mandibles with teeth) indicate manent and the larger seasonal watercourses of the that the great majority of animals were adult (Appen- piedmont zone and the desert margin (this volume, dix 9.8). Juvenile animals are represented by a single p. 9), and they would have provided ideal habitats for broken deciduous fourth premolar (dp4) and a man- wild boar. In Turkmenistan gazelles survive now only dible (dp4 at Payne wear-stage 18S and M1 at stage 8a). in the Badghyz Natural Reserve, but they formerly However, an examination of the state of fusion and migrated seasonally across the piedmont between the development of long bones shows a higher number of Kopetdag and the Karakum. It has been suggested very young and juvenile individuals than is apparently that herds may have been intercepted from Jeitun represented by the dental remains (Appendix 9.8). during their migrations to and from the desert, where No other definitely domestic animals are rep- winter grazing was available, to the higher piedmont resented in the 1993/94 assemblage. There are no and the mountains for summer grazing (Harris et al. bones of cattle or equids, nor were any found previ- 1993:334; this volume, p. 14). All the other wild ani- ously at Jeitun except perhaps onager (tentatively mals would have occupied habitats in the vicinity of identified by Shevchenko 1960:465). The possible the site and would have been relatively easily caught. femur fragment of pig (Table 9.18) is probably from a Some were used as a food resource and others for wild boar (see below). Domestic dog (Canis familiaris) their pelts and furs (as well perhaps as being eaten), was reported as present in the 1958 bone assemblage and containers were made from tortoise carapaces from Jeitun by Shevchenko (1960:466, 473–75) and (shells), an incomplete example of which we found from the 1989/90 assemblage by Kasparov (1992:51, in 1994 (Fig. 8.12, color). Small holes (not visible in 71–73). Kasparov distinguished the canid bones from Fig. 8.12) had been drilled through the carapace to those of fox, jackal, and wolf, and described evidence tie the separate parts together with, presumably, cord of ungulate bones that had been gnawed by dogs, as or sinew. The bones of some species were also used well as dog excrement, found within the settlement. in craft production (see below), and pelts and furs, Also, during excavation at Jeitun in 1991 canid bones particularly those from carnivores, would have been (which we have not had the opportunity to study) valued by the inhabitants of Jeitun, especially in the were found in a niche in a house wall—a context that cold winter months. suggests deliberate burial of a presumably domestic Not all the species found at Jeitun necessar- dog. Only two canid fragments were identified in the ily represent direct evidence of human exploitation 178 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Table 9.19 Jeitun: skeletal elements showing evidence of bone working.

Site Code Context Species Element Count Notes JT93 32 ?cat metatarsal 1 Large proximal articulation and small bit of shaft. Worked, cut through shaft JT93 38 ?cat metatarsal 1 Worked, distal articulation only JT94 179 canid tibia 1 Worked, ?rest of shaft sawn off JT94 181 hare femur 1 Distal articulation scorched, chop marks around shaft just above articulation JT94 152 ?cat humerus 1 Felid humerus (larger than domestic cat), shaft chopped off JT94 231 hare metatarsal 1 Proximal articulation, shaft chopped through and/or consumption. For example, the remains of body at some point during preparation or consump- the long-clawed ground squirrel, which is today a tion has led to the differential disposal of the heads common burrowing desert dweller in the region, and the meat-bearing parts. appear to be of more recent origin. The bones used Zooarchaeological evidence indicates that to identify this species are mostly mandibles contain- hedgehogs were eaten in western Eurasia during ing teeth and they are in very good condition. Few, if the early Holocene. Many so-called broad-spectrum any, appear to be of archaeological origin and they sites of Epipalaeolithic and early Neolithic date from should not, therefore, be interpreted as evidence of Southwest Asia have provided direct evidence for the Neolithic exploitation of these animals. None of the consumption of hedgehogs. In several of these cases, numerous fragments of ground squirrel bones showed the bones of hedgehogs (together with those of hares, any evidence of human modification in the form of foxes, and cats) are burnt (see e.g., Dobney, Beech, butchery or skinning marks or of burning as a result and Jaques 1999). At Jeitun, however, none of the of cooking. hedgehog jaws showed evidence of either butchery The bones of the long-eared hedgehog (Hemiechi- or burning. Although the absence on the bones of nus auritus) showed a broader range of preservation butchery marks or signs of burning might suggest that than those of ground squirrel, and were principally the animals were not eaten, it is hardly incontrovert- represented by cranial elements (jaws with teeth). ible proof that they were not, so the exploitation of There is no obvious natural taphonomic explanation hedgehogs for food cannot be ruled out. A possible as to why there should be such a bias in the represen- alternative explanation could be that the hedgehog tation of skeletal elements of this species. Hedgehog was associated with ritual practices, or had some bones are very distinctive and easy to identify. They other particular cultural significance. For example, are relatively robust and so should be no more sus- jaws of the European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) ceptible to physical or chemical factors associated have been found in Neolithic pitted-ware graves at with poor preservation than other mammal species. the sites of Ire, Visby, and Ajvide on the island of Got- The skeletal representation at Jeitun of another spe- land in Sweden, to which the animals were certainly cies of similar size—the tolai hare—includes a range introduced from the mainland. At these sites the jaws of both cranial and post-cranial elements (Appendix have been interpreted as parts of necklaces or amu- 9.7c), suggesting that there may be another reason for lets that may have fulfilled a “super-natural function” the bias toward jaws noted for hedgehogs. It is most (Lindqvist and Possnert 1997:69). unlikely that the hedgehog bones are from intrusive individuals that died in situ in burrows. If this were Evidence of Bone Working the case, we would expect to find whole skeletons or The bones of several species of mammal re- at least some post-cranial bones, in addition to cranial covered from Jeitun do, however, show clear signs of fragments. The bias toward jaws probably reflects a deliberate human modification, which can be specifi- taphonomic process that involved the human inhabit- cally associated with bone working. Table 9.19 shows ants. The hedgehogs may have been cooked and eaten, the species and elements that exhibit characteristic and the separation of the head from the rest of the damage to the long-bone shaft as a result of it having j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 179 been carefully sectioned into short hollow cylinders suppliers of meat, milk, skins, hair, and wool. Hunted of bone. All are obviously waste fragments from bone animals that added protein and other nutrients to the working, which appears to have focused on the pro- diet included gazelles, probably wild boar, and other duction of cylinders of bone from which small bone relatively abundant local prey such as foxes, hares, and beads were probably made. Beads are among the bone tortoises. Hedgehogs were also probably exploited, but artifacts found at Jeitun by Masson and his colleagues whether as a source of food and/or in ritual or other in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as numerous awls, cultural practices cannot be determined. needles, and sickle handles (Masson 1971:174, 191–93, Despite extensive sieving, almost no bird or fish 199; Masson and Sarianidi 1972:41–42). bones were recovered, suggesting that these resources The cylinders of bone appear to have been played little or no part in subsistence at the settlement. produced in a variety of sizes, exclusively from the The absence of birds is somewhat surprising, in view of straight, cylindrical long-bone shafts of animals that the variety of edible species that must have been pres- were also no doubt exploited for their pelts and furs: ent in nearby desert and piedmont habitats. However, fox, cat, and hare. Whatever technique was used, it ap- fish may not have been so abundant and accessible in pears to have resulted in the production of a circular the local seasonal and ephemeral watercourses that groove around the circumference of the shaft, possibly traversed the piedmont and dissipated in the desert. made by repeated pulling backward and forward of an Whether the principal local river, the Kara Su, would abrasive cord placed at right angles to the long axis of have supported a substantial fish population is un- the shaft (Fig. 9.24a–c, color). When the groove was certain. Its character and flow during the Neolithic deep enough (but before it had actually penetrated period is difficult to assess, but Dolukhanov (1981:366, the hollow marrow-cavity of the shaft), the section of 375) has argued that groundwater played a major role shaft then appears to have been broken or snapped in feeding the rivers that crossed the piedmont, and free. This is evident from the presence on all worked that, although spring floods were probably more pro- fragments of a ridge of cortical bone on the inside of nounced then, the discharge of the Kara Su and other the shaft. This craft activity was well developed at the piedmont rivers would have been relatively stable—an site, and evidence of it in this bone assemblage comes inference that makes the apparent absence of fish re- from the area of Houses A and B excavated during the mains at Jeitun the more surprising. 1993 and 1994 seasons. The bone assemblage also provided evidence of specialized bone working which was apparently con- cerned with the production of small bone beads; a con- Conclusions clusion that is in accordance with finds of such beads during the earlier Russian excavation at Jeitun. The 1993/94 animal-bone assemblage from Jeitun, although not large in terms of numbers of identifiable fragments, was recovered from two houses acknowledgments and adjacent yard deposits at the deepest levels so far Many thanks are due to Cluny Johnstone for her excavated at the site. A program of systematic siev- initial work in sorting and provisionally classifying the ing ensured the recovery of a wide range of species, vertebrate assemblage; also to David Harrison of the which has thrown further light on some aspects of Harrison Institute (Harrison Zoological Museum), the subsistence economy of the Neolithic farmers and Sevenoaks, Kent, UK, who kindly allowed access to their hunters of Jeitun. The limited dataset confirms earlier extensive comparative collection and for help with the conclusions drawn from the Russian-Turkmen exca- identification of some of the remains of cat, hedgehog, vations that caprine husbandry (with a bias toward and ground squirrel. Keith Dobney’s contribution to goats) was the basis of stock-keeping, and that goats this report was supported by a Wellcome Trust Research and sheep probably fulfilled a multipurpose role as Fellowship (grant reference 060888). 180 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

he stone tools recovered at Jeitun during Masson’s excavations were extensively described and analyzed, prin- Tcipally by G. F. Korobkova, and when the British team began work at the site in 1989 our Russian colleagues continued to be responsible for studying the lithics. By 1994 such on-site collaboration was no longer feasible, and investigation of the plant and animal remains continued to be our primary concern on site. Nevertheless, we recovered a small assemblage of stone artifacts during the 1994 season which James Conolly, who has studied knapped-stone tools from early agricultural Neolithic sites in Southwest Asia, including Çatalhöyük, describes below in Section 9.10.

Section 9.10 The 1994 Knapped- Asia, and their relationship to indigenous Mesolithic Stone Assemblage from Jeitun populations (for further discussion of this question, see this volume, p. 233). James Conolly There is no reason to question the original classificatory scheme for the technological and typo- Given the existence of the large assemblage logical characteristics of the Jeitun lithic assemblage of knapped stone from Masson’s (1957, 1971) ear- as developed by Masson, Korobkova, and their col- lier excavations at Jeitun, it is appropriate first to leagues. In contrast to their comprehensive studies summarize present understanding of the stone ar- tifacts before describing the assemblage excavated in 1994. Technologically Jeitun’s lithic assemblage is dominated by fine and regular blades extracted from single platform cores (Fig. 9.25a). Techniques of core reduction are difficult to ascertain, but in view of the regularity of the removal scars it seems most A likely that a punch was used (see Technology below). This inference is supported by the observation that blades rather than flakes appear to have been the modal blank used for tool manufacture. Knapped- stone tools from Jeitun have been classified into four main types: sickle blades, drills and piercers, B scrapers, and microliths (Fig. 9.25b–e). Sickles and other blade tools are well attested and well docu- mented in all early agricultural settlements across Southwest Asia including the Zagros region, and in the most general terms the Jeitun assemblage is not atypical of what one would expect for an early Neo- C lithic settlement. It is worth noting, however, that in Southwest Asia microliths are typically only a minor component of later Pleistocene lithic assemblages

and are absent in most assemblages from the late D 9th/early 8th millennium BCE onward. There are exceptions to this generalization: for example, recent excavations in central Anatolia at the rockshelter of E Pınarbaşı revealed a microlithic assemblage dating to 0 5 cm 8500–8000 cal. BCE (Baird 2005, 2006), but the fact that microliths occur at Jeitun (and at other Jeitun- 9.25 Representative stone artifacts from Jeitun: (A) blade Culture sites) is an interesting phenomenon that cores; (B) sickle blades; (C) drills and piercers; (D) scrap- may have implications for our understanding of the ers; E: geometric microliths (compiled from Tables 11, 12, earliest food-producing societies in western Central 16, 17, 18 in Masson 1971). j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 181

Table 9.20 Color variability of the (chert) raw material in substantial differences in color of the raw material the 1994 stone-tool assemblage from Jeitun (hue and which suggest that more than one source may have chroma in Munsell notation). been exploited. The colors vary from very dark brown through reddish and yellowish browns to pale red, Color N= gray, and white. Some pieces are very lustrous, others dull, and some appear to have been thermally altered. light yellowish brown (10YR 6/36) 43 Eight fairly distinct color classes of chert can be distin- medium yellowish brown (10YR 5/4) 22 guished (Table 9.20), with the yellowish-brown cherts dark yellowish brown (10YR 4/34) 11 the most prevalent. Only a small proportion of the as- semblage retains any cortical surfaces (n=9, 7.8%), and very dark brown (7.5YR 2.5/2) 4 these occur exclusively on the yellowish-brown cherts. gray (7YR 6/1) 16 While this may be a result of their greater number, reddish brown (5YR 4/4) 11 it is tempting to interpret this as indicating that the source of the yellowish-brown cherts was more easily pale red (10R 6/4) 4 accessible, and that consequently blocks of raw mate- white (10YR 8/1) 3 rial had undergone relatively less preparation prior to being brought to the settlement. Total 115

Technology (Korobkova 1960; 1996:87–98; Korobkova, Lollekova, and Sharovskaya 1992), the assemblage available for Over half the assemblage is composed of com- analysis from the 1994 excavations is very small (115 plete blades and blade fragments (56.5%), and the pieces) and derives from only one part of the site: remainder consists of complete flakes and flake frag- House B (the lowest structure excavated) and adjacent ments (19.1%), chips (23.5%), and shatter (0.9%) (Table yard areas (this volume, pp. 104 –6). It is therefore most 9.21). No cores or core-maintenance pieces were found, unlikely to represent the full range of knapped-stone indicating that blades were probably not produced in artifacts from Jeitun, and difficulties consequently the areas from which the sample derives (House B and arise if one attempts to extrapolate wider behavioral the adjacent yard areas), although the numerous small practices from such a small assemblage. Here, I am flakes and chips suggest that some manufacturing ac- only able to add a few further observations to the tivities may have taken place in the yard areas. more complete accounts provided by earlier studies of the stone tools. However, despite these limitations the assemblage does provide evidence of quite a wide Table 9.21 Lithic categories. range of modes of technological behavior, and does suggest the kinds of uses to which knapped stone was Lithic Category N= % put at Jeitun. The fact that this sample was recovered from the deepest deposits excavated at the site is also Complete blades 6 5.2 of interest. Proximal blade fragments 24 20.9

Medial blade fragments 26 22.6

Characteristics of the Assemblage and Raw Distal blade fragments 9 7.8 Material Availability Complete flakes 7 6.1

The sample from the 1994 excavations consists flake fragments 15 13.0 of 115 knapped-stone artifacts of very fine-grained Chips 27 23.5 cryptocrystalline quartz (Appendix 9.11). Although the source of the raw material is not known, and the Shatter 1 0.9 precise geological nomenclature is uncertain, for Total 115 100.0 convenience it is referred to here as chert. There are 182 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

5 30

25 4

20

15 n= n=

2 10

1 5

0 0 0 2 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 length (mm) width (mm)

9.27 Histogram of blade widths. 9.28 Histogram of flake lengths.

Blades Asian Neolithic settlements to find that house con- The Jeitun blades are extremely well made (Fig. texts are largely clean of lithic waste, whereas midden 9.26a, color). Fine flaking on their proximal ends deposits outside houses are usually rich in knapping shows that core edges were well prepared, with all the debris (Conolly 1999:78–79). The smaller chips and overhang left from previous blades removed. Striking flakes in this sample are of a size that could easily have platforms are either punctiform or linear and are been trampled into floors, but two observations suggest extremely small, and the removal angles are approxi- that this seldom happened at Jeitun: first, house floors, mately 90 degrees. The blade bodies are very thin and including that of House B, were surfaced with gypsum mostly trapezoidal in cross-section, with straight, even and lime plaster and appear to have been kept clean, lateral edges. Although there are both larger (widths and second, the fact that most of the lithic material >14 mm) and smaller blades (widths <8 mm) in the as- from the 1994 excavations came from yard deposits semblage, and some of the latter (such as the lefthand and almost none from the interior of House B. Further- one in Fig. 9.26a, color) might perhaps be better de- more, the fact that the larger lithic samples recovered scribed as micro-blades, width measurements are close from the early excavations at Jeitun produced numer- to normally distributed: mode=10 mm, mean=11.2 ous cores from across the settlement attests to relatively mm, standard deviation=2.1 mm (Fig. 9.27). dispersed core-reduction activities. In this respect, The fact that some of the smallest blades are Jeitun is similar to large Neolithic villages in Southwest made of the same raw material as the larger blades Asia such as Çatalhöyük (Conolly 1999), Abu Hureyra (light and dark-brown chert) suggests that the ob- (Nishiaki 2000), Jericho (Crowfoot Payne 1983), and served variation in blade sizes is a product of a single Jarmo (Braidwood 1983) in which lithic reduction production process rather than separate micro- and occurred within the settlement and was probably orga- macro-blade technologies. nized in and around individual household areas. Given the regularity and fine quality of the blades, it is probable that they were produced by using Flakes a punch technique on single-platform prismatic cores. The number of flakes in the sample is low, sug- However, as noted above, the debris associated with gesting that flake core-reduction and tool production blade-making—crested blades, expended cores, reju- and maintenance was not a major activity in the vicin- venation tablets, and other core-maintenance waste— ity of House B and/or that the material was removed is missing in this assemblage. As already mentioned, a and discarded elsewhere. The flakes consist mainly small percentage of blades do retain a small amount of of yellowish-brown chert, with only one pale red and cortex (Fig. 9.26b, color). Although there is insufficient one reddish-brown specimen. This lends support to cortex to allow the shape of the original block of raw the interpretation that the latter categories are rela- material to be reconstructed, it nevertheless suggests tively rare compared to the yellowish-brown cherts, that cores were imported into the settlement early in with waste from working pale red and reddish-brown the reduction process. It is not unusual in Southwest chert being correspondingly infrequent. The size j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 183

Table 9.22 Mean dimensions of tool types in mm. is missing from the sample. Three of the objects that exhibit retouch are flakes, and the remainder are all Blank N= Mean Mean Mean blades (Table 9.22). length width thickness The retouched flakes are relatively small (two are c. 10 mm and one is 23 mm in maximum dimen- Complete blades 3 63.3 12.8 3.4 sion). There are many larger flakes without retouch Proximal blade fragments 17 36.2 11.2 2.9 in the sample, suggesting that large flakes were not preferentially selected for use, and it is therefore likely Medial blade fragments 14 22.2 10.6 3.0 that expediency rather than the size of the blank Distal blade fragments 3 19.6 11.7 2.4 determined whether or not a flake was used. The 37 retouched blades vary in width from 8.5 mm to 15.7 Flakes 3 12.7 12.2 3.6 mm (mean=11.2 mm). With the exception of two small bladelets under 7 mm wide that do not show evidence of retouch, blade width does not seem to be a major distribution of flake lengths (Fig. 9.28) is much more influence on the selection of blades for use. dispersed than that of the blade sample. Most of the smaller (<1 cm) flakes could be by- Sickles and Other Blade Cutting Tools products of other activities (core- reduction and/or Tools have been divided into categories that tool manufacture), but the source of the larger flakes parallel those described in previous analyses. Blades (>1 cm) is more difficult to ascertain. However, the with continuous use and/or retouch along one or low proportion of retouch (n=3, 13.6%, two of which both lateral edges are the major tool type, of which are on sub-1 mm blanks) suggests that flakes, small there are 33 examples (Fig. 9.26c, color). Nine of or large, are most likely to be by-products rather than these retouched blades have glossed edges (with a intentional products in their own right. further unretouched blade also having gloss), which is almost certainly a result of having been used to Other Knapping Debitage cut plant stems. They can confidently be described In addition to the blades and flakes, there are as sickle blades. The retouch characteristics of the 27 small chips (pieces, mostly <5 mm in length, the unglossed examples are very similar to those with ventral and dorsal surfaces of which could not be dif- gloss and are likely to have served a similar function, ferentiated) and a single small piece of blocky shatter. but for some reason—perhaps related to duration of These fragments consist mainly of gray, brown, and use (cf. Grace 1989)—they lack this direct evidence reddish-brown chert, although there are at least a few of plant use. Edge wear on a non-glossed specimen chips from all chert types in the sample. The chips are examined under high magnification in an SEM (scan- best interpreted as the by-products of manufacturing ning electron microscope) appears to be the product activity, although whether from core reduction or of single-motion cutting that is consistent with sickle tool manufacture and maintenance cannot be deter- use (Fig. 9.29). mined. The single piece of shatter probably resulted Several of the blades have a retouched diagonal from core reduction. distal truncation (see Fig. 9.26c, color) that presumably was created to facilitate hafting rather than to create an additional working edge. The micrographic images Tools in Figure 9.29 confirm this, because wear marks are limited to the acute angle of the lateral and distal mar- Selection of Tool Blanks gins and appear only to be related to use of the lateral There are 40 pieces (34.8%) in the sample that edge. Four other blades have similar distal diagonal exhibit macroscopic evidence of use and/or inten- retouch, although they are otherwise unretouched. tional retouch. This is an unusually high proportion of Other blades show localized retouch that produced retouch and is a direct result of the relative paucity of a type of waisted blade (Fig. 9.26d, left, color). These debris in the sample. This emphasizes the fairly selec- artifacts were probably used intensively as blade knives. tive character of the assemblage in favor of tools and Two other blades have a distinctive bilateral convexity tool blanks, and also the fact that production debris on their proximal end that is not apparent on the other 184 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

9.29 SEM micrograph of edge wear on a retouched blade with no visible gloss; the wear appears to have been produced by a cutting motion that is consistent with use of the blade in a sickle. (Photo by James Conolly)

retouched blades (Fig. 9.26d, right, color). This prob- 1. Examination of the 1994 assemblage does not ably relates to methods of hafting that differed from contradict anything that has previously been reported those used for the sickles and waisted blades. for Jeitun, and has reaffirmed that single-platform blade manufacture for the production of sickle blades Blade Drill was the modal activity. There is only one example of a tanged object 2. There is very little evidence of knapping activ- (Fig. 9.26e, color), similar to those depicted in Figure ity (debitage) in the sample. Study of lithic-assemblage 9.25c, which have previously been interpreted as drills formation processes at Çatalhöyük has provided clear or piercers. evidence of active removal of lithic waste from inside houses to external midden deposits. The lack of deb- Other Retouched Pieces itage in this sample, together with the evidence that There is one flake that has dorsal retouch of a house floors were plastered and kept clean, and the sort consistent with it having been used, or intended to observation from previous work that cores are widely be used, as a scraping edge. The other two retouched distributed across the settlement, suggests that at Jei- flakes are broken and cannot be classified into any tun lithic-production debris may likewise have been particular tool group. removed from houses to external yard areas. 3. Sickle blades are highly regular, which im- plies a standardized approach to core reduction. The Discussion diagonally retouched distal termination noted on a few pieces appears to be related to the methods of With such a small sample it is possible to make hafting blades in a sickle. only very general comments on the production and 4. Other retouched blades have different sorts use of stone tools at Jeitun, and how they compare of wear patterns, which suggests that they were not to lithic technologies elsewhere in Neolithic Central used as sickle elements, but for other more general- Asia. Four general observations can be made: ized cutting tasks. j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 185

In conclusion, it can be said that the assemblage paratively rare in the PPNB, and they are absent by fits well with what is currently known about the pro- the time ceramic technology becomes established in duction and use of stone tools at Jeitun. It also accords the Pottery Neolithic period. On the basis of the Jeitun well with the main characteristics of the lithics of the and Dam Dam Cheshme assemblages, this does not Jeitun Culture as a whole, namely a preponderance appear to be the case in western Central Asia. Thus, of single-platform blade cores used for sickle-blade although it has been suggested that demic diffusion manufacture, together with the typical Neolithic is likely to have been the main process responsible for array of small scrapers, drills, and ad hoc flake tools. the establishment of a “developed” Neolithic culture As noted at the beginning of this Section, the most in the piedmont zone of southern Turkmenistan (Har- striking aspect of the assemblage is the presence of ris and Gosden 1996:383), it may be that microlithics at microliths at ceramic Jeitun. Although absent in the Jeitun represent the retention of an earlier indigenous 1994 assemblage, they are well documented from the Mesolithic hunting technology, maintained together previous excavations and also occur in pottery-bear- with the new larger blades needed for sickle produc- ing levels at the Dam Dam Cheshme rockshelters (this tion. This interpretation implies some admixture of volume, pp. 203–5). Geometric microliths are typical hunting-gathering and farming in western Central components of later Pleistocene and early Holocene Asia at c. 6000 cal. BCE (as does the animal bone hunter-gatherer sites throughout Eurasia, although evidence from Jeitun, Section 9.9). More evidence they were generally replaced by larger blade and flake is needed to substantiate this interpretation, which technologies during the early (preceramic) Neolithic. further analysis of the Jeitun knapped stone, and its In Southwest Asia microliths feature in PPNA (Pre- comparison with early Mesolithic assemblages in the Pottery Neolithic A) assemblages, but become com- region, might illuminate. 186 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

tudy of the pottery from Jeitun was an integral part of the investigations carried out by Masson and his col- Sleagues, and further study of it was not an objective of the British team when they began working at the site. However, as part of her doctoral research Jennifer Coolidge subsequently re-examined the pottery and published a comprehensive study of the ceramic assemblages of the Neolithic sites of southern Turkmenistan (2005). In Sec- tion 9.11 she summarizes aspects of the Jeitun pottery that are relevant to the theme of this volume and presents some new data from her own investigations.

Section 9.11 The Pottery from Jeitun for storage and the decorated ones mainly for other domestic purposes, and he argued (1971:38–39)— Jennifer Coolidge from the absence of soot blackening on the outside of pots and the abundance of fire-cracked stones in and around hearths—that water and some types of food Ceramic Forms, Decoration, and Functions were heated by putting hot stones in the vessels rather than by placing pots directly over flames. Furthermore, During the Soviet era, typologies of pottery form the flat-bottom Jeitun vessels would have been less effec- and decoration were developed for Jeitun and other tive if used over a fire than round-bottom ones because Jeitun-Culture sites by O. K. Berdiev and V. M. Mas- less of their surface area would be exposed to the heat, son. Berdiev (1969:38) recognized three main vessel whereas their flat bottoms would have provided the sta- forms from Masson’s excavations of his site levels 1–3: bility needed for the hot-stone method of cooking. cylindrical vases, bowls, and four-cornered vessels of Berdiev and Masson pioneered the development “saladnitsa” type (so called because they were thought of Neolithic ceramic typologies for southern Turk- to resemble present-day Russian salad bowls). Berdiev menistan, but their descriptive approach was subjec- categorized the pottery, which was both decorated tive and non-quantitative. In an attempt to analyze and undecorated, as buffware and noted three simple assemblages more objectively, Y. E. Berezkin (1970) decorative motifs: frequent horizontal wavy lines, fre- carried out a statistical study of forms of pottery vessels quent horizontal straight lines, and a “bracket” motif, excavated at Jeitun and five other Jeitun-Culture sites all painted in dark red. He also recognized two further (Chopan, Togolok, Pessedjik, Chagylly, and Bami). His types that were present in the uppermost level: jars and methodology is described in Coolidge (2005:73–77), dishes, including some redware as well as buffware but his analysis only applied to 5% of the entire assem- (although it is often unclear whether his “buff” and blage from the six sites and the conclusions he derived “red” refer to the ceramic fabric or to the slip applied from it (that red-walled vessels were for domestic use to the surface of the vessel), and three other decorative and white-painted storage vessels were connected with motifs—frequent horizontal wavy lines with occasional cult rituals) are not supported by the data. crossing vertical lines, frequent horizontal straight lines As part of my study of Neolithic pottery from with occasional crossing vertical lines, and a dot motif. Jeitun-Culture, Keltiminar, and Keltiminar-related The typology proposed by Masson (1971:36–37) sites, I carried out statistical analyses on the ceramic is somewhat simpler than Berdiev’s. He contrasted assemblages from Jeitun, from Early- and Middle- undecorated flat-bottomed bowls and jars with bowls, Jeitun levels at Chopan, Togolok, and Pessedjik in the vases (large jars), and dishes (platters) decorated with central Kopetdag piedmont, and from Late-Jeitun seven types of motifs, including most of those previously levels at Chagylly, Chakmakli, and Monjukli in the noted by Berdiev, and he claimed that at Jeitun three eastern piedmont; and I also studied ceramics from variants predominated: the wavy-line design, which was the piedmont sites of Late Neolithic Bami and the usually found around the vessel shoulder, rim, or base; Bolshoi Balkhan sites of Jebel, Dam Dam Cheshme 1, the bracket ornament, which varied from geometrically 2, and 3, Bashkovdan, Joyruk, and Oyukli (Coolidge organized to free form and later morphed into the “net 2005:66–83 and this volume, pp. 206–7). Here, only design”; and a subsequent “cellular pattern.” Masson the results of analyses of the Jeitun assemblage are pre- also inferred that the undecorated vessels were used sented. Figure 9.30a shows the distribution of Jeitun Figure 9.30 j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 187

a

100% 80% 60% 40% sherds centage of

Per 20% 0% grayware coarse (n=184) medium (n=374) fine (n=34) whiteware Consistency redware buffware

b plates 12% small bowls 32%

storage jars 30% large bowls 26%

c 100%

80%

60%

40% examples

Percentage of 20%

0% small bowls large bowls storage jars plates (n=9) redware (n=24) (n=19) (n=22) buffware Vessel form

9.30 Analyses of Jeitun pottery: (a) distribution of ware by consistency, (b) occurrence of vessel forms, (c) relationship between vessel form and type of ware (based on Figs. 4.11, 4.18, and 4.19 in Coolidge 2005). 188 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia ware by consistency, which gives an approximate indi- (PPL) and with crossed polars (XPL) for mineral- cation of vessel function. Thus, coarse wares represent ogical identification. The results of the thin-section large storage vessels and fine wares domestic vessels, analysis provide information on fabric classification, and the intermediate (medium) category, although production, technology, and provenance. They dem- more ambiguous, probably also indicates domestic onstrate that the Jeitun pottery (and that of the other wares. Figure 9.30a also shows that buffware and agricultural Jeitun-Culture sites on the piedmont) redware predominate at Jeitun, and that only small was chaff-tempered, in contrast to the sand-tempered amounts of whiteware and grayware are present. The pottery typical of the hunter-fisher-gatherer Keltimi- low representation of whiteware is probably due to a nar and Keltiminar-related groups of the northern local lack of calcareous clay, and the small amount of Karakum and the Bolshoi Balkhan. However, there is grayware probably reflects infrequent contact with some slight evidence of contact between Jeitun and the Keltiminar and Keltiminar-related groups in northern Bolshoi Balkhan in the form of a few sand-tempered Turkmenistan (see below). ceramics of Keltiminar type found at Jeitun and some Because a substantial quantity of ceramic data fragments of chaff-tempered pottery excavated by for Jeitun is available, derived from Masson’s and the the Russians at the Jebel rockshelter in the Bolshoi British team’s excavations, I also analyzed both the Balkhan and surface-collected by the British team in occurrence of vessel forms (Fig. 9.30b) and the rela- 1997 (Coolidge 2005:115, 151). tionship of vessel form to type of ware (Fig. 9.30c). The All the Jeitun vessels are coarse and were hand- data are limited to the number of partial or complete made by the coil technique, using ceramic paste and vessel profiles available. Figure 9.30b shows that small chaff temper. The temper includes cereal (wheat and bowls (32%) and storage jars (30%) predominate, barley) chaff and grains (the latter probably as acciden- followed by large bowls (26%) and plates or platters tal inclusions), and also stem material, chaff, and seeds (12%); and from Figure 9.30c it can be seen that, from other grasses. According to Charles and Bending although large bowls, storage jars, and plates or plat- (pers. comm. 2001), some of the grass seeds probably ters are all divided fairly equally between redware and derive from grasses that flower in the summer rather buffware, 80% of the small bowls consist of redware than in the spring, which may imply that pottery pro- and only 20% of buffware, suggesting a preference for duction was a seasonal activity that took place during finer redware domestic vessels. or soon after the harvest, when there was an abundant supply of chaff and other by-products of cereal process- ing. However, it is possible, but unlikely, that chaff was Production collected at harvest time and stored for later use. Specific clay deposits likely to have been used for To complement the investigations of forms, making pottery by the inhabitants of Jeitun could not be decoration, and functions, I carried out petrographic identified because the landscape near the site has been analysis of samples of Jeitun pottery to investigate its greatly modified by large-scale irrigation agriculture, mode of production. Samples of sherds were selected but it is probable that the clay, water, and fuel needed to represent a range of fabrics present in the assem- were collected from local sources and that pottery pro- blages excavated both by Masson in the late 1950s and duction was a small-scale household activity. There is no early 1960s and by the British team during the 1990s. definite evidence at Jeitun of kiln structures. Sarianidi A comprehensive database of all the samples (includ- thought that the ovens inside the houses could have ing sherds from seven other Jeitun-Culture sites) was been used for that purpose, but Masson pointed out first created. A subsample was then selected, based that waste from pottery production was only found east on the range of fabrics differentiated by the initial of Platform A (Fig. 8.1) and he suggested that this area databasing exercise, for thin-section analysis (for a may have been the only part of the site where pottery detailed account of the methodology see Coolidge was (communally) fired (Coolidge 2005:103; Masson 2005:96–99). Sixty thin sections were made from Jei- 1971:96–97). Berdiev (1969:76) thought that pottery was tun-Culture sherds, encompassing all the fabric types probably fired in the open in communal pits, although represented at the site, and the resultant slides were he did not exclude the possibility that the typical rect- then examined using standard polarizing microscopy, angular ovens (Fig. 8.8, color), which could be regarded with observations made both in plane polarized light as proto-kilns, might have been used for pottery produc- j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 189 tion as well as for cooking and for warming the houses. It Berdiev and Masson, that the chaff-tempered ceram- is likely that firing, either in an open fire or a hearth pit, ics were produced at the site from locally available was the normal method used by the Jeitun potters, and raw materials, perhaps seasonally soon after the grain that it was carried out close to but not within the main harvest. The pottery consisted of flat-bottomed bowls, habitation area on the mound, as is perhaps implied jars, and platters, and production was apparently a by the lack of direct archaeological evidence of pottery household activity. There is no evidence of systematic manufacture at Jeitun. Fuel for firing would have been exchange of pottery with other groups, although a readily available in the form of animal dung, waste few ceramic finds suggest infrequent contact between products from the harvest, and both living and dead Jeitun and Keltiminar and Keltiminar-related sites in wood from trees such as tamarisk, poplar, and willow the northern Karakum and Bolshoi Balkhan massif. and various shrubs (this volume, pp. 169–70). It is not until the later Neolithic and early Chalco- lithic (Eneolithic) periods that there is evidence of a general shift at sites on the piedmont from the Conclusion household mode of production to the manufacture of pottery in centralized workshops, with a concomi- It is clear from my study of the pottery from tant development of trade in ceramics (Coolidge Jeitun, together with the earlier observations of 2005:113–15). 190 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Section 9.12 Summary Discussion of the Excavation Evidence from Jeitun with Chris Gosden

he site of Jeitun has a complex history of exca- ited all the year round but not every year, with periods Tvation, spanning the large-scale excavations by of abandonment, or whether it was inhabited for only Russian-Turkmen teams from the mid 1950s onward part of each year are important questions that we and the smaller-scale investigations by the British address below by examining what evidence exists for team in the 1990s. The purpose of this section is to periods of abandonment or seasonal occupation. summarize the results of the British investigations, against the background of earlier Russian work at the site, and to link the evidence reported in the preced- The Relation of Jeitun to Its Local ing sections of this chapter to the general conclusions Environment presented at the end of the volume. Our aim here is to examine how far the evidence we have generated can Today Jeitun is situated on the ecotonal bound- help resolve two major questions concerning the his- ary between the piedmont zone and the Karakum tory of the site: its relation to the local environment, desert. The nature of the local environment during and the nature of its occupation. the Neolithic and of Jeitun’s relationship to its sur- Several points can be made about Jeitun’s loca- rounding topographical features is hard to ascertain tion and occupation with a degree of certainty, before with clarity. Three sets of sediments are relevant. The we discuss less definite and more contentious matters first derives from the ancient Tedzhen river which cre- of interpretation. First, it is evident that Jeitun was es- ated a large distributary fan as it spilled out into the tablished in an area of intermixed alluvial and aeolian southern Karakum. Most of the fan lies east of Jeitun, deposits of silts, clays, and sands where the gently slop- but it does extend westward beyond the site, and its ing alluvial surface of the lower piedmont grades into deposits interdigitate with the second set of sediments the dunes and low sand hills of the southern Karakum. which derive from outwash from the Kopetdag. This The site was located where the local piedmont river, takes the form mainly of channel flow and occasional the Kara Su, having penetrated the southernmost sheet floods across the piedmont that have created dune ridge of the Karakum, petered out at the end terminal alluvial fans at the desert margin, along the of its alluvial fan, thus providing the soils and water fringes of which takyrs have developed. The third set supply on which cereal cultivation at Jeitun depended. consists of the desert sands of the southern Karakum, Jeitun’s position at the terminus of the fan at the edge the extent, mobility, and stability of which depend of the desert made it prone to environmental instabil- upon the interaction between human influences and ity as a result both of floodwaters from the Kopetdag changing climatic conditions. and piedmont, and incursions of sand from the desert Past human activities—particularly cultivation, to the north. Local evidence of such instability is pro- fuel collection, and livestock grazing at the desert vided by the three immature palaeosols found close to margin, on the piedmont, and in the mountains— the site, separated by layers of windblown sand, which complicate interpretation of environmental changes are coeval with the lifespan of the settlement. in the Holocene. From the Bronze Age onward there is Second, the radiocarbon dates demonstrate evidence, for example at Anau (this volume, p. 28), that that Jeitun was a relatively short-lived settlement that sediments from the mountains formed deep deposits was founded c. 6100 cal. BCE and lasted only a few on the piedmont, at least partly as a result of human centuries. However, it probably grew larger and more action, and they probably did so on a smaller scale in complex in its short lifespan, as is suggested by the the Neolithic. The local evidence we have obtained of observation that deposits in the upper levels excavated the sediments on which Jeitun sits comes from observa- by the Russian teams in the 1950s and 1960s appear tions in the nearby gorge cut by the present course of to have been more extensive and continuous than the Kara Su and from sections exposed in the side of those in the lower layers excavated in the 1990s and the modern irrigation ditch just east of the site. In the described in this volume. Whether Jeitun was inhab- gorge a major buried-soil horizon is present beneath j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 191 sands. It is a truncated solonetz with evidence of devel- encroachments of sand. opment, indicating the existence of an earlier, more Some of the phytolith and plant macro-remains stable landscape before or during the early Neolithic, indicate that a combination of wet and dry areas which was later covered by alluvial sediments eroded existed near the site; thus the frequency of reed phy- as a result of human actions and/or natural processes. toliths suggests the local presence of water, as does The possibility exists that other stable mid-Holocene the occurrence of club rush in the charred plant landscapes existed and were exploited for agriculture, remains, and this is complemented by evidence of but that they are now masked by more recent deposits. more xerophytic species such as grass seeds of the Further geoarchaeological work would be needed to genus Stipagrostis. The local distribution and growth investigate this possibility, and the piedmont-edge status of areas of hygrophytic and xerophytic vegeta- zone in which Jeitun is located might be the best place tion would have varied spatially and temporally with to start because recent deposits are deeper closer to changes in stream discharge and sediment deposition. the mountains. They would also have been affected by changes in the Present evidence suggests that the alluvial sedi- intensity of land use by Jeitun’s inhabitants, but the ments that immediately underlie Jeitun derive from overall representation of plant taxa around the site the Kopetdag and piedmont and are not part of the would probably have closely resembled the floristic Tedzhen-fan sediments, which in Jeitun’s locality composition of the vegetation today. There are some are probably buried beneath montane/piedmont indications, in the three palaeosols found close to the deposits. Between the two sets of alluvial sediments, site, that soils in the area became drier as the amount and also within the deposits locally associated with of blown sand encroaching on them increased. It is the site itself, there are windblown sands similar to possible that this stimulated the development of some those existing today. This suggests that the alluvial rudimentary form of water management, as is sug- sediments on which Jeitun was established were on gested by the ditch-like features discovered in the mid- the edge of the desert at that time, and suffered dle and upper palaeosols. It is also possible that some periodic incursions of windblown sand. It is also of the phytoliths, such as silica skeletons with over 100 worth noting that these geological and pedological contiguous cells, may indicate irrigation. However, the characteristics, together with the fact that we found micromorphological analyses of thin-sections from no on-site evidence of marine organisms and that the palaeosols and the magnetic-susceptibility study of there is said to be no geomorphological evidence the upper palaeosol provide no evidence of manuring of ancient shorelines (cf. Davis 1905:42–43), do not or of other attempts to raise plant-nutrient levels in offer any support for the hypothesis that in the early the soil, which might perhaps be expected if irrigation Neolithic the site might have been located at or close had been systematically practiced. to the coast of a large body of water, the so-called Io Clearly, Jeitun existed in a highly dynamic envi- Sea (this volume, p. 22). ronment, where regimes of erosion and sedimentation The more detailed picture of Jeitun’s local envi- were subject to frequent and often rapid changes. ronment derived from study of the sections exposed Life at the settlement would have depended on the in the side of the modern irrigation ditch close to ability to work in and with changing environmental the site reinforces this interpretation. The lowest of conditions—which may be a key to understanding the the three palaeosols observed there developed on al- nature of the occupation of the site as a whole. luvial material that would have been suitable for crop cultivation when Jeitun’s alluvial fan was active. The layers of aeolian sand between the lower and middle, The Nature of the Occupation at Jeitun and middle and upper palaeosols are evidence of intermittent encroachment by blown sand, perhaps The earlier Russian-Turkmen excavations at due to degradation of soils and vegetation due to Jeitun revealed a settlement with a variety of fea- grazing, cropping, and other human activities during tures—rectangular houses, smaller out-buildings, Jeitun’s occupation. The fact that the upper two soils and courtyards—interpreted as having been used formed on alluvial material overlying sand suggests contemporaneously. The houses ranged in size from that periodic pulses of sediment from the mountains, c. 3.5 x 3.5 m to c. 6.25 x 6.25 m (13 m2–39 m2) and which enlarged the fan, were interspersed with local were separated by courtyards (that were often shared) 192 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia with, in some areas, sets of low parallel walls that may In the areas outside both houses there was evi- have supported platforms on which grain was stored. dence of activities that may have related partly to the There is evidence that houses were sometimes built on construction of the houses and partly to activities car- top of pre-existing ones, although not directly. Masson ried out while the houses were inhabited. Large-scale excavated completely what he defined as Jeitun’s sec- excavations would be necessary to elucidate the full ond level or occupation phase, the first (uppermost) history of occupation of the houses and connected ac- one having been largely destroyed by wind erosion tivities outside them. The lowest house (B) contained before he began his excavations. The second (phase less artifactual evidence, implying a simpler history of 2) building level consisted of some 30 houses as well as use. We cannot tell whether this would be generally courtyards and out-buildings, and it was interpreted true across the site at this lowest level, but the indica- by Masson and his colleagues as a small permanent tions thus far are that the number of houses and the settlement characteristic of a stable agricultural popu- deposition of layers of refuse in yard areas increased lation. Our expectation was that investigations of the over time. This could have been because larger num- lower levels of the mound would show that the site had bers of people lived at Jeitun later in its history, and/ been continuously occupied for a long period of time. or because there was then greater intensity of activity. However, our excavations, and especially the radiocar- Regrettably, the layout of the whole site in its earliest bon dates, throw a different light on this assumption. phases remains unknown. Elsewhere, in upper levels The evidence now indicates that structures and sedi- near the center of the mound, our excavations in 1991 ments built up relatively rapidly at Jeitun. in the northeast corner of the main Russian excava- tion suggest a change in use from penning animals in Built Structures an earlier period to activities around hearths in the The two houses (A and B) that we excavated in later period, with an episode of windblown sand depo- 1993 and 1994 were substantial square mudbrick struc- sition in between. There are clearly some changes in tures. The upper one, House A, was larger (6.25 x 6.25 the use of particular areas over time, but also probably m) than the lower House B (3.50 x 3.50 m). Both had some continuity, with parts of the central area perhaps plastered floors, walls made in one build that sloped remaining open throughout the occupation. slightly inward, and probably central posts (indicated by postholes). Each house had an oven with a platform Plants, Animals, and Artifacts built on one side of it. It is probable that the roofs The inhabitants of Jeitun cultivated domes- were thatched, an inference supported by evidence of ticated wheat and barley, kept domesticated sheep macro- and micro-remains of reeds. The initial floor and goats, hunted wild animals, and made pottery, levels were plastered with gypsum and then painted, stone and bone tools, and other objects not directly as were the walls. It is possible that matting or carpets related to subsistence such as bone beads, clay figu- were laid on the floors. Above the initial floor levels rines, and stone and shell pendants. The dominant there was a complex series of further layers. Some of crop was glume wheat, principally einkorn. There is these, such as context 37 in House A, were composed also evidence (in chaff, not grain) of another type of of relatively clean sand containing many potsherds, glume wheat recently discovered at several Neolithic flint and bone artifacts, and clay figurines. Patches and Bronze Age sites in Europe. No grains typical of of both clean sand and mudbrick were also found in emmer wheat were definitely identified, although five House B, presumably derived from periods after the poorly preserved specimens were tentatively identi- house had been abandoned. The sand had evidently fied as such, and chaff typical of free-threshing wheat been blown in from outside but not cleaned away, as it was identified in three samples. Small amounts of would have been when the house was in active use, and both hulled and naked barley were also found. The the mudbrick was too patchy to have formed a continu- dominance of einkorn in the crop spectrum and the ous floor surface. In both houses postholes were cut presence of barley may be related to their tolerance through destruction levels down onto floor surfaces, of low soil fertility and low water availability. Samples which may indicate that people camped on the site in of wood charcoal from the site are dominated by taxa periods when the houses were out of use. Jeitun’s mud- tolerant of saline soils and seasonal flooding, princi- brick buildings may therefore only contain evidence pally tamarisk and chenopods, together with other of part of the site’s occupation history. taxa such as reed and alder that are adapted to growth j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 193 in more continuously inundated marshes and swamps. semblages excavated in 1989 and 1990 that there was Together, these trees, shrubs, and reeds would have no distinct seasonal pattern in the culling of domestic provided fuel and materials for roofing and possibly sheep and goats and that Jeitun was probably occupied for making mats and perhaps baskets. year-round. No other definitely domestic animals, There is no conclusive evidence in the charred such as pigs or cattle, were identified in the 1993/94 plant remains of wild plants being used for food, al- assemblage, although the presence of domestic dog though, as Capparis seeds were identified in most of at Jeitun had been reported previously by Kasparov the samples analyzed, it is possible that caper fruits (1992:71–73) and Shevchenko (1960:473–75), and were collected and consumed. Charred pellets of there is plentiful evidence of ungulate bones having sheep/goat dung were observed in more than half been gnawed on-site by canids, almost certainly dogs. the plant samples analyzed and they were also pres- Wild animals identified in the 1993/94 assem- ent in the micromorphological samples from yard blage and probably hunted for meat, skins, and other deposits. Only the later stages of cereal processing products include gazelle, wild boar (not conclusively were evident in the plant samples we obtained and it identified in this assemblage but present in the previ- is unknown whether the earlier stages were carried ously excavated ones), wild cat, corsac fox, tolai hare, out on the site or somewhere else nearby. Cultivation long-eared hedgehog, steppe tortoise, and a large and processing of the cereals implies that part or all lizard (the species unidentifiable but very possibly the of the community was present between the autumn gray monitor, Varanus griseus). Surprisingly, in view of and early summer. Also, the fact that the dung pellets the proximity to Jeitun of stream channels and other contain the remains of late-flowering plants likely to water bodies, and despite the systematic use of dry- have been grazed by sheep and goats after the cereal and wet-sieving in 1993 and 1994, very few fish or bird harvest points to occupation of the site in the summer bones were recovered. However, this may reflect the and early autumn. Taken together, these two lines of fact that the animal remains came from a relatively evidence strongly suggest year-round occupation of small part of the site in the area of Houses A and B and Jeitun by at least some, if not all, of its inhabitants. therefore does not necessarily imply that fish and birds Analysis of the phytolith samples confirmed made no contribution to the food supply at Jeitun. some of the results of the analyses of the seeds, chaff, Analysis of the animal bones from Jeitun pro- and wood charcoal. Thus, the frequency of phytoliths vides little definite evidence of the season(s) dur- derived from reeds and sedges reflects the close prox- ing which the site was occupied. But, in addition to imity of the site to the channel of the Kara Su and to Legge’s conclusion from his analysis of domestic sheep other areas of surface and ground water; and the ob- and goat mandibles that it was probably occupied year- servation that some of the abundant cereal phytoliths round, the remains of the steppe tortoise provide a of wheat and barley type are associated with faecal further indicator of when it was occupied. In southern spherulites reinforces the conclusion that animal Turkmenistan this reptile hibernates for up to ten dung (together with the products of cereal processing) months from late May or early June and it sometimes was an important component of yard deposits, interrupts hibernation briefly to feed on new plant Both wild and domestic animals are represented growth prompted by autumn rainfall (Ataev, Rusta- in the small assemblage of highly fragmented bones mov, and Shammakov1994:331). This suggests that it from the area of Houses A and B. Remains of domestic would normally have been procured by people living sheep and goats predominate and no bones of wild at Jeitun in April and May, and also perhaps dug out of caprines were identified. However, in his analysis of its hibernation shelters at other seasons of the year. the animal bones recovered at Jeitun in 1989 and Many pieces of pottery were found in and around 1990 Kasparov (1992) identified a small number of Houses A and B. They consisted of fragments of the larger and heavier sheep and goat bones as from wild types of flat-bottomed bowls, jars, and platters found urial sheep (Ovis vignei) and wild bezoar goat (Capra elsewhere on the site, indicating an assemblage de- aegagrus). This suggests that the wild species were signed mainly for food consumption. Many of the pots hunted as well as the domestic animals being herded. were painted and they were probably made at or near It is probable that the domestic sheep and goats pro- the site, where the clay, water, and fuel needed for vided both meat and milk, and Legge (1992) inferred their manufacture would have been available. There from his analysis of caprine mandibles in the bone as- is no definite evidence of kiln structures at Jeitun, al- 194 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia though it is possible that the ovens inside the houses Neolithic levels on the piedmont and the northern were used for firing pottery, as well as for cooking Iranian plateau to see if there were any evidence of and heating the houses. It is more probable that fir- links between those areas and the southern margin of ing took place in open fires or hearth pits close to but the Karakum. A third possibility is that Jeitun was oc- not within the settlement, and in either case pottery cupied for short periods of several years interspersed production appears to have been a small-scale house- with periods of temporary abandonment followed by hold activity. Jeitun pottery is chaff-tempered, as is the re-occupation. The fact that it was located at the ter- pottery at other Jeitun-Culture sites on the piedmont, mination of an alluvial fan close to the sands of the in contrast to the sand-tempered vessels typical of the desert edge, in an ecotone that gave access to diverse Keltiminar hunting-fishing-gathering groups of the resources but was potentially unstable and probably northern Karakum and the Bolshoi Balkhan region, prone to floods and to periodic incursions of sand, and at Jeitun production may have been a seasonal suggests that environmental instability may have con- activity that took place during or soon after the cereal tributed to any discontinuity of occupation. harvest when there was an abundant supply of chaff However, having drawn attention to the possible for use as temper. instability of occupation, we need also to emphasize Remains of stone tools were also abundant, that most of the evidence from the site itself indicates although the chert from which they are made is not a localized activity. The houses and other structures local material and must have been brought to Jeitun would have been built with local materials, and the from elsewhere. Single-platform blade cores used for pottery was almost certainly made at or close to the sickle manufacture and the resulting sickle blades settlement, materials for house construction and are the main types of tool present, together with an pottery manufacture both being available in the im- array of small scrapers, drills, and ad hoc flake tools. mediate vicinity. The chert from which the stone tools Microliths had previously been found elsewhere on were made was not available locally, and sheep and the site, although we did not find any in the areas we goats may well have ranged over an extensive area to excavated in 1993 and 1994. They may indicate the take advantage of seasonal differences in the vegeta- continued influence at Jeitun of an earlier Mesolithic tion, but neither of these factors would, of themselves, hunting technology, suggesting the possibility of some have required the population as a whole to move away continuity of population between the Mesolithic and from the site. Given the inferences from the plant the Neolithic in this part of western Central Asia, and/ and animal remains that the site was probably occu- or contacts during the early Neolithic between hunter- pied at all seasons of the year, and although we lack fisher-gatherer (Keltiminar) groups in northern Turk- other indicators of continuity of occupation, it seems menistan and Jeitun-Culture agro-pastoralists in the most probable that Jeitun was occupied year-round, south (this volume, pp. 220–22 and p. 233). although not necessarily long-term. There are also some indications of how the inhabitants may have regarded the “life” or history Conclusion of their settlement. As has already been mentioned, houses were often rebuilt on top of previous ones, The site of Jeitun represents a relatively small, although the ground plans and orientations of new short-lived settlement, with a lifespan of, at most, three houses differed from those of the earlier houses be- or four centuries. It probably increased in size through neath them. This contrasts with the practice at some time, with small numbers of houses and relatively low Southwest Asian Neolithic sites such as Çatalhöyük levels of activity in the earliest period of occupation. of building new houses directly on top of the walls It may have grown as a result of natural population of the previous ones (Hodder and Cessford 2004). In increase and/or because more people gathered there. this context it is interesting to note that, at the Chal- It is uncertain whether it was occupied continuously colithic–Bronze Age site of Anau on the piedmont year-round and from year to year by the whole popu- near Jeitun, Hiebert (2003:170–71) found evidence lation, or whether some or all of Jeitun’s inhabitants that houses were frequently abandoned and rebuilt, moved seasonally between the edge of the desert and but not directly superimposed on earlier structures, the Kopetdag mountains. Testing the latter possibility and he estimated that new buildings were created would require detailed investigations at sites with early once per generation, perhaps every 25 to 35 years. A j e i t u n : d a t i n g a n d analysis o f excavated m at e r i a l s 195 similar periodicity of building may have characterized where. Nor were ancestral figures present at the site, Jeitun, although we have no means of estimating, from in contrast to their presence at many Neolithic sites in the radiocarbon chronology or from other evidence, Southwest Asia, where burial under house floors was a the frequency of rebuilding there. common practice. This difference, and the fact that at Another aspect of the inhabitants’ attitude to Jeitun (and Anau) new houses were not superimposed their settlement concerns disposal of the dead. Only directly on top of earlier structures (as they were at one deposit of human remains has been found on the Çatalhöyük), raises the possibility that the inhabitants site, the disposal or burial of a child in the yard of Mas- of Jeitun may not, unlike occupants of Neolithic vil- son’s phase 2 building 17 (1971:23). Our excavations lages in Southwest Asia, have identified strongly with at Jeitun did not recover any human bone, despite their settlement—a speculation that could in turn be careful sieving. Either the dead were disposed of on linked to our inference that the site is unlikely to have the site, but in a manner that has thus far remained ar- been occupied continuously throughout its relatively chaeologically invisible, or they were disposed of else- short existence.

10 The Bolshoi Balkhan Sites: Analysis of Excavated Materials

n this chapter, the materials excavated and sampled by the British team in 1997 at the Dam Dam Cheshme Irockshelters (DDC 1, 2, and 3) in the Bolshoi Balkhan massif are described. G. E. Markov carried out ex- tensive excavations at the two principal sites, DDC 1 and 2, in the 1960s, and the excavations we undertook there during our brief field season yielded only small amounts of plant, animal, lithic, and ceramic material. The results of our limited excavations at the three rockshelters are summarized below in Sections 10.1–10.5 in which analyses of the charred seeds, wood charcoal, animal bones, stone tools, and pottery we recovered are presented. The latter two sections also include summaries of Markov’s accounts of his lithic and ceramic finds at DDC 1 and 2, and in Section 10.5 potsherds found and recorded by us at three other Bolshoi Balkhan sites are noted. One of the main aims of the British team’s season of survey and excavation in the Bolshoi Balkhan region in 1997 was to retrieve and date charred plant remains and animal bones from the Dam Dam Cheshme rockshelters as part of an integrated approach to the investigation of Mesolithic–Neolithic subsistence. Despite systematic sampling and flotation of the excavated deposits, very little charred plant material was found. A small number of charred seeds including a few cereal grains, and a small quantity of wood charcoal were recovered, and one barley grain from DDC 2 was subsequently dated. An assemblage of very fragmented animal bones was also recovered and two samples of caprine bones from DDC 3 were dated. Disappointingly, all three samples proved to be post- Neolithic (see Sections 10.1 and 10.2).

Section 10.1 Charred Seeds from the of charred material were observed during excavation Dam Dam Cheshme Rockshelters and an initial scan of the flots showed that very little charred material was present in the samples from all Michael Charles three rockshelters. Most of the flots were made up of a fine, sandy material which had often formed into In the course of the small-scale excavations small lumps that floated. Thus, instead of an initial undertaken at the Dam Dam Cheshme (DDC) rock- scan to determine the relative richness of samples shelters 1, 2, and 3 in 1997 (this volume, pp. 113–16), prior to sorting, each sample was sieved to 1 mm, 0.5 part of every deposit excavated was sampled (a total mm, and 0.3 mm and sorted, either by eye in the case of c. 100 samples from the three sites) and floated by of the >1 mm material or under the microscope for machine on the piedmont below the rockshelters. the <1 mm material. An average of 11 l per deposit was floated. Following Detailed sorting of the flots confirmed the pau- this on-site procedure, scanning, sub-sampling, and city of plant remains at the DDC sites. No seeds were sorting were undertaken in the laboratory at the Uni- recovered from DDC 1, and from DDC 2 and 3 only versity of Sheffield, UK. No obvious concentrations 37 charred seeds were recovered in 23 contexts from 198 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia the c. 1,100 l of deposit floated. The Table 10.1 Charred cereal grains and other seeds from the DDC 2 and 3 remains identified comprised 6 barley rockshelters (the barley grain that provided the AMS radiocarbon date grains (Hordeum sativum cf. hulled, i.e., is identified by an asterisk). cultivated barley resembling the hulled form), 1 wheat grain (Triticum sp.), and Rock- Trench Context Liters Barley Wheat Charred Total 30 wild/weed seeds (Table 10.1). The shelter floated grain cf. grain wild/weed charred hulled indet. items items cereal grains were generally poorly pre- served and had a vesicular appearance DDC 2 Ar 1 11 25 2 2 suggesting that they had been exposed DDC 2 Ar 1 24 5 2 2 to fairly high temperatures. The wild/ DDC 2 Ar 2 100 2 2 weed seeds varied in their condition of preservation from well to poorly DDC 2 Ar 2 102 25 1* 1 preserved. DDC 2 T2 103 25 1 1 The single charred barley grain DDC 3 T1 18 20 3 3 from DDC 2 contained sufficient carbon to be dated by the AMS method (labora- DDC 3 T1 20 4 1 1 tory no. Beta–172095). Its measured ra- DDC 3 T1 21 5 1 1 diocarbon age was 2850 ± 50 BP, which, DDC 3 T1 27 6 1 1 calibrated at 2 sigma (95% probability) gave a date range of 1190–900 cal. BCE DDC 3 T1 29 9 2 2 (3140–2850 cal. BP) using the INT- DDC 3 T1 31 5 1 1 CAL 98 calibration curve (Stuiver et al. DDC 3 T1 33 10 2 2 1998), with an intercept of the radio- carbon age with the calibration curve DDC 3 T1 37 12 2 2 at 1010 cal. BCE (2960 BP). Thus the DDC 3 T1 43 12 1 1 grain was post-Neolithic, and it is likely DDC 3 T1 45 14 1 1 that the other plant remains recovered, DDC 3 T1 55 10 1 1 which could not be dated, are also. As a result of the small quantity of charred DDC 3 T1 59 5 1 1 material present in the deposits, the DDC 3 T1 63 10 1 1 generally poor preservation of the few DDC 3 T2 104 5 2 2 cereal grains found, and the relatively recent age of the one grain that could DDC 3 T2 108 5 4 4 be dated, this investigation of the small DDC 3 T2 117 60 1 1 assemblage of plant remains unfortu- DDC 3 T2 118 25 2 2 nately failed to yield any conclusive evi- dence of Mesolithic or Neolithic plant DDC 3 T2 119 20 2 2 use at the DDC rockshelters. Totals 6 1 30 37 t h e b o l s h o i ba lk h a n sites: a n a ly s i s o f excavat ed m at e r i a l s 199

Section 10.2 Wood Charcoal from the Dam Dam Cheshme Rockshelters

Eleni Asouti

ery little charcoal was available for analysis in the massif, and fig Ficus( carica) also grows today close to Vflotation samples obtained from the trial excava- the rockshelters (Fig. 4.7 and Fig. 4.8, color). tions by the British team at the Dam Dam Cheshme The sparse occurrence of charcoal in the sam- rockshelters. Ten samples from DDC 1, 2, and 3 were ples from the DDC sites suggests that post-depositional analyzed (following the procedure described in Chap- conditions have had damaging effects on the preserva- ter 9, Section 9.7), but most of them contained fewer tion of charcoal fragments, as they have also at Jeitun than five fragments of charcoal. The resulting identi- (this volume, p. 167). Such effects are likely to have fications of plant taxa are therefore tabulated by site been accentuated if human habitation in the rock- rather than by sample (Table 10.2). Table 10.2 shows shelters was episodic or ephemeral, which would have that over half of the fragments (63%) could not be inhibited the accumulation of dense charcoal debris identified (classified as indeterminate), and that only in the archaeological deposits. five taxa were identified. Tamarisk (Tamarix sp.) is well represented in the samples from DDC 2, and the four other taxa identified were one specimen of juniper Table 10.2 Plant identifications and numbers of charcoal fragments from 10 flotation samples from the DDC (Juniperus sp.), one of fig Ficus( sp.), and two of Che- rockshelters 1, 2, and 3. nopodiaceae from DDC 2, and a single specimen of a member of the Rhamnaceae from DDC 1. SEM mi- crophotographs of the specimens of juniper, fig, and DDC 1 DDC 2 DDC 3 the member of the Rhamnaceae are reproduced in No. of samples 1 6 3 Figure 10.1 (below). Identification below family level Juniperus 0 1 0 in Rhamnaceae was not possible because no locally Rhamnaceae 1 0 0 derived reference material was available for compari- son, but the specimen may represent the only species Ficus 0 1 0 of buckthorn, Rhamnus coriacea, that, according to Tamarix 0 23 1 Nikitin and Geldykhanov (1988:399), grows in the Chenopodiaceae 0 2 0 Bolshoi Balkhan. The identification of juniper is con- Indeterminate 0 45 3 sistent with the presence today of Juniperus turcomanica Totals 1 71 4 on rocky slopes and plateaus in the Bolshoi Balkhan 200 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

10.1 SEM micrographs of identified charcoal specimens from the DDC rockshelters; RLS=Radial Longitudinal Section, TLS=Transverse Longitudinal Section, TS=Transverse Section. Upper row: Juniperus, left: RLS, center: detail of RLS, right: TLS; the left and center photographs show evidence of compressed tracheids. Middle row: Ficus, left: TS, center: RLS, right TLS. Lower row: Rhamnaceae, left: TS, center: RLS, right: TLS (the white arrows point to thread-like fungal hyphae indicative of dead wood). t h e b o l s h o i ba lk h a n sites: a n a ly s i s o f excavat ed m at e r i a l s 201

Section 10.3 Animal Remains from the Dam Dam Cheshme Rockshelters

Keith Dobney and Deborah Jaques

uring the small-scale excavations undertaken in highly fragmented condition of most of the remains, D1997 at the Dam Dam Cheshme rockshelters a but two dates were obtained from sheep/goat bones, small assemblage of animal bones was recovered from one from context 3 in DDC 2 and the other from con- DDC 2 and 3 using the same techniques of dry- and wet- text 52 in DDC 3. The radiocarbon age of the sample sieving that were employed at Jeitun in 1993 and 1994 from DDC 2 (laboratory no. OxA–12548) was 3191 (see Chapter 9, Section 9.9). The assemblage was very ± 35 BP, which, when calibrated using the OxCAL fragmented and consisted mainly of unidentifiable 3.8 software (Bronk Ramsey 2002) and INTCAL 98 thin slivers of medium-sized mammal bone, although (Stuiver et al. 1998), gave a date range at 2 sigma (at some of the larger fragments could be identified to 95.4% probability) of 1530–1400 cal. BCE, and the species (Table 10.3). Most of the bones recovered by one from DDC 3 (OxA–12546) had a radiocarbon age sieving came from small mammals and reptiles. The of 2978 ± 27 BP and gave a calibrated range at 95.4% majority are believed to be intrusive because they were probability of 1320–1110 cal. BCE. better preserved, less eroded, and generally different The radiocarbon determinations and the pres- in color from the medium-sized mammal bones. They ence of intrusive and probably very recent bones are therefore not listed in Table 10.3. The identifiable among the animal remains indicate that much if bones and teeth, most of which were hand-collected not all of the assemblage recovered from DDC 2 and from the samples, came from four contexts in DDC 2 3 in 1997 is post-Neolithic. The investigation thus and seven in DDC 3. The great majority of them were failed to add to the very limited osteoarchaeological from caprine (sheep/goat) remains, although Gazella data from DDC 2 pertaining to Mesolithic/Neolithic sp., Equus sp., and domestic Bos were also represented, animal exploitation provided by Tsalkin and quoted together with indeterminate fish bones and some bird by Markov (1966a:123). This outcome is particularly eggshell (Table 10.3, below). disappointing in view of Markov’s poorly substan- Although the assemblage as a whole yielded tiated speculations (1966a:123; 1966b:91; 1981:42) a very small dataset, and the presence of intrusive about the role of sheep and goats in late Mesolithic/ material suggested that much of it came from dis- early Neolithic subsistence at the DDC rockshelters, turbed and/or recent levels, it was decided to attempt including his assumption (ibid.) that goats, and later direct AMS radiocarbon dating of one or more bone sheep, were locally domesticated at that time (and see samples. The choice of samples was restricted by the this volume, p. 58). 202 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Table 10.3 The assemblages of identifiable animal remains recovered from DDC 2 and DDC 3 in 1997.

Site Context Species Element Tooth Type Tooth Wear Epiphyseal Notes No. Fusion Gazella cf. sub- Grant wear DDC 2 2 Mandible M1/M2 guturrosa stage=d Ovis f. domestic Tibia Distal fused Caprine Metatarsal Caprine Humerus Distal fused Caprine Femur Proximal fused Caprine/Gazella Femur Neonatal 3 Caprine Incisor (x2) indet Fish Quadrate Isolated mandibular 8 Equus sp. Molar? tooth 10 Caprine 3rd phalanx Eggshell (x5 frag- Bird ments)

DDC 3 29 Caprine Maxilla P2, P3, P4, M1 & M2 52 Capra f. domestic 3rd phalanx Isolated mandibular Grant wear Caprine M1/M2 tooth stage=d Isolated mandibular Caprine M3 tooth Caprine Femur Proximal fused Caprine x2 Carpals indet fish Vertebrae 53 Ovis f. domestic 3rd phalanx Incisor, M1/M2 & Caprine Isolated teeth M3 Caprine Pelvis Caprine Patella Caprine Calcaneum Neonatal 53/55 Caprine Mandible dp4 & M1 Grant wear 55 Caprine Mandible P3, P4 & M1 Elderly stage=k Proximal and Caprine Radius Juvenile distal unfused 60 Capra f. domestic Calcaneus Proximal fused Caprine Isolated teeth (x3) Incisor, P4 & M1/M2 104 Bos f. domestic? Incisor fragment Metacarpal Distal fused x4 Mandibular Grant wear 110 Bos f. domestic M1/M2 molar fragments stage=e t h e b o l s h o i ba lk h a n sites: a n a ly s i s o f excavat ed m at e r i a l s 203

. E. Markov’s excavations of the Dam Dam Cheshme rockshelters 1 and 2 in the 1960s (1966a, 1966b, 1981) Gyielded substantial quantities of stone tools, on the basis of which (together with the pottery from the two sites) he identified five cultural layers at DDC 1 and nine at DDC 2. He inferred that at DDC 1 the sequence -ex tended from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age and at DDC 2 from the late Upper Palaeolithic or the early Mesolithic to the Bronze Age. Recovery and analysis of lithic artifacts was not a primary objective of the British team’s season of survey and excavation in the Bolshoi Balkhan region in 1997, but during exploratory excava- tions of deposits still in situ in DDC 1, DDC 2, and at the much smaller rockshelter DDC 3, some stone tools were recovered. In this report, James Conolly and Nathan Schlanger describe the lithic artifacts found in 1997, having first summarized Markov’s description (1966a) of the stone tools he excavated at DDC 2.

Section 10.4 Stone Tools from the shifts to more elongated varieties. Layer 4 tools also Dam Dam Cheshme Rockshelters include many “rabots” (a type of scraping tool known as the Bordian Type 56 “push plane”) with notches James Conolly and Nathan Schlanger and denticulated edges. Markov states that trapezes become more robust, together with bladelets with trun- cated ends. Cores in the lower part of layer 4 are regu- Summary of the Lithic Assemblage lar and include conical varieties. Many fewer pieces of Excavated at Dam Dam Cheshme 2 by flint were recovered from layer 5 (261, of which 185 Markov in the 1960s

A total of 11,060 lithic artifacts from nine cultural layers at DDC 2 were reported by Markov (1966a:124 –5). They consist of a variety of tools, principally scrapers, A geometric microliths, borers, cores, and production debris. Of this total, 959 are pieces of gray, yellow, CD pink, and black chert that were recovered from layer 2 (the second layer below the surface), 163 of which are B worked and the remaining 796 are production debris. Most of the worked artifacts from layer 2 are described by Markov as scrapers and notches of various types (on E microblades and flakes) and three are geometric micro- liths (the latter are not illustrated by him). Cores vary F from single-platform conical forms to more irregular shapes. Layer 3 yielded 2,705 lithic artifacts consisting of gray and yellow flint of higher quality. They include scrapers, notches, and drills, together with many geo- G H I metric microliths, principally trapezes and triangles (Fig. 10.2), and 2,167 pieces of unworked debris. Markov described the flint in layer 4 as more variable, with the upper part of this layer producing 4,130 pieces (3,495 of which are unworked), including 0 5 cm well-made end and side scrapers, some with notches on the distal end. Asymmetrical triangles and trapezes 10.2 Dam Dam Chesme 2, layer 3 retouched stone tools: and retouched blade “segments” (all microlithic tools) (A) scrapers, (B) core scrapers, (C) notch, (D) borer, (E) occur in slightly reduced quantities: c. 4.7% in layer 4 trapezes, (F) triangles, (G) retouched blade segments, versus 8.8% in layer 3. In the lower part of layer 4 (2,609 (H) backed bladelet, (I) blade knives (based on Fig. 5 in pieces, of which 2,195 are unworked) scraper-form Markov 1966a, scale approximate). 204 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia are unworked), although several forms of scraper were and 7 other pieces were found in the course of cleaning found, as well as denticulated and/or notched rabots. the section at the rear of the cave. They include a small Layer 5 cores are said to be larger and more irregular bipolar bladelet core or pièce esquillée (32 x 21 x 22 mm) than in the higher levels. Geometric microliths (both made on a large flake; a core-trimming element or CTE trapezes and asymmetrical triangles) are still present. (31 x 23 x 7 mm) with a remnant core edge and evidence Layers 6 and 7 produced few retouched pieces (50 and of abrasion and micro-retouch on the flaking surface; 29, from totals of 74 and 41 respectively), although mi- 2 fragmentary flakes; and 3 bladelet fragments, two of croliths, and scrapers on flakes and rabots, are present which (22 x 11 x 3 mm, 34 x 10 x 3 mm) showed signs of in both. Layer 8 similarly produced few lithic artifacts: retouch and/or use. only two tools are recorded, one as a utilized blade and A total of 158 stone artifacts were found in the the other as a utilized flake. The lowest stratum, layer lower horizon of Area 1 (Table 10.4). They came princi- 9, differs from the upper strata in lacking geometric pally from context 22 (132 out of 158), with the remain- forms, although there are some microliths, including der from contexts 8, 9, 10, 19, 20, 23, and 24 and from the scrapers and microburins, as well as larger forms of cleaning of the section. Most of them consisted of gray scrapers and rabots. Cores are present and are still translucent flint; one hundred of them were small chips described as conical to oval. and chunks (maximum dimension <10 mm) from a >2 The absence of geometric microliths in layer 9 mm sample recovered by wet-sieving (using a flotation suggested to Markov that the DDC 2 rockshelter was machine) from context 22. Context 22 also produced a probably first occupied in the late Upper Palaeolithic broken bladelet (25 x 72 mm) with an abrupt truncation or early Mesolithic, and that the strata immediately forming a point, the proximal end of a bladelet (10 x 62 above this layer therefore dated from the Mesolithic mm) with lateral retouch, and a further 30 flakes and to the early Neolithic. Numerous fragments of pottery flake fragments and a burin spall. This is the only con- were retrieved in and above layer 3, but only 11 very text from the 1997 excavations at DDC 2 that probably small pieces were found in layer 4 and just 1 sherd represents a single knapping episode which took place in layer 5 (Markov 1966a:108–9; 1966b:86; Section in the vicinity of the archaeological deposit (although 10.5). Layer 3 is thus the earliest layer with convinc- it could alternatively represent a deposit of waste col- ing evidence of ceramic artifacts and, interestingly, it lected elsewhere and dumped here). Other pieces found displays much lithic continuity with layer 4, including include a CTE (40 x 24 x 12 mm) from context 8 with the use of geometric microliths. It therefore probably evidence of previous flake removals, as well as a small dates to the early Neolithic. Layer 2, which has fewer bipolar core or pièce esquillée (36 x 25 x 19 mm) and a microliths, was thought by Markov to date to the later complete bladelet (36 x 9 x 2 mm) retouched to form an Neolithic or Bronze Age (especially on the grounds “arched beaten edge” (type 56 in Tixier 1963). Context that a bronze artifact was found in it). 9 contained a complete retouched bladelet (44 x 12 x 3 mm) with a perçoir-like notch at the proximal end, and 2 additional flake fragments that were recovered when Lithic Artifacts from the 1997 Excavations the section was cleaned. Another CTE was found in at Dam Dam Cheshme 2 and 3 context 10, with scraper-like retouch on the distal end (32 x 22 x 9 mm). Contexts 19 and 20 each produced a Dam Dam Cheshme 1 fragment of a bladelet that could be refitted (and then One unretouched chert bladelet 20 mm long of measured 34 x 11 x 4 mm). Contexts 23 and 24 con- no diagnostic value was recovered from test pit 3 in tained, respectively, 4 and 3 flake fragments, with one deposits at the rear of the rockshelter that proved to of the latter being a proximal fragment with scraper-like consist of backfill from previous excavation. retouch on the dorsal surface. Twelve further flakes and fragments were found (including the two in context 9 Dam Dam Cheshme 2, Area 1 mentioned above) when the section was cleaned. Only 8 stone artifacts were found in the upper horizon of Area 1 (Table 10.4). A single light-pink flake Dam Dam Cheshme 2, Area 2 fragment (24 mm long, 21 mm wide, and 11 mm thick), Twenty-four stone artifacts were recovered possibly exposed to fire and with light retouch, was during excavation of Area 2 (Table 10.4). Two flake recovered from one of the upper contexts (context 2), or blade fragments came from context 100 and also t h e b o l s h o i ba lk h a n sites: a n a ly s i s o f excavat ed m at e r i a l s 205

Table 10.4 Stone artifacts found at DDC 2, Areas 1 and 2, in 1997.

DDC 2 Cores CTE Flakes/Blades Retouched Burins Awl Chips Totals bladelets borers Area 1 Upper 1 1 5 1 0 0 0 8 Area 1 Lower 1 2 49 4 1 1 100 158 Area 2 0 1? 16 3 0 0 4 24

the proximal end of a blade (45 x 15 x 4 mm) which of animals (e.g., geometric microliths for composite showed retouch and signs of use on both lateral edges. hunting/fishing tools, and scrapers for defleshing and In context 101 a complete bladelet was found (32 x scaling), and associated maintenance and production 12 x 3 mm), and a further 3 fragments of bladelets of tools (i.e., chips and chunks and core-trimming ele- were found in contexts 102 and 103. A possible CTE ments). The presence of pottery fragments in the level was found in context 104, together with 3 bladelet 3 assemblage at DDC 2 may reflect a longer-term oc- fragments. Context 105 contained a blade (42 x 19 cupation (perhaps linked to use of the rockshelter by x 7 mm), a bladelet (29 x 13 x 2 mm), and 2 bladelet shepherds?), although the primary purpose of the tool fragments, as well as 3 chips recovered by wet sieving assemblage (with its microliths, scrapers, and drills) and another similarly recovered from context 106. is still consistent with hunting/fishing and processing Context 107 produced 2 flakes, one of which is the activities. In all levels there are—notably in compari- distal end of a flake (14 x 14 x 3 mm) with a possibly son with the Jeitun lithic assemblage—few examples retouched concave edge. Two additional bladelets in of longer blades suitable for cutting plants and no context 108 had probably been detached from the grindstones suitable for processing cereal grains or same core, and context 110 yielded a medial blade other seeds, which further supports the interpretation segment (31 x 20 x 4 mm). Context 112 also contained that occupations of the rockshelters related primarily a blade (34 x 13 x 4 mm) that appears to have been to hunting and fishing activities. scorched by fire. There are very few obviously chronologically diagnostic pieces, although the small size of the blades Dam Dam Cheshme 3 and bladelets suggests a Mesolithic or (early?) Neolithic Two trenches were excavated in this small rock- date. Bipolar cores were used during both the Meso- shelter. Ten stone artifacts were found, all in trench lithic and the Neolithic, and there are many examples 1. The only pieces of note were a large unretouched of this type of material, as well as more typically Meso- primary flake (48 x 52 x 15 mm) from context 3 and a lithic small tools such as geometric microliths, in the small transverse scraper on a cortical flake (20 x 30 x 9 lithic assemblage from early Neolithic Jeitun (this vol- mm) from context 7. Eight chips and chunks were also ume, pp. 180–85). Without additional supporting lithic recovered from contexts 29 (1), 52 (3), and 52 (4). and/or other evidence, or a larger sample complete with diagnostic tools, it is unfortunately impossible to be any more precise than to attribute the stone tools Conclusion from the 1997 excavations at the DDC rockshelters to the Mesolithic/Neolithic. However, the stone tools The lithic material excavated in 1997 at DDC 1, previously excavated by Markov, especially the lack of 2, and 3 consisted mainly of small blades and flakes geometric microliths in the lowest layers at DDC 2, is and small chips and chunks that probably represent suggestive of an initial occupation in the late Upper in-situ knapping activities. The range of debris and Palaeolithic, succeeded by several Mesolithic and Neo- tools in all levels is consistent with several short-term lithic strata, and in the uppermost layers (1 and 2) some occupations related to the hunting and processing evidence of Bronze Age occupation. 206 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

uring the 1997 field season, small quantities of pottery were recovered by the British team from sites in the DBolshoi Balkhan region, principally from the Dam Dam Cheshme rockshelters. However, study of the pottery was not a primary objective of the trial excavations carried out that year. The comprehensive excavations of DDC 1 and 2 undertaken by G. E. Markov in the 1960s (this volume, pp. 57–58) yielded substantial amounts of pottery which, together with the stone tools, provided the basis (in the absence of systematic radiocarbon dating) for the chronological sequence that he proposed. In Section 10.5, Jennifer Coolidge summarizes Markov’s descriptions of the pottery from DDC 1, 2, and 3, and also provides, for the record, brief accounts of the sherds found in 1997 at DDC 2 and 3 and at three other sites in the region: Oyukli, Joyruk, and Bashkovdan.

Section 10.5 Pottery from the roughly made vessels with a curved neck and round Dam Dam Cheshme Rockshelters or pointed bottom. In some cases the vessels were pol- ished and ornamented with horizontal incised bands and Other Sites in the or horizontal incised zigzags. Layer 4 contained only Bolshoi Balkhan Region a few unspecified sherds.

Jennifer Coolidge Sherds from the 1997 Excavations The four exploratory test pits that we excavated in this large rockshelter in 1997 yielded only two or Dam Dam Cheshme 1 three non-diagnostic sherds which add no new infor- mation to Markov’s ceramic assemblage. The Pottery Excavated by Markov in the 1960s The ceramic assemblage from DDC 1 described by Markov (1981:44–45) provided (together with the Dam Dam Cheshme 2 stone tools) the typological framework for the chrono- logical sequence he proposed. Pottery was present in The Pottery Excavated by Markov in the 1960s four of the five cultural layers that he recognized, but At DDC 2 Markov based his chronological se- none was found in the fifth, lowest layer. He identi- quence mainly on the pottery, which came from the fied three basic forms of small vessels: those with upper five layers of the deposit (Markov 1966a:108– an outward curving rim and inward curving neck, 9).The sherds from layer 1 were badly trampled and rounded body, flat bottom, and no ornamentation; crushed. However, layer 2 yielded 458 fragments, vessels with a straight neck without a protruding 141 of which were wheel-turned, and 317 of which rim, ornamented with horizontal incised bands (the were from coil-made vessels. There were 23 rim frag- bottom shape could not be determined); and small ments, 8 bottom fragments, and 276 body sherds ornamented bowls. from the coil vessels. On the basis of this dataset, The sherds from layer 1 were crushed and their Markov distinguished eight main ceramic types forms were unrecognizable. Layer 2 contained both or groups. Group 1 consisted of rim fragments of wheel-turned (126 fragments) and coil-made (214 high quality from polished vessels with decoration fragments) vessels. The wheel-turned pottery was thin- in the form of uneven triangles filled with slanting walled, polished, of high quality, and interpreted by lines. Group 2 consisted of thin-walled vessels with Markov as imported or intrusive. The coil vessels were incised rim, elongated narrow neck, and a rounded roughly made, red or yellow in color, and constructed body. Group 3 were flat-bottomed bowls with curved of a high-shrinkage clay with an unspecified type of rims. Group 4 were kitchen vessels with evidence of temper. In the lower part of layer 2 there were frag- sooting. Group 5 consisted of vessels with a short ments of polished, thin-walled grayware with hori- neck and curved rim 8–20 cm in diameter. Group 6 zontal and zigzag incised decoration, which Markov were vessels with walls 0.5–0.6 cm thick and curved classified separately from the above types. Layer 3 rims 10–12 cm in diameter. Group 7 consisted of contained 138 fragments of coil pottery consisting of flat-bottomed, rounded vessels with a rim diameter t h e b o l s h o i ba lk h a n sites: a n a ly s i s o f excavat ed m at e r i a l s 207 of 4–28 cm and walls 0.5–0.8 cm thick. Group 8 brown wares. Two of the intermediate-ware sherds contained many varying fragments of polished, well- were from wheel-turned vessels. made, black, gray, or brown vessels decorated with geometric motifs. Markov attributed all the vessels from layer 2, especially the flat-bottomed ones, to Oyukli (see this volume, p. 117) the Bronze Age. Layer 3 yielded 174 vessel fragments most of This open-air site north of the Bolshoi Balkhan which were wheel-turned (12 rims, 118 body sherds, range (Fig. 4.1) was visited by members of the British 27 fragments of gray, black, or brown polished ware, team in 1997. Two test pits revealed sand to a depth and 17 unidentifiable pieces). They were broadly rep- of 1 m, lacking stratification or artifacts. A few sherds resentative of groups 4 and 5 from layer 2. Markov collected from the deflated surface of the site ap- reported one coil vessel with a “comb” decoration peared to be Neolithic. They included 5 examples in the form of triangles, one inside another. Layer of coarsewares, 9 of intermediate wares, and 2 of 4 contained only 11 very small vessel fragments. finewares. One of the five coarseware sherds con- Layer 5 contained one sherd from a coil pot (Markov tained organic inclusions typical of Jeitun-Culture 1966b:86). No sherds were found in the lowest layers pottery, whereas the other four contained calcite and/ (6–9) excavated. or quartz inclusions typical of the Keltiminar-Culture Markov’s descriptions of the DDC 2 ceramics are and Keltiminar-related pottery of the Boshoi Balkhan much less detailed and informative than Okladnikov’s and northern Karakum. The intermediate wares all of the pottery from the Jebel rockshelter farther west contained quartz or calcite temper, and both the in the Bolshoi Balkhan massif (Okladnikov 1956:35– fineware sherds, one of redware and one of grayware, 188). Nevertheless, basing his chronological sequence were wheel-turned. mainly on the DDC 2 ceramic typology, Markov went on to make unsubstantiated comparisons with other sites. For example, he stated (1966a:122) not only that Joyruk (see this volume, p. 117) layer 4 at DDC 2 represented the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic but also that it was contem- This open-air site is located close to a large poraneous with the occupation of Jeitun—an assump- meander of the Uzboi channel (Fig. 4.1). It was visited tion disputed by Masson and Sarianidi (1972:170, note in 1997 but no excavations were undertaken. Surface 3), who argued that layer 3 at DDC 2 was synchronous collection yielded a few sherds including 1 piece of with Jeitun. organic-tempered fine redware and 5 examples of intermediate wares (3 of redware and 2 of buffware) Sherds from the 1997 Excavations with evidence of both organic and quartz and calcite Our small-scale excavations in DDC 2 yielded a tempering. Three of the sherds were wheel-turned— few buffware and orangeware sherds from handmade the fine redware one and one each of the intermediate sand-tempered vessels, but they were of no diagnostic redware and buffware pieces—which suggests that value. they are probably of Bronze Age or later date.

Dam Dam Cheshme 3 Bashkovdan (see this volume, p. 116)

The Pottery from the 1997 Excavations Bashkovdan consists of three rockshelters in a The ceramic assemblage excavated by the Brit- canyon on the southern side of the Bolshoi Balkhan ish team at DDC 3 consisted of 55 sherds: 6 pieces of range (Fig. 4.1). A test pit in one of them yielded sev- coarseware, 5 of fineware, and 44 examples of inter- eral sherds, probably from a vessel of medieval date mediate wares. The coarseware sherds included buff, as indicated by the highly sophisticated wheel-turned gray, and red wares, all with quartz and calcite tem- production technique, but it was impossible to de- pering. The fineware and intermediate-ware sherds termine the exact form of the vessel. The fabric was included quartz- and calcite-tempered buff, gray, and orangeware with large quartz inclusions.

11 Neolithic Settlement and Subsistence

he aim of this and the final chapter is to draw of AMS radiocarbon dates on-site in the 1990s, Jeitun Ttogether from the varied evidence already pre- attained the status of the earliest known agricultural sented general conclusions, at local and regional settlement in Central Asia. scales, about the nature of the Jeitun settlement and Masson interpreted Jeitun as a small sedentary how it and other agro-pastoral settlements became settlement of the 6th millennium BCE that was oc- established in western Central Asia during the Neo- cupied year-round by a population of 150–180 people lithic. Although in many areas east of the Caspian who lived as nuclear families in one-room mudbrick there is as yet little direct, firmly dated bioarchaeo- houses, made stone tools and pottery, and subsisted logical evidence of crops and domestic animals, suf- by cultivating cereals, herding goats and sheep, and ficient is now known about Neolithic settlement and hunting gazelles and other wild mammals (Masson subsistence in Turkmenistan and adjacent areas to 1971; Masson and Sarianidi 1972:36–44). This picture enable a series of at least tentative conclusions to be of Jeitun was based primarily on the evidence revealed presented. In this chapter attention is focused first by Masson’s comprehensive excavation of what he on Jeitun itself and its relationship with other sites designated the second building level or phase of oc- where there is evidence of Neolithic occupation, and cupation. He also investigated some lower structures second on the Jeitun Culture as a whole and its pos- of what he believed, following the initial sounding of sible relationship to Neolithic settlements in northern the site by Kuftin and Muruschenko in 1952 (Kuftin Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, northeastern Iran, and 1956), to be part of a five-phase sequence, but he northern Afghanistan. Then, in the final chapter, the was not able to determine when the settlement was fundamental question of how agriculture began in founded, how long it had been occupied, and whether western Central Asia is debated. occupation had been continuous. One of the main aims of our work at Jeitun was therefore to investigate the early history of the site by excavating its lower lay- Jeitun ers. By using the fine-grain techniques described in Chapter 8, while excavating structures in the lower The Nature and Duration of Occupation levels, probing the mound elsewhere in a series of test of the Site pits, and obtaining 11 radiocarbon dates on-site, we were able to show that Jeitun was probably only oc- Ever since V. M. Masson began to publish the re- cupied for three or four centuries at most and that at sults of his pioneering excavations at Jeitun in the late least parts of the site were episodically abandoned and 1950s, and especially after the significance of his work re-occupied. Our conclusion that Jeitun was a short- at the site was widely recognized by Soviet and Western lived settlement, which may not have been inhabited prehistorians in the 1960s, Jeitun has been regarded continuously throughout its history, suggests a less as the type site of the Neolithic Jeitun Culture of the stable long-term occupation than Masson envisaged, Kopetdag piedmont. Furthermore, despite the fact although this apparent difference of emphasis may that it was not directly dated until we obtained a suite be due to the fact that the upper levels he excavated 212 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia provided evidence of more extensive and continuous Craft Activities occupation than the lower ones we investigated—a Studies of the artifacts found at Jeitun by Mas- contrast that may reflect an increase of the Jeitun son and his colleagues, particularly G. F. Korobkova’s population over one or two centuries. analyses of the stone tools, revealed a diverse range These uncertainties about the duration and of forms and functions in lithic and ceramic technol- intensity of occupation of Jeitun include the possibil- ogy, as well as in the manufacture of bone tools for ity that it was not inhabited continuously year round processing animal skins and fashioning awls, needles, and from year to year by the whole population, and and beads. A notable feature of the stone tool technol- they raise the question of the relation of the site to its ogy was the high frequency of geometric microliths, local environment. As has been emphasized in earlier especially those used as sickle blades (inserted into chapters, Jeitun was located in an unstable environ- straight bone handles), which constituted 37% of the ment on the ecotone between the lower piedmont and total number of stone tools recovered in the course of the southern Karakum on the terminal alluvial fan the Russian excavations. The handmade pottery was of the Kara Su. The site was prone to floods from the chaff-tempered, with 12% of the assemblage deco- mountains and incursions of sand from the desert, as rated in simple red patterns, mainly on fragments of is indicated by the sequence of palaeosols and aeolian bowls (Masson and Sarianidi 1972:40–41). Our much sand revealed in the sections exposed in a modern more limited excavations replicated these features irrigation drainage ditch near the site. Thus it is pos- of the material culture, and we did not discover any sible that environmental instability may have led to significant differences between the types of artifacts discontinuity of occupation of the mound, if, as the we found in the lower levels and those that had previ- sedimentary evidence suggests, it was subject to rapid ously been found in the upper levels. For example, changes in the local regime of erosion and deposition. the small assemblage of animal bones we recovered in On the other hand, it is also possible that such changes 1993 and 1994 contained clear evidence of the manu- were moderated by the existence of a more continu- facture of beads from cylinders of bone (Fig. 9.24, ous vegetation cover when the site was occupied at c. color), confirming earlier on-site finds of bone beads; 6000 cal. BCE, in the early part of the mid-Holocene sickle blades were the major type of tool in the small Climatic Optimum—although that may have been knapped-stone assemblage from our 1994 excavation counterbalanced by progressive degradation of veg- of House B (the lowest structure excavated at Jeitun) etation and soils due to the cumulative impact on the and adjacent yard areas, as they were also in the upper landscape around the site of cereal cultivation, brows- levels; and our finds from Houses A and B and the as- ing and grazing livestock, and the exploitation of trees sociated yard areas included clay figurines and trun- and shrubs for fuel and building materials. Without cated cones just like those found at higher levels. much more comprehensive excavation at Jeitun than Masson believed that craft activities at Jeitun, we were able to accomplish, the question of whether which included wood working and the processing of the site was occupied continuously by the whole popu- animal skins as well as the manufacture of pottery and lation throughout its relatively brief life, or whether stone and bone tools, were carried out by individual part or all of the site was intermittently abandoned families, mainly in the yard areas between houses, and re-occupied, cannot be resolved, but the evidence although he inferred, from the general absence of we obtained from the lower levels of the mound does ceramic waste on-site except east of Platform A (Fig. indicate at least some discontinuity of occupation. 8.1), that pottery was fired communally in that part of the site (Masson 1971:96–97). From her compre- hensive analysis of the pottery from Jeitun (and other The Early Neolithic Economy Jeitun-Culture sites), Coolidge (2005:103) concluded that Jeitun vessels were probably fired in hearth pits Despite the brevity and possible discontinuity or open fires outside the habitation area (and see this of occupation at Jeitun, it is clear that the inhabitants volume, pp. 188–89). Our investigations did not in- exploited locally available raw materials to make stone clude searching for clay deposits that could have been tools, pottery, and other items of material culture at used for making pottery at Jeitun (a task made very the site, and depended for their subsistence on a mix difficult by the recent large-scale modification of the of hunting, herding, and cultivation. local landscape for irrigation agriculture), but sources n e o l i t h i c set tlement a n d subsistence 213 of clay in the alluvial-fan deposits of the Kara Su were the piedmont and desert edge. The goitered gazelle probably available close to the site, as was the water and is more heavily represented in the bone assemblages fuel needed for pottery production. Indeed, supplies of than any other wild species and appears to have firewood from tamarisk and other trees growing beside been the principal hunted animal. Although only the channels of the Kara Su, as well as desert shrubs a remnant population now survives in the Badghyz such as black saksaul which provides high-quality fire- Natural Reserve, gazelles formerly migrated season- wood, would have been available near the site, and it is ally between summer grazing grounds in the foothills possible that dead, fallen branchwood may have been of the Kopetdag and winter grazing in the Karakum, an additional seasonal source of fuel (this volume, p. and migrating herds could have been intercepted 170). Likewise, although the sources of the types of relatively easily by hunters from Jeitun. Saigas, too, stone used in tool manufacture—mainly fine-grained formerly used to migrate seasonally into the Karakum. cryptocrystalline quartz (referred to as chert) used in They migrated from the steppes north of the Caspian blade making and also sandstone used more rarely for and Aral Seas, where they spent the spring and sum- making pestles, mortars, and querns—are unknown, mer, into the Karakum for winter grazing, sometimes it is probable that they were locally available, perhaps moving as far south as the foothills of the western and in coarse channel deposits on the piedmont. There is central Kopetdag. A few saiga bones were identified also no evidence of systematic exchange of pottery or by Kasparov at Jeitun and also at the Chalcolithic/ other items of material culture with other settlements, Bronze Ages sites of Ilgynly-depe and Altyn-depe which reinforces the picture of Jeitun as essentially a on the piedmont (Kasparov 1992:51, 61; 1994:148). self-sufficient community in which domestic produc- Their rarity implies that saigas were only occasionally tion in households was the norm, with almost all raw hunted, and Kasparov has suggested that they (and materials being obtained locally. also onagers, which have not been recorded at Jeitun) may not have been well adapted to the relatively humid Hunting climate of the mid Holocene. Wild urial sheep and Most of the resources on which the population bezoar goats may also have been only occasionally of Jeitun depended for their food supply were also hunted from Jeitun because very few of their bones available locally, but whereas wheat and barley were have been found there. Although in small assemblages probably cultivated close to the site, domestic goats of fragmented bones it is difficult to distinguish con- and sheep would have been herded over greater dis- clusively the wild forms from domestic sheep and tances, and the hunting of the larger wild herbivores goats, Kasparov (1992:51, 61–64) is confident that the may have involved journeys as far as the Kopetdag two wild species are represented at Jeitun. Today they mountains and the Bolshoi Balkhan massif. The bone both survive in small numbers in the Bolshoi Balkhan assemblages excavated by Masson and ourselves are and Kopetdag mountains, but they formerly inhabited too small and fragmentary to enable sound estimates much of Turkmenistan from the Krasnovodsk plateau to be made of the likely contribution of hunted ani- east and south to the Amudarya, the Kopetdag, and mals to the Jeitun economy, and to compare that with the Badghyz plateau, so it is probable that they were the contribution of the herded sheep and goats in hunted from Jeitun in the early Neolithic. terms of meat, milk, skins, and other products. But we Little can be inferred from the stone tools found can infer that hunters from Jeitun procured a variety at Jeitun about the hunting methods used in the early of animals across the desert and piedmont landscapes Neolithic. Masson noted that no arrow- or spear-heads in the vicinity of the site. were found on-site, and he speculated that geometric The medium-sized species, such as red fox, microliths may have been inserted into wooden shafts corsac fox, tolai hare, sand cat, wild (yellow) cat, long- and that slings were used, possibly projected by a type eared hedgehog, steppe tortoise, and perhaps gray of bow (Masson and Sarianidi 1972:44). It is also pos- monitor lizard, would probably have been hunted sible that gazelles were driven into V-shape stone align- mainly in the shrub vegetation growing on the sandy ments (so-called desert kites) where they could more and alluvial soils of the southern Karakum, whereas easily be killed. Such traps are known in Southwest wild boar and manul (steppe) cat, would have been Asia (Helms and Betts 1987; Legge and Rowley-Conwy encountered mainly in tugai forest and thickets along 1987; van Berg et al. 2004), but they have not been the channels of the Kara Su and other watercourses of reported in Turkmenistan. 214 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

The seasonal behavior of some of the animals adults, but that the state of fusion and development suggests when they are likely to have been particularly of the long bones showed a higher number of very targeted by hunters. Thus, although gazelles were young and juvenile animals than the dental remains probably hunted in the winter in the southern Kara- indicated. It is difficult to draw from these three stud- kum and in the summer in the foothills of the Kopet- ies definite conclusions about how the domestic goats dag and on the upper piedmont, they may have been and sheep were exploited at Jeitun, whether mainly most intensively targeted in the spring and autumn by for meat (as well as skins, hair, and wool) or also for intercepting their migrations. In contrast, saigas were milk. There is no direct local evidence of milk use probably only hunted during the winter after they from organic residues in pottery vessels, such as has had migrated south from the steppes into the Kara- been obtained in Southwest Asia and southeastern kum. Most of the other prey species could have been Europe. There, fatty acids of milk fat have been de- procured throughout the year, with the exception of tected in potsherds dating from the 7th to the 6th those that hibernated, such as the steppe tortoise. It millennia BCE (Evershed et al. 2008). If milking was hibernates from the late summer to the early spring practiced at Jeitun, the (more numerous) goats were and would have been most easily caught in April and probably the principal or only providers of milk and May, although it may also have been dug out of its its secondary products because they tend to yield more hibernation burrows at other seasons. milk than sheep. It seems surprising, given the location of Jeitun The detailed analysis by Charles and Bogaard close to the channels of the Kara Su and to varied types of the remains of crops and associated taxa found at of vegetation in the vicinity, that very few fish or bird Jeitun (this volume, Section 9.6) also provides some in- bones were recovered on-site, especially in 1993 and sight into how the domestic sheep and goats were man- 1994 when all samples were dry-sieved through 3–4 mm aged. There is plentiful evidence of charred pellets of mesh and subsamples were wet-sieved to 1 mm. This sheep/goat dung in the plant remains. They are also may be because many of the samples came from house evident in the micromorphological samples of yard rather than yard deposits, and although evidence is deposits studied by Limbrey, and faecal spherulites, meager it is probable that fish and birds did contribute associated with phytoliths of wheat and barley type, to the food supply. Also Kasparov reported (1992:75) are present in the samples analyzed by Larkum (this that long bones of birds (as well as of foxes and hares) volume, Sections 9. 2 and 9.5). The pellets contain the were used in the manufacture of bone beads. seeds of late-flowering plants such as species ofAeluro - pus, Scirpus, and Suaeda that are likely to have matured Herding too late to have been harvested with the cereals. These The role of hunted animals in the Jeitun econ- species tolerate saline soils and are a valuable grazing omy was complemented by the management of do- resource in otherwise unpalatable vegetation, and mesticated goats and sheep. A large percentage of their presence in the plant assemblage suggests that the bones excavated between 1989 and 1994 were the sheep and goats grazed and browsed in brackish identified as from domestic caprines, with a prepon- areas along the banks of the Kara Su and other water- derance of goat over sheep bones. From his analyses courses near Jeitun in the late summer and early au- of the caprine bones, Kasparov (1992, 1994) inferred tumn, after the cereal harvest. The presence of other, that juvenile sheep were killed mainly during autumn less salt-tolerant taxa such as Capparis and Heliotropium, and winter whereas juvenile goats were slaughtered which are indicative of more productive habitats, may mainly in spring and early summer, which could imply that cultivated areas left fallow were also valued imply that the goats were valued as a source of milk as sources of post-harvest grazing. Indeed, if shifting well as meat. However, in his analysis of the caprine cultivation was practiced, as seems probable in the mandibles from the 1989/90 assemblage Legge (1992) unstable environment of the Kara Su’s terminal fan, detected no definite seasonal pattern of slaughter and fallow areas of regenerating vegetation may been an inferred that the animals were exploited year-round important grazing resource. for meat and milk. In their analysis of the 1993/94 Assuming that Jeitun was occupied year-round, bone assemblage (this volume, Section 9.9), Dobney a seasonal pattern of livestock management can be and Jaques concluded, from the evidence of dental- envisaged whereby herds, perhaps reduced by autum- wear stages, that most of the goats and sheep were nal slaughter, were maintained close to the settlement n e o l i t h i c set tlement a n d subsistence 215 through the autumn and winter, with some animals nance of einkorn and the lack of emmer is a result of perhaps tethered and others penned on-site in yard differential preservation. Both einkorn and barley are areas and fed with waste from crop processing. This relatively tolerant of infertile soils, and barley is better may have been followed in spring and summer by a adapted to aridity and soil salinity than other cereal greater emphasis on the daily tending of herds, per- crops (Zohary and Hopf 2000:35, 59). This may ac- haps aided by dogs, in desert and riparian plant com- count, in part at least, for their dominance in the crop munities where the ability of goats to browse woody assemblage, but this possibility must be set against the plants would have complemented the preference of probability that when Jeitun was occupied (early in the sheep to graze herbaceous vegetation. We cannot de- Climatic Optimum) the local climate was more humid termine how far from the settlement the animals may and soils less arid than today. Another possible fac- have been herded. It is conceivable that long-distance tor that may partly account for the predominance of herding, for example to summer pastures beyond the barley and einkorn is their ability to grow in unstable desert, on the piedmont, or even in the foothills of the environments subject to natural and human distur- Kopetdag, took place, but it seems improbable that bance, such as probably characterized the environs such a system of transhumance (Harris 2007:22–23) of Jeitun. Whatever the explanation for the narrow was part of the subsistence economy of Jeitun’s small range of cereals found, it does suggest that crop cul- self-sufficient community. tivation contributed less to the Neolithic economy at Jeitun than it did at Neolithic agro-pastoral sites in Cultivation the Fertile Crescent. Domesticated cereals were the third major Our attempts to resolve the question of whether source of food for the inhabitants of Jeitun. The plant the cereal crops were irrigated have focused mainly remains recovered on-site by the British team include on two sources of evidence: the environmental condi- chaff as well as grains of glume wheat and barley, tions that probably prevailed locally when Jeitun was which indicates that they were cultivated locally, but occupied, and the wild and weedy taxa associated with the narrow range of crops present contrasts with the the cereal remains. In previous publications (Charles wider range commonly recorded at Pottery Neolithic and Hillman 1992; Harris and Gosden 1996; Harris sites in Southwest Asia. In their analysis of the Jeitun and Limbrey 1992; Harris et al. 1993), we argued that plant remains, Charles and Bogaard show that glume rainfall alone would have been insufficient—even wheats, principally (diploid) einkorn but also the re- if it was somewhat greater than the present annual cently recognized type of (probably tetraploid) glume average of c. 200 mm—to sustain the cultivation of wheat (Jones, Valamoti, and Charles 2000), were the wheat and barley, and that cereal cultivation probably dominant crops, with naked and hulled forms of concentrated on areas with high water tables, such as barley also present but less frequent in the crop re- inter-dune depressions fed by floodwaters from the mains. In addition, three specimens of free-threshing Kara Su and infiltration through dunes, and seasonally wheat were tentatively identified, as well as a few sam- flooded takyr surfaces near the site. We acknowledged ples that derive either from the new glume wheat or that the crops might also have been irrigated, but did from emmer wheat. There is no evidence that legume not regard irrigation as necessary for the successful (pulse) crops were cultivated, as they frequently were, cultivation of cereals at Jeitun. Charles’ and Bogaard’s with cereals, in Neolithic Southwest Asia. The appar- identification of potential weed taxa of arable cultiva- ent absence of emmer is particularly surprising in view tion in the plant assemblage has since shown that the of its role as one of the principal cereals of Neolithic most probable weeds of cereal cultivation were spe- agriculture in the Southwest Asian Fertile Crescent, as cies of Aegilops and Eremopyrum, the second of which is, conversely, the dominance of einkorn in the Jeitun typically grows in dry habitats. However, they conclude assemblage. Both of these apparent anomalies raise that without data from comparisons between (present- questions about the role of cereal cultivation in the day) rainfed and irrigated fields, or of archaeobotani- Jeitun economy. cal evidence of weed ecology at Jeitun and a site where Even though the plant remains recovered at Jei- rainfed cultivation is known to have been practiced, tun came from a limited range of contexts in buildings the “question of whether the cereals at Jeitun were and associated yard areas, they are abundant in the rainfed or irrigated or grown on areas of high water deposits and it seems very unlikely that the predomi- table, or cultivated by some combination of these tech- 216 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia niques, cannot be determined” (this volume, p. 164). as components of sheep and goat dung. There is no The archaeobotanical evidence for or against other direct evidence in the samples of wild plants irrigation at Jeitun is thus inconclusive, but Limbrey’s likely to have been gathered for food, but many spe- and Wilkinson’s geoarchaeological investigations of cies with edible seeds, fruits, leaves, roots, and tubers the sequence of three palaeosols (buried soils) close to are native to the plant communities of the piedmont the site (this volume, Sections 9.3 and 9.4) do provide and foothills of the Kopetdag. They include trees, tentative evidence of some form of water manage- shrubs, and climbers that yield edible nuts and fruits, ment. Limbrey’s discovery, in the middle and upper some of which, such as almond and pistachio, formerly palaeosols of two artificially cut ditch-like features, grew extensively (and until recently were systemati- one above the other, and Wilkinson’s excavation of cally harvested) on the piedmont, and others, such as part of the upper one that was found to trend toward wild apple, pear, plum, cherry, fig, pomegranate, and the mound, coupled with the AMS radiocarbon dates grape, that are part of the diverse flora of the shiblyak from charcoal in the palaeosols which demonstrate and broadleaf forests of the Sumbar, Chandyr, and that all three soils developed contemporaneously with other intermontane valleys of the Kopetdag. the occupation of Jeitun, reinforce the possibility that Such plant foods were probably exploited casu- small-scale irrigation was part of the Neolithic system ally, for example during hunting trips from Jeitun, but of cultivation. we found no evidence that nuts or other transportable In her study of the sequence, Limbrey also and storable wild-plant foods were consumed at the found abundant evidence of potsherds and frag- site. Likewise, we lack evidence to answer the interest- ments of mudbrick, as well as charcoal, in the soils. ing question of whether seeds of any of the perennial She concluded that the lowest (earliest) palaeosol, steppe grasses of the piedmont were collected for which formed on alluvium of the Kara Su’s termi- consumption during the Neolithic, or perhaps earlier, nal fan, would have provided an area well suited to before domesticated wheat and barley began to be cultivation due to the water-storage capacity of the cultivated in southern Turkmenistan. More extensive alluvium and sufficient soil drainage to promote the excavation and archaeobotanical research at pied- leaching of soluble salts, while shifting locations of mont sites of the Jeitun Culture (and at any Mesolithic cropping areas would limit any salt accumulation that sites that may be discovered) would be required to de- may have resulted if irrigation was carried out. She termine whether wild plants made more that a casual further suggested that later encroachment of blown contribution to the diet, but the possibility remains sand (evident in the sequence) on to cultivated areas, that they did at least supplement the staple foods pro- perhaps accentuated by local degradation of vegeta- vided by hunting, herding, and cereal cultivation. tion and soils by livestock and the cutting of wood, created a substrate for soils that had poorer access Conclusion to groundwater. This may have stimulated attempts While it is clear that Jeitun’s population de- at water management, but as blown sand continued pended for their food supply on a combination of to accumulate, the availability of alluvial soils suited hunting, herding, and cereal cultivation, the evidence to cultivation would have been reduced, and, even from the small assemblages of animal bones and plant if small-scale irrigation was carried out, the deterio- remains analyzed does not provide an adequate basis rating soil environment may eventually have led to on which to estimate reliably the relative contribution abandonment of the site. to the Neolithic economy of these three modes of food procurement and production. Nevertheless, the high Wild-plant Foods percentages of bones of domestic goats and sheep It is impossible to tell from the available archae- identified in the 1989/90 and 1993/94 assemblages botanical evidence whether wild-plant foods were suggest that herding made a major contribution to regularly gathered and consumed by people living at subsistence. The almost ubiquitous occurrence of ce- Jeitun. Capparis seeds were present in 32 of the samples real material in the plant samples, together with the analyzed and caper fruits, which have traditionally abundance and regularity of the Jeitun sickle blades, been collected for human consumption (Rivera et al. point to the important role of cereal cultivation, but 2002), may have been deliberately gathered, although the fact that the only staple crops cultivated at Jeitun it seems more probable that the seeds arrived on-site were glume wheat and barley contrasts strikingly with n e o l i t h i c set tlement a n d subsistence 217 the more comprehensive combination of nutrition- volume, p. 58; Okladnikov 1953:31). There is no indi- ally complementary cereals and pulses found at Neo- cation in Jeitun’s archaeological record of systematic lithic sites in Southwest Asia (Garrard 1999; Harris exchange of pottery or other artifacts, but contacts 1990a:27, 42; 2002b:33). The narrow range of cereals are likely to have taken place both with other early found at Jeitun may be related to local conditions of settlements of the Jeitun Culture on the Kopetdag aridity, soil salinity, and environmental instability, piedmont, and with the Keltiminar-related sites of the but even if that were so their cultivation would have Bolshoi Balkhan region. contributed less to subsistence than did crop cultiva- Unfortunately, lack of well-dated evidence pre- tion at Neolithic sites around the Fertile Crescent. vents close comparison of Jeitun with contemporary Conversely, hunting probably made a relatively greater Early Neolithic settlements near Jeitun or farther away contribution at Jeitun—a speculation that is sup- on the piedmont. Only two of the other Jeitun-Culture ported by the presence of geometric microliths in the sites—Chopan and Togolok, both of which are located stone-tool assemblage, which, as Conolly points out close to Jeitun at the junction of the piedmont and the (this volume, p. 185), are typical components of early desert (Fig. 6.1)—are known to have Early-Jeitun (be- Holocene hunter-gatherer sites throughout Eurasia. neath Middle-Jeitun) levels of occupation, and only one Hunting appears to have been a major subsistence of them, Togolok, has been radiocarbon dated. The activity throughout the occupation of the site, and Togolok determination (BLN 718, Hiebert 2002a:29) Conolly suggests that the microliths may represent gives a calibrated date of c. 6000 cal. BCE and so in- the continuation of an earlier indigenous hunting dicates occupation contemporary with Jeitun, and the technology, a possibility that has implications for our lower levels at both sites show general similarities to understanding of how agriculture began in southern Jeitun in architecture and artifacts. It is probable that Turkmenistan (this volume, p. 233). contacts took place, perhaps regularly, between the occupants of all three sites, but until more excavation and direct dating is undertaken at these and other Evidence of Connections between Jeitun piedmont sites no more definite conclusions can be and Other Neolithic Sites reached about the nature of such contacts. One prom- ising site is the large, deeply stratified mound at Bami Before considering, in the next main section in the western (Arkash) region which Berdiev (1963b) of this chapter, the nature of the Jeitun Culture as a partly excavated (this volume, p. 61). Renewed investi- whole, the question arises as to what connections may gation, there and elsewhere, is needed to determine have existed in the Early Neolithic between Jeitun whether there is evidence at piedmont sites of the type itself and other settlement sites and cultural groups. of agro-pastoral-hunting economy practiced at Jeitun, As has already been emphasized, Jeitun appears to particularly the narrow focus found there on glume have been a small, essentially self-sufficient commu- wheats and barley, goats and sheep. nity based on household domestic production and The long stratigraphic sequences at the Jebel the exploitation of locally available resources. Very and Dam Dam Cheshme (DDC) rockshelters in the little evidence of raw materials or items of material Bolshoi Balkhan evidently include periods of Neolithic culture of exotic origin has been discovered at the site. occupation contemporaneous with Jeitun, but they are Some beads made of sea shell and one of turquoise not sufficiently dated to enable close correlations to be were found by Masson (1971:14, 40, 200), neither of made. Five radiocarbon dates were obtained at Jebel, which would have been available close to Jeitun. The the first in the 1950s by the excavator Okladnikov nearest sources of turquoise were probably in the and the other four in 1976 by P. M. Dolukhanov, but mountains of northern Khorassan near Neyshabour no samples from Markov’s excavations at DDC 1 and (Fig. 6.1) and in the uplands of the central Kyzylkum 2 were dated. All five dates were calibrated for this (Kohl 1984:61–63; Tosi 1973–74:43–44). Turquoise volume and the results revealed quite close accord be- beads may therefore have reached Jeitun as a result of tween Okladnikov’s sample from his “early Neolithic” contacts with other groups to the east or south, and layer 4 dated to 5500–4400 BCE and Dolukhanov’s the shell beads probably came in similar fashion from lowest sample, from the early Neolithic, dated to the Caspian where, for example, many were found in 5300–4890 BCE (this volume, p. 57). The two dates Neolithic human burials close to the Kailyu cave (this indicate that the transition from the Mesolithic to the 218 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Neolithic occupation at Jebel occurred at least 500 more detailed site-by-site descriptions are provided by years after the foundation of Jeitun. Coolidge (2005:23–40). Here only certain aspects are The lack of radiocarbon dates from Markov’s emphasized, before its putative relationship with Neo- excavations make chronological comparison of the lithic sites in northern Turkmenistan and in adjacent sequences at DDC 1 and 2 with Jeitun even more regions in Uzbekistan, Iran, and Afghanistan is con- speculative, and while Markov inferred that his “Neo- sidered. As a whole the Jeitun Culture encompasses lithic” layer 4 at DDC 2 was synchronous with Jeitun, some 17 sites with evidence of Neolithic occupation Masson and Sarianidi believed that layer 3 was the spread unevenly along the piedmont from Bacha Well contemporaneous level (this volume, p. 84). These in the west to Gadymi, Chagylly, and Chakmakli c. 450 conflicting interpretations had a bearing on the ques- km to the east (Fig. 6.1). The sites consist of tells of tion of whether any of the goat and sheep bones varying size as well as surface scatters of potsherds and from layers 4 and 3 at DDC 2 represented domestic stone tools, and their chronology spans approximately animals, as Markov, following Tsalkin’s (insecure) 1,400 years from c. 6100 to c. 4500 cal. BCE. identifications, believed they did, which in turn led On the basis of lithic, ceramic, and architec- Masson and Sarianidi to infer that domestic goats tural changes, Berdiev (1969) divided the Jeitun were present at DDC 2 before Jeitun was occupied and Culture into three phases, Early, Middle, and Late could have been domesticated there. Also, Korobkova Jeitun, and grouped the sites geographically into a (1969) stressed similarities she observed between the central cluster of Early- and Middle-Jeitun sites, a stone-tool assemblages excavated at Jeitun and at the western one of Late-Jeitun sites, and an eastern one of Bolshoi Balkhan rockshelters, especially the presence Late-Jeitun sites overlain by Eneolithic (Chalcolithic) of microliths at both, and she even proposed that the levels of the Anau IA phase. Kohl (1984:46) adopted Kopetdag piedmont was originally settled in the Meso- a similar threefold division, but he amalgamated lithic by migrants from the Caspian area who became Berdiev’s central and western clusters, drew attention the founders of the Jeitun Culture. to the absence of known sites between the central Such speculations cannot now be tested, be- and eastern clusters, and referred to this gap as the cause, as our investigations at DDC 2 showed (this Darreh Gaz (Dargaz) zone (Fig. 6.1). Finally, Hiebert volume, pp. 114–15), further excavation of the small (2002a:26–28) followed Berdiev’s geographical divi- remaining amount of undisturbed cultural deposit is sion, designated the three regions by their Turkmen most unlikely to provide a long sequence containing names—Arkash (western), Akhal (central), and Etek datable animal bones and plant remains that could be (eastern, which included Kohl’s Darreh Gaz zone)— correlated with Markov’s stratigraphy. However, de- renamed Berdiev’s Early, Middle, and Late Jeitun spite these deficiencies in the archaeological record, sequence Kopet Dag (KD) 1, 2, and 3, and on the basis there is some slight evidence of contact between the of all the radiocarbon dates then available assigned rockshelters and Jeitun. It consists of a few sand-tem- approximate (calibrated) ages to the three periods: pered potsherds of Keltiminar type that were found KD1 6100–5700 BCE, KD2 5700–5100 BCE, and KD3 at Jeitun, and some fragments of chaff-tempered 5100–4500 BCE. pottery excavated at Jebel by Okladnikov and also col- This pattern of chronologically differentiated lected there on the surface by the British team in 1997 regional clusters of sites suggests that agro-pastoral- (Coolidge 2005:115). ism may have become established first in the cen- tral Akhal region, at Jeitun, Chopan, and Togolok (although it must be remembered that other sites The Jeitun Culture exist, such as Bami in the western region, that have unexcavated Neolithic levels). All three sites are lo- Chronology, Subsistence, and Settlement cated on the terminal fans of rivers that formerly Pattern flowed across the piedmont from their sources in the Kopetdag and petered out in the sands and alluvium The geographical distribution, developmental at the southern edge of the Karakum. Togolok and sequence, and principal features of the Jeitun-Cul- Chopan (which, being 7.5 m high and nearly 2 ha ture settlements of the Kopetdag piedmont and its in extent, is the largest of all known Jeitun-Culture desert fringe have been described in Chapter 6, and sites) were located beside the former Sekisabz (Sekiz- n e o l i t h i c set tlement a n d subsistence 219

Yab) river, and Jeitun was close to its local river, the were populated by migrants from Jeitun who moved Kara Su. The layout, architectural features, pottery, upslope across the piedmont in response to desertifica- and stone and bone tools found in the Early-Jeitun tion occurring at the southern edge of the Karakum; levels at Togolok and Chopan closely resemble those and he also suggested (1964b:276) that the eastern at Jeitun and it can be assumed that, in addition to region was subsequently settled by migrants from the hunting, their inhabitants grew wheat and barley central region. Kohl (1984:54–55) related the shift and raised goats and sheep, probably using the same in site location from the desert margin upslope on to methods of cultivation and herding that were used at the piedmont to a change from the seasonal watering Jeitun. Lisitsina (1978:92) recorded wheat and barley of fields at Jeitun, probably by “the simple damming at Chopan (and in Middle- and Late-Jeitun levels at and controlled release of the predictable and relatively Bami and Chagylly), and sheep and goat bones were manageable spring run-offs from the Kopet Dagh,” to found there, as they were at most Jeitun-Culture sites. the controlling of streams on the piedmont “through Also, according to Berdiev (1966:26–27; 1972a:78–79), the construction of true irrigation works.” Another, remains of domestic cattle were recovered from Mid- even more tentative hypothesis to explain why Jeitun dle- and Late-Jeitun levels at Chopan (and Chagylly). was apparently abandoned a few centuries after its But in general there is insufficient well-documented foundation is that it was flooded by the rising waters evidence of crops and domestic animals to chart in any of the so-called Io Sea, but, as was mentioned earlier, detail changes in agro-pastoral production through there is no known local evidence in support of this the successive periods of the Jeitun Culture. speculation (this volume, pp. 22 and 191). There is Despite this lack of evidence of changes in sub- insufficient evidence at present to test any of these sistence, it is possible to discern some major changes hypotheses, but it seems quite possible that settle- in the pattern of settlement. In contrast to the Early- ment of the lower and upper piedmont in Middle- and Jeitun sites on the terminal fans at the edge of the Late-Jeitun times was facilitated by the development desert in the central region, most Middle-Jeitun settle- of more effective systems of irrigation than may have ments are located on the lower and upper piedmont in been practiced at Jeitun, especially if, as suggested the central region (New Nisa, Gievdzhik), western re- earlier in this chapter, environmental instability at the gion (Bami), and eastern region (Chagylly, Monjukli). junction of the piedmont and the desert led eventually The eastern-region site of Gadymi, which Korobkova to the site being abandoned. (1969:58–59) assigned to the Middle Jeitun phase, is not located on the piedmont but at a higher altitude on a terrace of the Chaacha river in the foothills of Was the Jeitun Culture a Cultural and the Kopetdag, and its inhabitants probably depended Economic Entity? more on hunting and herding than on crop cultivation (Korobkova and Volovik 1972:42). By the Late-Jeitun Before examining, in the next two sections, period, after c. 5100 BCE, the settlement cluster in the evidence for possible interaction between the Jeitun eastern region was consolidated: Monjukli continued Culture and the Keltiminar Culture in the Neolithic to be occupied and Chakmakli was founded nearby, and for connections between the Neolithic settlements where evidence of Jeitun-Culture occupation in the of the Kopetdag piedmont and Neolithic sites in north- form of a typical single-room house was found in the eastern Iran and northern Afghanistan, we need to lowest levels (Hiebert 2002a:32). In the western re- consider the question of how far what is labeled the gion, there is also evidence of Late-Jeitun occupation Jeitun Culture represents a unitary phenomenon of at Bami, but in the central region the sites occupied shared cultural attributes and economic activities. in the Middle-Jeitun period appear to have been aban- The perception of it as a distinct entity arises from doned, with the exception of Pessedjik on the bank of its geographical location and the fact that it has been the former Sekisabz river. the focus of intensive research by Russian and Turk- Why these major changes in the Jeitun-Culture men archaeologists. Its confinement to the piedmont settlement pattern took place is not understood, al- zone between the strongly demarcated environmental though various explanations have been proposed. For boundaries of the southern margin of the Karakum example, Berdiev (1965:242) suggested that New Nisa and the northern edge of the Iranian plateau has en- and other Middle-Jeitun sites in the central region couraged perception of it as an isolated phenomenon, a 220 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia view reinforced by the role of the Kopetdag mountains site of Gadymi in the eastern region focused more on as an ancient socio-political boundary and modern hunting and herding than cultivation has been men- national frontier. Its archaeological distinctiveness was tioned, as has the possibility that domestic cattle were recognized when the series of culturally similar Neo- raised at Chopan and Chagylly in Middle- and Late- lithic sites with evidence of agriculture—which came Jeitun times; and it can be assumed that there would to be referred to as the “Jeitun Culture” after Masson’s have been differences from site to site and from period excavations at the type site of Jeitun—was discovered to period in how irrigation and water-management on the piedmont. This coincided with a surge of inter- techniques were used. What is now needed in order est in the 1950s and 1960s among Western, mainly to test such assumptions and acquire a much fuller American, archaeologists in Neolithic sites and the understanding of Jeitun-Culture subsistence is for origins of agriculture in Southwest Asia (Braidwood samples of plant and animal remains from a range and Howe 1960; Flannery 1965, 1968). By the 1970s of sites to be obtained and analyzed—a procedure growing awareness in the West of the presence of early that would in all probability demonstrate that there agricultural sites in southern Turkmenistan, prompted was much greater spatial and temporal variability particularly by Masson’s and his colleagues’ publica- in subsistence activities through the Neolithic than tions in English (Lisitsina 1969; Masson 1961; Masson generalized description of the Jeitun Culture as “ag- and Sarianidi 1972), reinforced the concept of the ricultural” suggests. Jeitun Culture as a coherent, relatively isolated phe- These comments on the concept of the Jeitun nomenon, despite the fact that Masson emphasized, Culture as a distinct entity suggests that while its settle- mainly on the basis of analogous pottery and stone ments shared many common features and gradually tools, possible cultural connections between southern developed greater cultural complexity that led eventu- Turkmenistan and Neolithic sites in Iraq (e.g., Jarmo) ally to larger, more internally differentiated Chalco- and Iran (e.g., Guran, Sarab, Sialk I, and Yarim). lithic and Bronze Age settlements on the piedmont, There is no doubt that, as was explained in the systems of cultivation and livestock management Chapter 6, the Jeitun- Culture settlements shared many that sustained this process were probably more diverse features of material culture and that their inhabitants and locally variable than has generally been assumed. cultivated cereals and raised goats and sheep, but the Hunting evidently made a major contribution to the emphasis on these common denominators of the Jei- economy, although its importance no doubt varied tun Culture has tended to obscure variations within it. from site to site and probably diminished through the The gradual elaboration of architecture through the Neolithic, and it is likely that nuts, fruits, and other Neolithic, for example from sites such as Jeitun with wild-plant resources were also exploited seasonally at only single-room buildings to later ones that also have sites from which they could readily be harvested. multi-room structures, has been demonstrated by comparative study of excavation evidence from Early-, Middle- and Late-Jeitun sites (Hiebert 2002a), but Did Occupants of Jeitun-Culture and equivalent comparative study of trends in subsistence Keltiminar-Culture Sites Interact during has not been attempted. This is not surprising, given the Neolithic? the general failure to recover and analyze animal and especially plant remains, but this has tended to The question of whether anything other than perpetuate the view that the Jeitun Culture as a whole occasional contacts occurred between Jeitun-Culture was essentially dependent on agriculture, and it has settlements and the Keltiminar hunter-fisher-gatherer discouraged investigation of possible differences in groups of northern Turkmenistan and central Uz- emphasis on hunting, herding, and cultivation that bekistan is even more difficult to resolve than the are likely to reflect variations in site location. relationship between Jeitun and other Jeitun-Culture There is very little direct evidence of contrasts in settlements on the piedmont. The difficulty of es- subsistence between sites, but given the differences in tablishing a detailed chronology of the Keltiminar environmental conditions that would have prevailed Culture, given the small number of well-stratified sites at the desert edge, on the lower and upper piedmont, and radiocarbon-dated sequences, has already been and in the Kopetdag foothills, they are likely to have discussed (in Chapter 6), and although the culture existed. The probability that subsistence at the foothill is believed to have persisted, with various regional n e o l i t h i c set tlement a n d subsistence 221 manifestations, through the Neolithic and Eneolithic archaeological data relating to those taxa does not (Chalcolithic) periods (Brunet 2005:91–95), the gen- support. The fourth possibility, which also assumes eral lack of radiocarbon dates prevents close correla- that at least some of ungulates recorded at Ayakagytma tion between the occupation of Keltiminar-Culture during its early Neolithic occupation (c. 6000–5500 and Jeitun-Culture sites. cal. BCE) were domestic, is that their remains derive Almost all Keltiminar sites are located close from already domesticated animals that reached the to former lakes and watercourses which, during the Kyzylkum from the agro-pastoral settlements on the mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum, would have been Kopetdag piedmont. They could have done so in attractive freshwater locales that provided a vari- several ways, for example, feral domestic cattle may ety of aquatic and riparian resources. The evidence have spread east across the Karakum early in the Cli- that the Keltiminar exploited a wide range of wild matic Optimum and been hunted, or rounded up and resources has already been summarized in Chapter herded, by Keltiminar groups; or the practice of cattle 6, and the questions considered of whether they also raising may have been adopted more directly from herded domestic animals and cultivated cereals, but the piedmont settlements. The very small number of further discussion of the possible role of pastoralism sheep/goat bones found (19) suggests that caprine in Keltiminar subsistence is appropriate here in light pastoralism, as practiced at Jeitun, was never adopted of the animal remains recently discovered at the site at Ayakagytma and that the remains may derive from of Ayakagytma in the southern Kyzylkum (Lasota- stray animals that reached the Kyzylkum and were Moskalewska et al. 2006). killed or captured on hunting trips. Prior to the analyses and radiocarbon-dating It is impossible, without more definite and com- of the animal-bone assemblages recovered at Ayak- prehensive evidence of domestic livestock at Keltimi- agytma between 1996 and 2003, there was no well- nar sites, to choose conclusively between these various founded zooarchaeological evidence in support of possibilities, and the general lack of directly dated Vinogradov’s (1979:60) proposition that in the Neo- finds of domestic caprines, cattle, or pigs at Jeitun- lithic the Keltiminar engaged in stockbreeding as well Culture sites also inhibits interpretation. We know as hunting, fishing, and gathering. It is now clear that, that domestic goats and sheep were being raised at at least at Ayakagytma, a variety of ungulates, includ- Jeitun by 6100 cal. BCE, but at present there is no ing cattle, camels, equids, pigs, sheep, and perhaps reported evidence of cattle at piedmont sites earlier goats were procured, some of which may have been than c. 5000 cal. BCE, in Middle–Late Jeitun lev- domestic animals (this volume, pp. 67–68). These els at Chopan and Chagylly. This very inadequate results are preliminary and await confirmation from chronological and zooarchaeological record does analyses of the assemblages excavated since 2003, but not preclude the possibility (or probability?) that they already raise interesting questions about inter- herded domestic or hunted feral animals spread into action between Ayakagytma (and potentially other the Karakum and reached Ayakagytma between 6000 Keltiminar sites in the Kyzylkum) and Jeitun-Culture and 5500 cal. BCE, but without more direct evidence sites on the Kopetdag piedmont. from Jeitun-Culture and Keltiminar sites no firm con- Several possibilities can be envisaged. First, clusions can be drawn about the origins of the cattle that the animal remains found at Ayakagytma, which and other apparently domesticated livestock present are very poorly preserved and therefore difficult to at Ayakagytma in the early Neolithic. The abundant identify, all derive from wild, hunted animals and remains of camels found at the site is also of great, do not include remains of (morpho-genetically) do- unresolved interest, especially in view of the fact that mesticated breeds. Second, that some of the animals, in Turkmenistan camel bones have not been reported such as cattle and perhaps camels, were herded but from any Neolithic or Chalcolithic sites, with the not fully domesticated. Third, and assuming that the exception of Anau where very few bones were found preliminary identification of cattle, pigs, sheep, and and where their wild or domestic status is unclear (this perhaps goats as domesticated is correct, that they volume, p. 81). were domesticated locally from wild progenitors liv- Given the continuing uncertainty about the ing in the area, independently of any contact with the possible contribution of stockbreeding to Keltiminar Jeitun-Culture settlements—a speculation that the subsistence, and the lack of any evidence of cereal cul- review in Chapter 7 of zoogeographical, genetic, and tivation, the most convincing, if tentative, interpreta- 222 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia tion remains that most Keltiminar sites were occupied done so, but understanding of such putative connec- by seasonally mobile hunter-fisher-gatherer groups at tions has been hampered by a relative lack of research a time when many streams, rivers, and lakes existed in on Neolithic settlement in northern Iran compared what are today dry channels and depressions. Whether with the Southwest Asian Fertile Crescent. Lack of pre- contact with the Jeitun-Culture cultivator-herder- historic research in northern Afghanistan since the hunters was, prior to the Chalcolithic and Bronze 1970s has also made fresh enquiry into possible links Age, infrequent and opportunistic, or more frequent between that region and the Jeitun Culture impos- and structured, is debatable. For example, Hiebert sible. However, the recent resurgence of research by (2002b) emphasized that the cultural materials of the Iranian archaeologists (this volume, pp. 50–51) is now Keltiminar sites of the Aral Sea basin are more closely beginning to produce new evidence of connections comparable with those of the early steppe cultures of between the Jeitun Culture and northern Iran. Kazakhstan than with the Neolithic agricultural sites At the present state of knowledge, three areas in of the Kopetdag piedmont, for whom “the steppe world the northeastern Iranian provinces of Khorassan and clearly remained terra incognita” (ibid., p. 240), and he Mazandaran provide evidence of such connections: maintained that sustained contact between these two the central Kopetdag mountains and upper Atrek worlds across the Karakum and Kyzylkum deserts valley, the area around Shahroud on the plateau east did not occur until the Bronze Age after agricultural of the Elburz mountains, and the Gorgan plain and settlements had developed in the oases of Margiana Behshahr area close to the southeastern coast of the and Bactria north and east of the piedmont. Caspian (Fig. 6.1). In contrast to that view, Tosi inferred (1973– In the 1970s archaeological surveys were un- 74:66) that Jeitun-Culture interaction took place in dertaken near Quchan in the upper Atrek valley the Neolithic by means of “a system of internal trade,” and on the Dargaz (Darreh Gaz) plain by Italian along a route from Turkmenia to the Zeravshan valley and Americans teams. Very little evidence of pre- and from there northwest to the Aral Sea and north- Chalcolithic settlement was found, but one site on the east to the Fergana oasis; and Coolidge (2005:123) sug- plain produced a few sherds that resembled pottery gested that two-way interaction occurred between the from Jeitun and from Yarim Tepe on the Gorgan people of the Jeitun Culture and “the nomadic stock- plain; and in his recent survey of the Dargaz plain breeding” Keltiminar people, while acknowledging O. Garazhian found three sites with pottery similar that “a full program of radiocarbon dating must be to Jeitun-Culture ceramics (this volume, p. 51). The carried out for the Keltiminar and Keltiminar-related Dargaz plain is part of an extensive gap below 2000 m sites before sound conclusions may be drawn.” Unfor- in the northernmost range of the Kopetdag between tunately, which, if any, of these interpretations may Ashgabat and Kaakha (Fig. 1.2). It allows easy access best represent the reality of Keltiminar–Jeitun Culture to and from the piedmont, and to routes south from relations in the Neolithic cannot be determined with- the plain across the central Kopetdag to Quchan and out further well-dated excavations at Keltiminar and the upper Atrek valley. Garazhian also found sherds Jeitun-Culture sites. resembling Middle/Late Jeitun pottery at the site of Qaleh Khan farther west near Bojnurd, which suggests that close connections existed between the piedmont Evidence of Connections between the Jeitun and the Atrek valley in the Neolithic, via the Dargaz Culture and Neolithic Sites in Adjacent plain and perhaps via other routes across the Kopet- Areas in Iran and Afghanistan dag from nearer Ashgabat, such as the “great Meshed [Mashad]-Road” referred to by Davis (1905:53). Ever since Jeitun and other Neolithic sites on the There is more definite evidence of Neolithic Kopetdag piedmont were discovered, the question of connections between the Jeitun Culture and north- whether they were an integral part of a much wider eastern Iran in the other two areas mentioned: the process of “Neolithization” in western Central and Shahroud plain east of the Elburz mountains, and Southwest Asia has been debated. In his publications the Caspian lowland. In the former, the excavation by Masson frequently pointed to parallels between the S. Masuda in the early 1970s of two mounds at Sang-i Jeitun Culture and Neolithic sites farther west, and Čakmaq revealed architectural features and pro- other Russian and Western archaeologists have also duced artifact assemblages that resemble the mate- n e o l i t h i c set tlement a n d subsistence 223 rial culture of Jeitun, and the new radiocarbon dates the Caspian lowland around Behshahr. There are from Sang-i Čakmaq confirm that the western mound even some hints of connections with sites still farther was occupied at least several centuries before Jeitun west. For example, as mentioned in the previous sec- (this volume, p. 63, and p. 69, Note 1). Furthermore, tion, Masson postulated connections with Sialk near the surveys carried out recently by H. Rezvani and K. Kashan in central Iran (specifically with Sialk I, the Roustaie in the Shahroud-Bastam area have located lowest Neolithic level, reached in the north mound). several more sites containing sherds with painted Part of the mound was excavated in the 1930s by R. designs very similar to decoration on Jeitun-Culture Ghirshman, who compared Sialk I to the lowest levels pottery (this volume, p. 51). excavated by Pumpelly at Anau (Ghirshman 1938[I]: In the Caspian lowland north and west of the 102–6). In 2001 a new program of investigation was Iranian plateau and the Elburz mountains, there launched at Sialk, directed by S. Malek Shahmirzadi. are two clusters of sites with evidence of Neolithic It included renewed excavation in the center of the occupation, one on the Gorgan plain and the other north mound as well as surveys in the vicinity that led near Behshahr. Archaeological investigation of the to the discovery of a Neolithic site, Surabe Tepe, c. Gorgan plain began in the 1930s when Tureng Tepe 5 km southeast of Sialk, where chaff-tempered, red- and Shah Tepe were test-excavated, followed by more painted sherds were found on the surface that may comprehensive excavations after the Second World predate the beginning of the Sialk Neolithic sequence War at Tureng and Yarim Tepe (Fig. 6.1). Pottery (Azarnoush and Helwing 2005:198). It will be inter- resembling Jeitun ceramics was excavated at both esting to see whether this discovery, and continued Tureng and Yarim, but the levels from which it came excavation at Sialk, reveals evidence of any close paral- were not radiocarbon dated; and sherds said to be lels with Neolithic sites in northeastern Iran or even “to some extent reminiscent of the pottery at Jeitun” southern Turkmenistan. (Sarianidi 1992:115) were also found at Shir-i Shayn When the distribution of the northeast-Iranian at the southern margin of the plain (this volume, p. Neolithic sites discussed in this section is viewed in 62). Kohl suggested (1984:46) that alluviation is likely relation to the Jeitun-Culture settlements of the Ko- to have buried other sites on the plain, and Sarianidi petdag piedmont, the middle Atrek and its tributar- stated (1992:114) that Tureng and Yarim provide ies, the Sumbar and Chandyr, are seen to occupy a “indirect evidence that in the sixth millennium BC conspicuous gap in the overall pattern (Fig. 6.1). This the Gorgan valley contained scattered early agricul- appears anomalous, particularly because these inter- tural settlements.” Also, Iranian archaeologists have montane valleys provide accessible routes between recently surveyed parts of the Gorgan plain and the the piedmont and the southeast Caspian lowland, and Behshahr area where they have discovered several their mild climate and fertile soils are well suited to Neolithic sites, at one of which, Tugh Tepe west of rainfed agriculture. The possibility that this apparent Behshahr, A. Mahforuzi found sherds resembling absence of Neolithic sites is due to post-Neolithic al- Jeitun pottery (this volume, p. 50). luviation and cultivation has already been considered These discoveries of, mainly ceramic, resem- (this volume, p. 64), and until more extensive surveys blances to Jeitun-Culture artifacts are spread over a than have so far been undertaken are carried out on very large part of northeastern Iran stretching from both sides of the international frontier, the question of Quchan in the east to Behshahr in the west, but in whether the valleys were really not settled in the Neo- the absence of more comprehensive excavation at lithic, which seems very unlikely, cannot be resolved. selected sites and systematic radiocarbon dating, Lack of archaeological survey and excavation, no firm conclusions can be reached concerning the using modern techniques, is an even greater obstacle nature and extent of connections between the two in the search for any connections that may have ex- regions. Nevertheless, although the evidence is scat- isted in the Neolithic between the Jeitun Culture and tered and incomplete, the distribution of the Iranian northern Afghanistan. The excavations carried out by sites does suggest that the Jeitun-Culture sites of the L. B. Dupree at Aq Kupruk in the Balkh valley south Kopetdag piedmont were part of a more widespread of Mazar-i Sharif, the uncertainties about the nature pattern of Neolithic settlement that extended south and dating of the stratigraphy, and the claims that and west from the Dargaz plain and upper Atrek bones of domesticated sheep and goats were present catchment to the Shahroud and Gorgan plains and in the so-called non-ceramic and ceramic Neolithic 224 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia levels at Aq Kupruk I and II have been summarized lels with the stone-tool assemblages at Jeitun and the (this volume, pp. 51 and 58–59). Dupree believed Neolithic levels at Jebel. Several lithic scatters with a (1972:80–81), following Perkins (1972), that domestic high proportion of geometric microliths have also sheep and goats were raised and that wheat and barley been found in the upper Murghab valley in southern may have been cultivated at Aq Kupruk, and Possehl Turkmenistan and have been ascribed to the Early (1999:433–36) accepted the domestic status of the Jeitun phase (Kohl 1984:211; Korobkova and Yusupov sheep and goats and regarded the presence of “sickle 1979:80), but no evidence of mudbrick architecture blades” as evidence of the harvesting of wild-grass was found at any of these or the Afghan sites. seeds (while stressing the need for renewed research Farther east, in northern Afghanistan and at Aq Kupruk to “verify these preliminary findings”). southern Tajikistan, there is a group of Neolithic sites However, Meadow (1989a) showed that there was in- referred to as the Hissar Culture, the economic basis sufficient evidence to determine whether any of the of which is not well understood. It is characterized caprine remains were from domesticated animals, and by a lithic assemblage of pebble tools, microliths, no archaeobotanical evidence of domestic cereals or polished stone axes, and grindstones, and also bone other crops was reported. Thus, on present evidence implements; coarse pottery vessels with pointed bases the probability is that the inhabitants of the rockshel- occur in some of the later sites, but there is no evi- ters were, as Vinogradov and Ranov thought (1985:71), dence of mudbrick architecture (Brunet 1999:37–40; hunter-gatherers without crop cultivation or animal Kohl 1984:212; Masson and Sarianidi 1972:74). Most husbandry. of the sites are located along streams and on river ter- There is no reference in the published reports races which, together with the presence of grindstones of the Aq Kupruk excavations to pottery resembling and wear patterns on blade tools, led Kohl (ibid.) Jeitun-Culture ceramics, and the absence of definite to infer that both “agriculture and stockbreeding” evidence of cereal cultivation and livestock herding were practiced. Masson and Sarianidi (ibid.) sug- argues against the possibility that close connections gested that thick occupation layers found at the 6th- existed between the Neolithic agro-pastoral-hunting millennium BCE site of Tutkaul (in Tajikistan) “may settlements of the Kopetdag piedmont and the Aq hint at . . . primitive agriculture and stockbreeding” Kupruk sites some 500 km to the east. No other Neo- but they concluded that a “food-gathering economy” lithic sites have been found in northern Afghanistan predominated. Thus, overall, there are no indications that might indicate links with the Jeitun Culture, at present of connections between the Jeitun Culture although Vinogradov (1979) recorded many surface and Neolithic sites in northern Afghanistan, nor any stone-tool sites in a zone of takyrs and sand dunes be- conclusive evidence of crop cultivation or livestock tween Mazar-i Sharif and the Amudarya where it forms raising at the Aq Kupruk or Hissar sites. Unfortu- the frontier with Turkmenistan. He inferred that the nately, until political conditions change sufficiently sites ranged in age from the Middle Palaeolithic to in Afghanistan to allow archaeological fieldwork to the Neolithic, and on the basis of lithic similarities, be resumed, there is little prospect of new discoveries especially the presence of trapezes, he drew paral- being made. 12 The Beginnings of Agriculture in Western Central Asia

iscussions of agricultural origins in different origin of cultivated plants was the Russian botanist Dparts of the world have frequently been framed N. I. Vavilov. He undertook extensive fieldwork in the in terms of four questions: where, when, how, and why. region (Vavilov and Rodin 1997:5–50) and included The first two questions are distinct from each other western Central Asia in his “Southwest Asiatic Center,” and more amenable to separate treatment than the one of five that he delineated in his first world map of third and fourth which, although apparently distinct, such centers (Harris 1990b; Vavilov 1992a [1926]: 127). are so interwoven as to make separate analysis difficult. Although he later proposed an “Inner Asiatic Center” In the preceding chapters, the where and when ques- distinct from the Southwest Asiatic one (Vavilov 1992b tions have been addressed and answered in detail, as [1935]: 337–42), it did not include Iran, Turkmenistan, far as presently available evidence allows. The purpose or Kazakhstan, and he subsequently abandoned the of this final chapter is therefore to return to the fun- distinction and returned to his original concept of a damental aim of this study: to advance understanding large Southwest Asiatic Center (1992c [1940]: 430). of how and why agriculture began in western Central This return to his original scheme reflects Vavilov’s Asia in the early Neolithic period about 8000 years ago. recognition that there is no major phytogeographi- In what follows, these analytically entwined questions cal boundary between the eastern Kopetdag and the are approached in terms of three dimensions of the western Hindu Kush, and also the fact that the wild problem: first, the biogeographical characteristics of progenitors of some of the cereals, pulses, and fruits the region as a putative “center of origin” of the domes- associated with early Southwest Asian agriculture, such ticated plants and animals known to have contributed as barley, lentil, grapevine, almond, apple, pear, wal- to early Neolithic subsistence; second, the archaeologi- nut, and pomegranate, are native to western Central as cal evidence for the existence in the early Neolithic of well as Southwest Asia (Zohary and Hopf 2000). a partly sedentary, partly mobile pattern of settlements The relevance of Vavilov’s pioneering work to and subsistence economies; and third, consideration the theme of this volume is his demonstration, based of the role of environmental changes, and of cultural on his field studies of crops, weeds, and their wild processes of diffusion and adoption, in the Mesolithic– relatives, that western Central Asia is an integral part Neolithic transition and the establishment during the of the vast mountainous region between the eastern 6th millennium cal. BCE of settlements largely depen- Mediterranean and the Indus valley within which dent on cereal cultivation and livestock raising. the crops of prehistoric Southwest Asian agriculture were first cultivated and domesticated. Since his time, genetic analyses of the living plants and archaeobo- A Biogeographical Center of Origin tanical research on (mainly charred) plant remains of Domesticated Plants and Animals? has greatly increased our knowledge of the origins of many of the crops that were cultivated in the region The first scholar to draw attention to the poten- during the Neolithic. The evidence relating to the tial significance of western Central Asia as a center of cereals that were cultivated at Jeitun—barley, einkorn 226 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

(both the one- and the two-grain forms), and the which support the derivation of domestic sheep from newly recognized type of glume wheat—has been pre- the Asiatic mouflon, reinforce the probability that sented and discussed in Chapters 7 and 9. It leads to they were domesticated within their natural range in the conclusion that, despite the climatic fluctuations eastern Southwest Asia (the brief summaries in this of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene (discussed chapter concerning sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, horses, in Chapter 2), it is very unlikely that the wild progeni- and camels follow from much fuller discussions of the tors of the wheats occurred east of the Caspian. The taxonomic, zoogeographical, zooarchaeological, and phytogeographical, genetic, and archaeobotanical genetic evidence in Chapter 7). evidence supports the view that they were cultivated In contrast to sheep, the range of the main first in Southwest Asia and reached Turkmenistan as (or only) progenitor of domestic goats, the bezoar, already domesticated crops. extends east from Turkey to include most of Iran, There is less certainty about the geographical Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan (see Fig. 1.16), and locus, or loci, of barley domestication. As explained bones of wild bezoar goats as well as of domestic goats in Chapter 7, recent genetic analyses of wild forms have been identified at Jeitun. Local domestication and cultivated landraces of barley from Southwest of the bezoar cannot therefore be excluded on zoo- and Central Asia have revealed that, although barleys geographical grounds, but analyses of mitochondrial growing west and east of the Zagros mountains are part DNA from a large sample of domestic goat breeds and of an interbreeding population, their predominant of wild goats across the whole present range of the halotypes differ and suggest an ancient divergence species, suggest that goats were initially domesticated between them. Furthermore, habitats suited to wild in eastern Anatolia (“mitochondrial haplogroup” or barley are likely to have been present in the Kopetdag “maternal lineage” A) and in the southern Zagros/ and on its piedmont in the Early Holocene. So, unlike central Iranian plateau (lineage C), from where they the wheats, the phytogeography and genetics of barley spread east and west to Central Asia and Europe from imply that it could have been domesticated east of the about 10,000 years ago. These inferences accord with Caspian. The question of whether the barley found at the zooarchaeological evidence for goat domestica- Jeitun was locally domesticated, or whether it is more tion at sites in the southern Taurus and western Za- likely to have been introduced from elsewhere as a do- gros mountains by c. 8000 cal. BCE, and they receive mesticated crop, remains unresolved, but the presence further support from preliminary analyses of ancient of domesticated barley at Southwest Asian Pre-Pottery DNA from goat bones excavated at Chalcolithic and Neolithic sites in the 8th millennium BCE, and its Iron Age sites in northern Iran. It is also significant spread throughout the Fertile Crescent long before that, despite extensive sampling of bezoars across Iran, it was cultivated at Jeitun, show that there was ample no mtDNA haplotypes were found that might suggest time for it to have spread eastward across northern they were independently domesticated anywhere east Iran to the Kopetdag piedmont. Securely identified of the west-central Iranian plateau. This negative and dated finds of barley at Neolithic sites between evidence concurs with the lack of any definite indica- the Zagros and the Kopetdag would help to resolve the tions of local goat domestication at such sites as Jebel question of local domestication versus introduction, and Dam Dam Cheshme 1 and 2 in Turkmenistan, but unfortunately these are lacking at present. Ayakagytma in Uzbekistan, and the Aq Kupruk sites in Consideration of the probable areas of origin of northern Afghanistan (this volume, pp. 58–59, 67–68, the two domestic herd animals present at Jeitun in the and 84). The weight of genetic and zooarchaeological early Neolithic, goat and sheep, parallels the situation evidence thus favors the hypothesis that the remains of the cereal crops, with zoogeography suggesting that of domestic goats found at Jeitun and at other Jeitun- sheep were probably not domesticated locally whereas Culture sites, like those of the domestic sheep that goats could have been. Although wild urial sheep are also present at those sites, derive from animals still survive in western Central Asia, the range of the originally domesticated in Southwest Asia. principal (or only) progenitor of domestic sheep, the Although there is no evidence that other domes- Asiatic mouflon, in eastern Southwest Asia (Fig. 1.15) tic animals, apart from dogs, were present at Jeitun, is thought not to have extended farther east than the remains of domestic cattle have been reported from Elburz mountains, even in the Late Pleistocene/Early Middle- and Late-Jeitun levels at two sites, Chopan on Holocene. Also, analyses of ovine mitochondrial DNA, the central and Chagylly on the eastern piedmont. t h e begi n n i ng s o f agriculture in w e s t er n ce n t r a l asi a 227

More abundant remains of domestic cattle have been the region before, or perhaps after, agro-pastoralism found at Chalcolithic and Bronze Age sites in southern based on cereal cultivation and the herding of goats Turkmenistan, where their presence may be associ- and sheep began in the piedmont zone of southern ated with the development of systems of irrigation ag- Turkmenistan. riculture. Cattle bones excavated at the Neolithic site of Ayakagytma in the Kyzylkum have been provision- ally identified as mainly from domestic animals, with The Overall Neolithic Settlement a smaller number of wild cattle also represented in the Pattern and Economy remains. Although the aurochs, the wild progenitor of domestic cattle, was native to western Central Asia and The most comprehensive evidence from which no doubt inhabited the Kyzylkum in the Neolithic dur- modes of Neolithic settlement in western Central Asia ing the Climatic Optimum when the area was wetter can be inferred comes at present from Turkmenistan, and better vegetated than it is today, it is unlikely that particularly the Kopetdag piedmont. But the more aurochsen were domesticated locally. Instead, as both limited investigations so far undertaken in northeast- the genetic and the zooarchaeological evidence sug- ern Iran are sufficient to show that settlements resem- gests, domestic cattle (and the other animals found at bling those of the Jeitun Culture were not restricted Ayakagytma provisionally identified as domestic) are to the piedmont but encompassed a larger region more likely to have spread there from the Kopetdag that extended south and west in present-day Iran. It piedmont, initially during the 6th millennium cal. included parts of the central Kopetdag and upper BCE (this volume, p. 221). Atrek valley, the Shahroud area east of the Elburz No evidence of domestic pigs has been found at range, and the Gorgan plain and Behshahr lowland any Jeitun-Culture site, but their remains have been adjacent to the southeastern coast of the Caspian (see found in Early Chalcolithic contexts, for example at Fig. 6.1). The middle Atrek and its tributaries the Anau North on the piedmont and, possibly domes- Sumbar and Chandyr are within this large region of tic, at Ayakagytma. The wild boar, the progenitor of Neolithic settlement, although there is an apparent domestic pigs, occurs throughout western Central absence of Neolithic sites in those valleys (perhaps Asia, where it is still hunted. However, there is no due to the burial of sites by subsequent alluviation). definite evidence of local pig domestication and, as Whether Neolithic settlements resembling Jeitun- with cattle, sheep, and goats, the genetic and zoo- Culture sites exist farther west and south in Iran is archaeological data suggest that domesticated pigs uncertain, but this is hinted at by the existence of probably spread to the region from the Fertile Cres- Jeitun-like mudbrick houses with plastered floors and cent. Nor have remains of domestic horses or camels chaff-tempered, red-painted ceramics at the newly been found at Jeitun-Culture sites, and although wild discovered site of Surabe near Sialk (this volume, horses and Bactrian camels inhabited western Cen- p. 223). There is as yet little direct evidence, in the tral Asia in the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene, and form of plant and animal remains, of the subsistence camel and equid (horse and/or onager) bones have economies of Neolithic sites in northern Iran, but been found at Ayakagytma, there is no conclusive such as there is suggests that, like the Jeitun-Culture evidence of domestic horses or camels prior to the settlements, they depended at least in part on agro- Bronze Age. pastoral production. Despite the inclusion of western Central Asia It is possible to develop a more comprehensive in Vavilov’s Southwest Asiatic Center of origin of cul- model of the pattern of Neolithic settlement in Turk- tivated plants, and the former presence of the wild menistan and Uzbekistan, despite the fact that much progenitors of most of the animal domesticates, the more is known about the mudbrick settlements of evidence available at present provides no well-founded the piedmont zone in southern Turkmenistan than support for hypotheses of local domestication. It must about the rockshelter and open-air sites of the Caspian nevertheless be remembered that plant and animal lowland, the Bolshoi Balkhan massif, the northern remains have been recovered and reliably identified Karakum, and the Kyzylkum. We know that the Jei- and dated at very few Mesolithic or Neolithic sites in tun-Culture sites formed a discontinuous northwest- western Central Asia, and the possibility remains that southeast chain of settlements on the piedmont that some native plants or animals were domesticated in stretched some 450 km from Kizyl Arvat in the west 228 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia to the Tedzhen valley in the east (Fig. 6.1), and that shelters. Such as there is, coupled with inference from their development spanned some 1400 years between their locations close to the Caspian and the channel c. 6100 and c. 4500 cal. BCE. The three sites with and former delta of the Uzboi, suggests that during the evidence of Early-Jeitun occupation, Jeitun, Togolok, Mesolithic they functioned as base camps occupied, and Chopan, are located on terminal fans at the edge probably seasonally, by hunter-fisher-gatherers who of the Karakum in the central piedmont region, and were well placed to exploit a wide range of terrestrial their inhabitants subsisted on a combination of hunt- mammals, principally gazelles and wild bezoar goats ing, herding, and cereal cultivation. We cannot be and urial sheep, marine and riverine fish, waterfowl and sure that these sites were the earliest agro-pastoral mollusks, and a variety of wild plants. settlements in the piedmont zone because others, The main Russian excavators of the Bolshoi such as Bami, have unexcavated Neolithic levels, but Balkhan rockshelters, Okladnikov and Markov, iden- it appears that by Middle-Jeitun times (after c. 5700 tified the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition with layers cal. BCE) settlements were established on the upper as 4 and 5 both at Jebel and at DDC 2, and Markov con- well as the lower piedmont in the central, western, and cluded that goats and later sheep were probably do- eastern regions, from Bami in the west to Chakmakli mesticated at DDC 2 during the periods represented in the east. This expansion of sedentary settlement by, respectively, layers 4 and 3. The fact that this propo- may have been linked to increases of population fol- sition was based on very inadequate zooarchaeological lowing the intensification of agro-pastoral production evidence, and that Markov and Masson disagreed over through the development of more effective systems of which layer was synchronous with the occupation of irrigation and the introduction of domesticated cattle Jeitun (this volume, p. 84), leads to the conclusion, (reported at Chopan and Chagylly). It is also possible supported by the mtDNA data, that the inhabitants of that some migration took place upslope from the early the rockshelters are very unlikely to have domesticated desert-edge settlements in response to increased envi- wild goats or sheep. ronmental instability. For example, there is evidence The Keltiminar and Keltiminar-related sites in at Jeitun of the encroachment of blown sand, perhaps Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan east of the Bolshoi resulting from the local degradation of vegetation and Balkhan massif in the area of the Sarykamysh depres- soils by livestock and wood cutting, that may eventually sion and the former upper channels of the Uzboi—as have caused the site to be abandoned (and see this well as those in Uzbekistan on the Ustyurt plateau west volume, pp. 136 and 216). of the Aral Sea, in the ancient Akchadarya delta of the It is more difficult to model the pattern of Neo- Amudarya, and in the southern Kyzylkum around the lithic settlement beyond the Kopetdag piedmont former Lyavlyakan lake and now-dry northern chan- where a greater variety of settlement types are widely nels of the lower Zeravshan river (Fig. 6.2)—constitute dispersed. Referred to collectively as Keltiminar and a heterogeneous assemblage of mainly unstratified and Keltiminar-related sites, they are more varied and less very inadequately dated sites, many of which have been homogeneous than the sites of the Jeitun Culture. In deflated by wind erosion. Only a few of them, such as northwestern Turkmenistan the rockshelters close to Janbas 4, Kavat 7, Ayakagytma, and Uchashchi (see Fig. the Caspian Sea—Jebel, Dam Dam Cheshme 1 and 2, 6.2), have provided evidence of (wooden) structures and Kailyu—are, with their deep stratified deposits, the and/or stratified cultural layers that suggest partly only sites presently known in Turkmenistan that encom- sedentary but not necessarily long-term occupation. pass the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic. They may have functioned as base camps for mobile Unfortunately, when they were excavated in the 1950s groups of hunter-fisher-gatherers, in the same way that and 1960s, samples for radiocarbon dates were not the rockshelters in northwestern Turkmenistan served routinely collected (only five dates were ever obtained, in the Mesolithic as focal points for the hunter-fisher- all at Jebel, two of which dated the early Neolithic to gatherer groups of the Bolshoi Balkhan, the lower c. 5000 cal. BCE [this volume, p. 57), and although Uzboi, and the Caspian lowland. Both the stratified the abundant stone tools were thoroughly studied, the and the more numerous unstratified sites, where oc- (poorly preserved) animal bones were insufficiently cupation was more transient, are located near former analyzed, and no plant remains were recovered. There streams, rivers, and lakes. Direct evidence of subsis- is therefore very little direct evidence of the subsistence tence is sparse, but remains of fish, freshwater mol- economy and the duration of occupation(s) of the rock- lusks, and waterfowl, as well as finds of fish hooks, net t h e begi n n i ng s o f agriculture in w e s t er n ce n t r a l asi a 229 sinkers, and harpoon barbs, indicate that fishing and economy. It also questions whether, as Masson and Sari- fowling were important subsistence activities; so too anidi (1972:74) suggested, both agriculture and stock- was hunting, attested by the remains of a wide variety breeding were part of the Neolithic Hissar Culture in of terrestrial mammals (this volume, pp. 66–67). northern Afghanistan and southern Tajikistan, because Whether cattle and/or caprine pastoralism, as at the Aq Kupruk sites in northern Afghanistan (this referred to in much of the Russian literature as “stock- volume, p. 59), there is no conclusive evidence at Hissar breeding,” was an integral part of the Keltiminar sites of crop cultivation or livestock herding. subsistence economy has already been discussed, In the next section, other differences of inter- especially in relation to the remains of cattle, camels, pretation are presented as we move from what so equids, pigs, sheep, and possibly goats found at the far in this chapter has been a concern mainly with site of Ayakagytma (see above, and pp. 67–68 and biogeographical and archaeological where and when 221). However, despite this new, well-dated evidence questions, toward the how and why of agricultural of ungulate exploitation in the Kyzylkum during the beginnings in western Central Asia by considering Neolithic, it is uncertain whether livestock were raised, the roles of environmental changes and of cultural and herds managed, at Keltiminar settlements. There processes of diffusion and adoption. is as yet insufficient archaeological evidence from Keltiminar sites to demonstrate conclusively that pas- toralism was part of the subsistence economy. Nor is Environmental Changes there direct archaeobotanical evidence that cereals or other crops were cultivated, although the presence Since the early 20th century the idea that envi- of grindstones and sickle blades suggests that grass ronmental, principally climatic, changes were a funda- seeds and other plant foods may have been harvested mental cause of the revolutionary transition in human and processed. It is not until the late 3rd/early 2nd history from hunting and gathering to agriculture has millennium BCE, in the Bronze Age, that bones of been debated by archaeologists and other scholars. Its domestic herd animals and impressions of wheat and origin can be traced back to Raphael Pumpelly’s inves- barley grains in potsherds appear at late Keltiminar tigations in Turkmenistan in the first decade of the sites (in the lower Zeravshan valley), which Masson 20th century, which led him to suggest a link between and Sarianidi (1972:128) interpreted as evidence of a progressive desiccation and the beginnings of agricul- “transition to a productive economy” attributable to ture in Central Asian oases, and which foreshadowed contacts with the long-established agro-pastoral settle- Gordon Childe’s conception of the “Agricultural” or ments of southern Turkmenistan. “Neolithic Revolution.” Childe proposed that an onset Thus the model of Neolithic settlement and of aridity at the end of the last glacial period prompted economy presented here contrasts two major socioeco- hunter-gatherers in the Near East (the Fertile Crescent nomic zones: a southern one of sedentary mudbrick and the lower Nile valley) to cultivate cereals and do- settlements on the Kopetdag piedmont dependent on mesticate animals. He envisaged, in what came to be a mixture of cereal cultivation, caprine pastoralism, known as his “desiccation” or “oasis” theory, increas- hunting, and the harvesting of some wild plants, and a ing post-glacial aridity causing people and animals much larger northern zone of hunter-fisher-gatherers to congregate at oases where sheep, goats, and cattle, who moved seasonally between base camps and more attracted to farmers’ crops, were domesticated (Childe ephemeral sites, some of whom may also have herded 1928:42; 1934:24–25). In speculating that cereal culti- domestic livestock. This model differs only in minor vation preceded herd-animal domestication, Childe ways from the interpretations of Neolithic settlement anticipated the results of subsequent archaeobotanical and subsistence previously proposed by Russian, Turk- and zooarchaeological research which show that cere- men, and Uzbek archaeologists. It does so by giving als were indeed cultivated and domesticated in South- greater emphasis to hunting and the exploitation of west Asia earlier in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic than the wild-plant resources in the agro-pastoral economy of herd animals (see Chapter 7 and Harris 2002a). the Jeitun Culture, and in questioning—in absence of Since Pumpelly and Childe first suggested a conclusive evidence—the assumption (not shared by causal connection between desiccation and the origins all previous investigators) that stockbreeding was an of agriculture, our knowledge of climatic and vegeta- integral part of the Neolithic Keltiminar subsistence tional changes in Southwest Asia during Lateglacial 230 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia and Postglacial times has greatly increased. Childe had the lowland between the Bolshoi Balkhan massif and assumed that glacial conditions in northern Eurasia the western Kopetdag, including the lower channel correlated with moist (pluvial) conditions in the Near of the Uzboi. East, where they were succeeded by increasing aridity The Bolshoi Balkhan rockshelters, Jebel and as deglaciation set in, but palaeoecological research DDC 1 and 2, would have been attractive sites for after the Second World War showed that the direction hunter-fisher-gatherers during most of the Lategla- of Lateglacial–Postglacial climatic change was the re- cial, except perhaps when reversals to cold and dry verse: from dry to moist (Wright 1977:281). Although conditions, particularly the severe Younger Dryas sta- this outcome refuted Childe’s assumption, it did not dial (this volume, p. 24), reduced terrestrial biomass remove from debate the idea of climatic and associ- and hence resource availability. There is no irrefutable ated ecological changes as a factor in the transition evidence that the rockshelters were occupied during to agriculture, particularly in Southwest Asia (see, for the Upper Palaeolithic, despite Markov’s attribution example, Barker 2006:398–403; Bar-Yosef and Belfer- (in the absence of any radiocarbon dates) of the lowest Cohen 2002; Harris 2003; Moore and Hillman 1992). layer at DDC 1, and possibly also at DDC 2, to that pe- The possible role of environmental changes in riod. The two radiocarbon dates from Jebel that date the beginnings of agriculture in western Central Asia the early Neolithic there to c. 5000 cal. BCE fall well has received less attention. Dolukhanov suggested within the Postglacial. Nevertheless, despite the lack of (1986:129) that an increase in precipitation and a de- radiocarbon dates for the pre-Neolithic occupation of crease in climatic continentality in the mid Holocene the rockshelters, these capacious sites—from which a made possible “the development of early farming” on great variety of terrestrial and marine resources could the Kopetdag piedmont, while at the same time he have been exploited during the Khvalynian transgres- postulated that “farmers and stockbreeders from the sions when the sea was close by—were probably oc- Zagros” introduced agricultural practices to the area. cupied, or at least regularly visited, in the late Upper Other authors, notably Masson, also regarded South- Palaeolithic as well as in the Mesolithic and Neolithic. west Asia as the source of the cereal crops and domes- As the sea receded at the end of the Late­glacial, fol- tic herd animals on which the agro-pastoral Jeitun lowing the Late Khvalynian transgression, Mesolithic Culture was based, but apart from Dolukhanov, few hunter-fisher-gatherers would have gained access to scholars considered the possible role of environmen- new foraging territories, and open-air sites as well as tal changes in the process—no doubt partly because the rockshelters would have been occupied. of a lack of palaeoenvironmental data from Central From the beginning of the Postglacial, a fluc- Asian sites. However, although that lack still prevents tuating trend toward warmer and wetter conditions detailed assessment, some tentative conclusions can set in. It was punctuated by brief and abrupt cool/dry be reached about the relationship between environ- intervals, the first and most extreme of which—the mental changes in the Late Pleistocene and early–mid so-called 8.2 ka event—occurred at the end of the Holocene and the development of agro-pastoral and early Holocene and is thought to have lasted between forager economies in the Neolithic. 100 and 200 years (this volume, pp. 24–25). It is per- Before considering changes in the Neolithic, haps not just coincidental that this sudden and severe it is helpful to refer back to some of the major envi- climatic deterioration occurred slightly before there ronmental changes described in Chapter 2. During is evidence of agro-pastoralism on the Kopetdag pied- the Last Glacial Maximum (c. 23,000–c. 19,000 BP), mont at Jeitun. The apparently abrupt establishment much of western Central Asia was evidently devoid of the early-Jeitun settlements may in part have been of human population (Davis 1990:272–73; Davis and stimulated by this deterioration—a possibility consid- Ranov 1999:191–92). With the onset of deglaciation at ered further in the next section. the beginning of the Lateglacial period, the Caspian Following the 8.2 ka event, the Postglacial trend periodically expanded in the Early, Middle, and Late toward warmer and wetter conditions resumed and Khvalynian transgressions, and receded in the inter- culminated in the mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum vening Eltonian and Yenotavian regressions (Table between c. 8000 and c. 5000 cal BP. Although as yet no 2.2). During the transgressions, lowland areas east of sites in western Central Asia have provided well-dated the Caspian were submerged, most extensively in the pollen and lake-sediment evidence of the Climatic Op- Early Khvalynian transgression when the sea flooded timum (as they have in the arid interior of China), the t h e begi n n i ng s o f agriculture in w e s t er n ce n t r a l asi a 231 abundant traces of former lakes, rivers, and streams Karakum and on the piedmont would have provided in the Karakum and Kyzylkum deserts are testament plentiful fodder for domestic goats and sheep. How- to much more humid conditions in the past. The dis- ever, although the mild, moist conditions in the early tribution of prehistoric sites in the deserts correlates part of the Climatic Optimum were propitious for the closely with the former hydrological pattern, and de- initiation of cereal cultivation and livestock herding, spite their very inadequate dating, there is evidence they do not alone explain why agro-pastoralism be- of Neolithic pottery and stone tools at many of them, came established on the Kopetdag piedmont at that indicating that they were occupied during the earlier time. To get closer to an explanation of this socio- part of the Climatic Optimum when annual precipita- economic (as well as ecological) innovation, we need tion is likely to have been 100–150 mm and the mean to consider the cultural processes involved. annual temperature about 1°C higher than today (this volume, p. 26). In the milder, moister conditions of the early Cultural Processes Postglacial, forests and woodlands would have ex- panded in the mountains and along the river valleys of In the absence of comprehensive evidence of western Central Asia and the shrub vegetation of the the circumstances in which agro-pastoralism began in deserts would have become denser and probably more western Central Asia, specifically in the piedmont zone diverse. These increases in biomass would in turn have of southern Turkmenistan, the approach to the prob- supported greater densities of many species of small lem followed here is to define and assess three hypo- and large mammals and increased opportunities for thetical possibilities. The first is that the transition to hunting. In Turkmenistan, these changes in vegeta- an economy based at least in part on agro-pastoralism tion and animal life were probably most extensive in began locally without introductions of domesticated the Bolshoi Balkhan and Kopetdag mountains and plants and animals from outside the region, a possibil- on their piedmont slopes, in the valleys of the Uzboi, ity that can be termed the indigenous model. The sec- Sumbar, Chandyr, Tedzhen, Murghab, and Amudarya, ond posits a combination of local domestication with and in the Caspian lowland, but the Karakum too the introduction and adoption of some taxa domesti- would have been biotically more productive than be- cated outside the region: the indigenous-exogenous fore, or after, the mid Holocene. model. The third proposes that all the agro-pastoral The changed climatic, hydrological, and ecolog- domesticates were introduced, either sequentially or ical conditions of the Climatic Optimum provided the together: the exogenous model. The second and third environmental context in which the Jeitun-Culture models also pose the subsidiary question of whether settlements of the Kopetdag piedmont and the as- the domesticates reached and became established in sociated Neolithic settlements of northeastern Iran Turkmenistan by means of cultural or demic diffusion, became established, and in which their economies or a combination of both processes. based on agro-pastoralism, hunting, and wild plant- The indigenous model is difficult to sustain food procurement developed. The radiocarbon dates against the combined weight of the biogeographical, of c. 6000 cal. BCE for the occupation of Jeitun and genetic, and archaeological evidence presently avail- Togolok, two of the three known Early-Jeitun sites (no able. The progenitors of two of the four “founder” radiocarbon date is available for the third, Chopan), domesticates of Jeitun-Culture agro-pastoralism, wild suggest that these sites became established soon after barley and bezoar goat, are native to southwestern the 8.2 ka event when the succeeding climatic and Central Asia, which implies that they could have been ecological amelioration was under way. These envi- domesticated there independently of their earlier do- ronmental conditions would have favored the begin- mestication in the Southwest Asian Fertile Crescent. nings of cereal cultivation and the herding of goats As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the question and sheep at the margins of the lower piedmont and of whether barley was domesticated east (as well as the Karakum. Rainfed cultivation of wheat and barley, west) of the Zagros or perhaps in Turkmenistan—a unassisted by irrigation, is likely to have been feasible possibility supported by the genetic data—cannot be (the evidence for the use of irrigation at Jeitun re- resolved without more comprehensive archaeobotani- mains inconclusive; this volume, pp. 215–16), and a va- cal evidence from the region, whereas the recent re- riety of woody and herbaceous plants in the southern search on bezoar mtDNA haplotypes runs counter to a 232 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia hypothesis of independent goat domestication east of of retrieving and analyzing plant and animal remains central Iran. The present ranges of the progenitors of were not used in the early excavations of these sites, the other two founder domesticates, the Asiatic mou- nor, in the case of the Afghan sites, were the finds of flon and wild einkorn, do not extend into Turkmeni- such remains ever fully reported. Therefore the indig- stan, which suggests that they were not independently enous model should not be completely rejected, but at domesticated in western Central Asia. This proposi- present (2010) there is no direct support for it in the tion can be challenged on two grounds: that their multidisciplinary sources of evidence now available, ranges (as well as that of the progenitor of the newly with the possible exception of the recent discoveries recognized glume wheat found at Jeitun) could have of the remains of cattle and other ungulates at Ayak- extended east of the Caspian in the Late Pleistocene/ agytma in the Kyzylkum. Early Holocene, and/or that the domesticated forms Nor should the indigenous-exogenous model— derive from other progenitors. In a brief discussion of which assumes that agro-pastoral production on the the evidence, Barker (2006:156–58) raised both these Kopetdag piedmont depended on a combination of lo- possibilities by questioning whether domestic einkorn cally domesticated and introduced crops and herd an- and sheep are descended from their supposed wild imals—be altogether rejected. For example, if barley, progenitors and whether their modern distributions goats, or cattle were domesticated locally, they might represent their ranges in the Early Holocene. Neither have been integrated with introduced sheep, einkorn, of these objections should be disregarded, but they and the newly discovered glume wheat in a system of underestimate much recent biogeographical and agro-pastoralism. But this possibility encounters the phylogenetic evidence (presented in Chapter 7) that same difficulty as the indigenous model: the present supports the conclusions reached here concerning the lack of well-attested archaeological evidence of any ancestry and Holocene ranges of the mouflon and the local domestications. Such possibilities could only be wild wheats. explored by new excavations at Kopetdag piedmont A second difficulty with the indigenous model sites, and/or at some of the Neolithic sites now being is the lack of any evidence of the pre-domestication investigated in northeastern Iran, using modern bio- management of caprines or the pre-domestication archaeological techniques and AMS dating of plant cultivation of cereal grasses, compared with such and animal remains. evidence at Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites in Southwest The exogenous model proposes that the founder Asia, for example goats at Nevalı Çori in the Taurus crops and herd animals cultivated and raised at Jeitun- mountains and Ganj Dareh in the Zagros (Peters et al. Culture settlements during the Neolithic were do- 1999:35–40; Zeder and Hesse 2000), and barley and mesticated outside the region and introduced, either einkorn at Jerf el Ahmar and Dja’de on the middle together as an already formed agro-pastoral “package” Euphrates (Willcox 2004, 2007; Willcox, Fornite, and or more intermittently over a longer period, or by a Herveux 2008). It can of course be argued that this mixture of both processes. Southwest Asia is the most just reflects a lack of research in western Central com- plausible source of the domestic caprines, cattle, and pared with Southwest Asia and that it is “more a case of cereals (including emmer and free-threshing wheat, absence of evidence than evidence of absence” (Barker traces of which were tentatively identified at Jeitun, 2006:155), but this overlooks the fact that despite the as well as barley, einkorn, and the new glume wheat); extensive archaeological surveys undertaken since and their presence at PPNB sites around the Fertile the 1950s, particularly in Turkmenistan, including Crescent a millennium and more before they appear intensive field work on the Kopetdag piedmont where at Jeitun provides ample time for them to have spread agro-pastoral settlement originated, very few sites that from the Zagros across northern Iran to the Kopetdag span the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition have been piedmont—a distance of approximately 1000 km in found. Those that have been excavated—Jebel, DDC 1000 years or more. There is no other potential source 1 and 2, and Kailyu in Turkmenistan, Ghar-i Kamar- region of all these domesticates, north, south, or east band and Hotu in northeastern Iran, and Aq Kupruk of Turkmenistan, but the assumption that they spread I and II in northern Afghanistan—have not yielded from Southwest Asia does not rule out the possibility any definite evidence of sheep/goat herding or cereal that some hybridization or interbreeding could have cultivation that might suggest local domestication, al- taken place between domesticated and wild popula- though it must be remembered that modern methods tions of the cereals, sheep, goats, and cattle as the t h e begi n n i ng s o f agriculture in w e s t er n ce n t r a l asi a 233 domesticates spread eastward. questions of how and why the transition occurred The domesticated cereals and herd animals may there by reviewing the geographical and chronologi- have spread as elements of an integrated agro-pastoral cal contexts in which agro-pastoralism and sedentary system in which cereal cultivation focused on areas of settlements developed during the Neolithic. water-retentive alluvial soils, sometimes aided by simple techniques of irrigation, while the animals browsed and grazed woody and herbaceous vegetation within daily Conclusion reach of the settlements, where they were corralled or penned at night. Alternatively, or as well, caprine pas- We have already seen that the earliest known toralism may have spread faster and farther than grain Jeitun-Culture sites within Turkmenistan were estab- cultivation, particularly perhaps in the drier, colder lished at the ecotone between the lower Kopetdag conditions of the 8.2 ka event to which extensive herd- piedmont and the Karakum desert by or shortly before ing of sheep and goats would have been better adapted 6000 cal. BCE, probably soon after the brief cool/ ecologically than the growing of crops. It is possible dry episode at c. 6200 cal. BCE (the 8.2 ka event) and that some domestic sheep, goats, or cattle escaped from as the climate reverted to warmer/wetter conditions agro-pastoral settlements and formed feral herds that early in the mid Holocene. These conditions favored were preyed upon by hunter-fisher-gatherer groups cereal cultivation and livestock herding and facilitated in the Karakum and Kyzylkum; and/or such groups the foundation of other agro-pastoral settlements on may have obtained domestic animals through contact the central, western, and eastern sectors of the pied- and exchange with the agro-pastoral settlements and mont. Because no pre-Jeitun sites have been found begun to manage herds themselves (perhaps at Ayak- on the piedmont or in the adjacent Kopetdag range it agytma?). Domestic cattle may also have spread when is very difficult to assess how incoming agro-pastoral the climate became warmer and wetter—and forests, settlers may have interacted with local Mesolithic woodlands, and grasslands more extensive—during hunter-fisher-gatherers, no direct evidence of whom the Climatic Optimum, when conditions also became has been found on the piedmont or in the foothills more propitious for rainfed cereal cultivation. of the Kopetdag, but it is most unlikely that these Envisaging these various possibilities raises biotically productive habitats were unoccupied at the the related question of how agro-pastoralism spread: beginning of the Neolithic. A possible indirect indi- whether demic diffusion was the principal mode of cator of pre-Neolithic occupation is the occurrence spread, whereby migrants progressively settled in new of geometric microliths at Jeitun and other Jeitun- areas with their crops and livestock as their populations Culture sites. Microliths are typical of late Mesolithic increased, or whether cultural diffusion and adoption hunter-gatherer sites throughout much of Eurasia, predominated in which groups of hunter-fisher-gather- and their presence in Jeitun-Culture stone-tool as- ers began to herd livestock and perhaps also cultivate semblages may be evidence of interaction with local cereals as a result of indirect or direct contacts with hunter-fisher-gatherers, or at least an indication that incoming agro-pastoral settlers. This should not be pre-Neolithic hunting technology persisted in the regarded as an either/or question, and in reality the ex- developing agro-pastoral-hunting economy on the pansion eastward from the Zagros region across north- piedmont. ern Iran and into Turkmenistan probably involved The general uniformity of the material culture both processes of diffusion. Such an interpretation of the Jeitun-Culture settlements, especially their of the exogenous model of the Mesolithic–Neolithic mudbrick architecture and chaff-tempered pottery, transition in western Central Asia broadly resembles supports the inference that they were initially founded the availability model and the integrationist hypothesis as sedentary settlements by migrants seeking new land propounded by Zvelebil (1986, 2002) as an explanation to occupy with their crops and livestock, but this does for the spread of agro-pastoralism in Europe. It also not preclude the possibility that they interacted with best fits the much more limited evidence we have for pre-existing, more mobile groups through exchange the transition in that part of western Central Asia where networks and perhaps intermarriage. However, the agriculture appears first to have become established: fact that there is only sparse and inconclusive evidence southern Turkmenistan and northeastern Iran. There- of contact in the Neolithic between Jeitun–Culture fore, in the conclusion, we return to the fundamental sites on the piedmont and Keltiminar-Culture and 234 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

Keltiminar-related sites in northern Turkmenistan sites at the eastern end of the piedmont represents the and Uzbekistan suggests that such interaction was maximum eastward extent of agricultural, sedentary, not intensive and that the Central Karakum probably mudbrick settlements in the Neolithic. functioned as a barrier that discouraged regular con- The apparent existence of a frontier zone be- tact across it, even during the Climatic Optimum. tween settled agriculturalists and more seasonally One of the most interesting but unresolved ques- mobile hunter (and herder?)-fisher-gatherers east of tions is what links may have existed between the agro- the Kopetdag piedmont contrasts strongly with the pastoralists on the piedmont and the inhabitants of situation that prevailed in the Neolithic along the the Bolshoi Balkhan rockshelters. The existence of southern and western margins of the piedmont. There a few sand-tempered potsherds of Keltiminar type at is increasing but as yet poorly dated evidence of con- Jeitun and of some chaff-tempered sherds at Jebel dem- tinuities in material culture, principally pottery and onstrates that direct or indirect contacts did occur, if mudbrick architecture, between the Jeitun-Culture only occasionally. Also the (uncertain) identification of sites on the piedmont and Neolithic sites to the south bones of domestic goat and sheep in “Neolithic” layers 4 and west in the upper Atrek valley, on the Shahroud and 3 at DDC 2 suggests (if the identification is correct) and Gorgan plains, in the Behshahr area close to the either that they are from domestic animals that origi- southern coast of the Caspian, and even farther west, nated at Jeitun-Culture sites and were obtained by hunt- for example at Surabe near Sialk in central Iran. ing, raiding, or trading, or that by then, many centuries Few of these Iranian sites have yet been suffi- after the foundation of Jeitun, the rockshelters had ciently excavated and dated to provide detailed evi- become bases from which the animals were pastured dence of links with the Jeitun-Culture sites in southern in the Bolshoi Balkhan massif, on its piedmont, and Turkmenistan, but the close similarities in material in the lower Uzboi valley, perhaps in seasonal cycles of culture already apparent at many of them point to transhumance resembling those of more recent times. the existence of a very extensive west-east zone of Another unresolved question is whether stockbreed- Neolithic settlement characterized by small rectilinear ing was, as Vinogradov (1979:60) and other authors mudbrick houses with lime-plaster floors and inter- claimed, an integral part of the Neolithic Keltiminar nal ovens, chaff-tempered pottery, and other shared economy and, if so, whether any of the herd animals cultural attributes such as zoomorphic clay figurines, recorded at Ayakagytma and tentatively identified as small stone axes, sickle blades, and bone implements. domestic were domesticated locally or reached the Very few sites have provided direct evidence of cereal site, and perhaps other Keltiminar sites, as a result of cultivation or livestock herding in the form of accu- direct or indirect contact with the Jeitun-Culture agro- rately identified plant and animal remains because pastoral settlements of the Kopetdag piedmont (this modern bioarchaeological techniques have not been volume, p. 221). routinely used during excavation. Nevertheless, there Similar questions arise in relation to the un- is a high probability that this latitudinal zone of simi- certainly identified and insecurely dated remains of lar settlements stretching from east of the northern purportedly domestic sheep and goats in “Neolithic” Zagros to the eastern end of the Kopetdag piedmont levels at the sites of Aq Kupruk I and II in northern reflects a spread of agro-pastoralism during the Neo- Afghanistan. If the remains are genuinely domestic lithic, probably driven mainly by migrants occupying and Neolithic, they could derive from hunted feral new areas of cultivable land and perhaps also by some animals or domestic stock obtained from southern hunter-fisher-gatherer groups acquiring domesticates Turkmenistan by raiding or through exchange net- and beginning to cultivate cereals and/or herd goats works—a speculation that is however unsupported and sheep independently, or in association with the by any direct evidence of contact with Jeitun-Culture sedentary villagers. settlements on the Kopetdag piedmont. Likewise, sug- Although there is insufficient site-based evi- gestions that stockbreeding may have been practiced dence to track the putative spread of agro-pastoral at Neolithic sites of the Hissar Culture still farther east settlement eastward from the Zagros, we can infer in northern Afghanistan and southern Tajikistan are that areas with alluvial soils and more equable cli- unsupported either by on-site finds of ungulate bones matic conditions than prevailed (even during the or by evidence of contact with southern Turkmenistan. Climatic Optimum) in the central Iranian desert Thus it appears likely that the cluster of Jeitun-Culture of Dasht-i Kavir, in the highest ranges of the Elburz t h e begi n n i ng s o f agriculture in w e s t er n ce n t r a l asi a 235 and Kopetdag mountains, or in the thickly forested as a source of agricultural labor, coupled with develop- southern Caspian coastal lowland, would have been ing concepts of ownership of land and livestock, is also preferentially selected. A zone of Mediterranean-type likely to have led to increases in average family size, dry-summer climate conducive to rainfed cultivation, although this effect may have been diminished by in- with or without supplementary small-scale irrigation, creased incidence of infectious and contagious diseases extends eastward from the northern Zagros around arising from close contact with people and domestic the southern Caspian, encompasses the middle and livestock in the villages. Agro-pastoralism would not lower elevations of the Elburz mountains and the necessarily have led to rapid population growth, but Gorgan plain, and follows the valley of the Atrek, through the period of at least a millennium (or about including its tributaries the Sumbar and Chandyr, as 40 human generations) that separates its development far as 60o East, close to the city of Mashad (Fig. 6.1, in the Fertile Crescent from its establishment on the and Fig. 2 in Harris 1998). In the Neolithic, the vegeta- Kopetdag piedmont, even gradual increases in popula- tion of this zone would have consisted of woodlands, tion would have provided an incentive for families to shrublands, and grasslands with a diverse flora of seek and settle in new areas. woody and herbaceous plants (similar to the wood- The brief cool/dry interval that occurred c. 6200 land, shibylak, and grassland communities described cal. BCE (the 8.2 ka event) shortly before the earliest in Chapter 1), inhabited by many species of large and evidence, at Jeitun, of agro-pastoral settlement in the small mammals. It would have provided mixed pas- Kopetdag piedmont zone may also have stimulated ture and browse for sheep and goats, as well as good more active prospecting for new, less risk-prone areas hunting and fishing; and the fertile alluvial soils of to cultivate. Piedmont zones with foothill aprons of the valleys and the relatively well watered alluvial fans coalesced alluvial fans, dependable supplies of ground of the piedmont zones of the Elburz, Kopetdag, and and surface water, and fertile soils are particularly other mountain ranges would have been well suited attractive locales for small-scale cultivation in arid to cereal cultivation. The zone offered an “inviting and semi-arid environments that makes use of high corridor” for the eastward spread of agro-pastoralism sub-surface water tables and seasonal flood regimes; (Harris 1998:78) and easy access to the Kopetdag and they were often preferentially selected for settle- piedmont from the valleys of the Sumbar, Chandyr, ment as Neolithic agriculture spread in Eurasia (see, and upper Atrek. The apparent absence of Neolithic for example, Liu, Hunt, and Jones 2009 for examples sites in the Sumbar and Chandyr valleys, which may in north China, and Sherratt 2007 for examples in be due to burial by later alluviation, has already been Southwest Asia). discussed, and recent finds of Neolithic sites on the The Kopetdag piedmont is a notable example Dargaz plain north of the upper Atrek valley and of an advantageous locale for such small-scale ag- farther west near Bojnurd reinforce the probability riculture, and if shifting (swidden) cultivation was that the valley functioned as a route to the Kopetdag practiced, as it probably was, the expansion of agro- piedmont. pastoral settlement would have been accentuated. It is easier to speculate about the environmental In recent centuries swidden cultivation has often context of the presumed eastward spread of agro- been used by pioneer farmers as an effective method pastoralism than to explain why it took place. Popula- of clearing forested land, and when clearings are tion growth induced by shifts from seasonally mobile made progressively in linear directions, rather than to year-round, long-term sedentary settlement has in circular patterns, settlements tend to be shifted often been proposed as a reason for the spread of early frequently. This “pioneering mode” of swidden culti- agriculture. It is probable that Southwest Asian village- vation was used for example by European settlers in based agro-pastoralism, which combined cereal and eastern North America, and it was probably used by pulse cultivation with livestock herding in a system that Neolithic farmers in the forests of temperate Europe was nutritionally self-sufficient, ecologically adaptable, (Harris 1972:249). If it was commonly practiced at and more productive than other early agricultural Early Neolithic settlements across northern Iran and systems (Harris 2002b:32–33), did promote popula- southern Turkmenistan it would have reinforced tion growth by improving maternal diets and infant the demographic tendency of agro-pastoralism to weaning, reducing average birth interval, and leading spread—although probably not as a unified “pack- to higher rates of child survival. The value of children age” of all the crops and domestic animals of the 236 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia agricultural economy of the Pottery Neolithic period and less fertile areas, as well as in the more humid and in Southwest Asia. fertile valleys encountered across northern Iran and When the process of spread is viewed from Jei- into southern Turkmenistan. tun at its eastern end, it is apparent that by no means It was only later in the Neolithic that more all the components of the package are present there by complex irrigation systems were developed on the c. 6100 cal. BCE. The crop assemblage identified at Jei- piedmont, when cattle and perhaps emmer and bread tun consists almost entirely of einkorn, the new glume wheat had been added to the agricultural repertoire. wheat, and barley. Emmer wheat, the principal crop At present the earliest recorded remains of domestic at many Southwest Asian Neolithic sites, has not been cattle found in Turkmenistan come from Middle- and definitely identified at Jeitun and no remains of the Late-Jeitun levels at Chopan and Chagylly, from c. Southwest Asian pulse crops, such as lentil, field pea, 5700 cal. BCE onward, and they become more abun- and chickpea, have been found. The predominance dant in the Early and Middle Chalcolithic periods, of einkorn and barley may be due to their tolerance for example at Dashlidji in the Geoksyur oasis in both of infertile soils, and in the case of barley also of the ancient Tedzhen delta and at Anau North and soil aridity and salinity, and of unstable environmental Ilgynly-depe on the piedmont (this volume, p. 79). By conditions such as prevailed in the vicinity of Jeitun. that time systems of fixed-field irrigation agriculture But it may also be that the Southwest Asian crops did producing higher yields and incorporating cattle as not reach the piedmont initially all together but in a draft animals had been developed. Villages increased more piecemeal manner over a longer period of time. in size and number in a process of regional expan- It would be interesting to know whether a similar sion that led eventually, after 4500 cal. BCE, to the narrow range of cereals was grown at the two other emergence on the piedmont and in the valleys of Early-Jeitun sites at the desert margin, Chopan and the Tedzhen and the Murghab of the more complex Togolok, but although Lisitsina (1978:72) reported societies of the Chalcolithic (Eneolithic) period and the presence of barley and (unspecified) wheat at the Bronze Age. Chopan, in the absence of more detailed archaeo- Thus this study leads to the conclusion that the botanical data from these sites this question must establishment of agriculture in southern Turkmeni- remain unanswered. Until more accurately identified stan from c. 6100 cal. BCE onward was part of a wider and dated plant remains are recovered from a larger process by which agro-pastoral settlement spread into sample of Jeitun-Culture sites on the piedmont there western Central Asia across northern Iran, during the is no prospect of determining whether the Southwest preceding millennium, from the eastern arc of the Asian crops were introduced together or sequentially, Fertile Crescent, where cereal cultivation and caprine although excavations at some of the newly discovered herding was being practiced prior to c. 7000 cal. BCE Neolithic sites in northeastern Iran may throw some at such sites as Ganj Dareh, Ali Kosh, and Jarmo. The light on the question. process was probably driven mainly by gradual popu- Rather more is known about when domestic lation increase among the migrant settlers, but also goats, sheep, and cattle first appear in the archaeo- perhaps by the adoption of livestock herding (and logical record of the Jeitun Culture. We can infer cereal cultivation?) by some hunter-fisher-gatherer that goats and sheep were present from the earliest groups; and it may have been accentuated by the brief record of them at Jeitun through the Neolithic and episode of cold, dry conditions that occurred at c. on into later periods. It is not surprising that they, 6200 cal. BCE, and was then facilitated by the return rather than cattle, constituted the pastoral component of warmer, wetter conditions at the beginning of the in the initial expansion of agro-pastoralism because mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum. This interpreta- they are more tolerant of aridity and rough terrain, tion of the evidence available at present is the most breed more rapidly, and are able to browse and graze plausible explanation of how and why agriculture a wider range of plants. Goats and sheep and the ce- began in western Central Asia, but it needs to be reals that are more tolerant of drought, salinity, and tested and elaborated by further excavation at Neo- infertile and unstable soils would have been more lithic and Mesolithic sites in the region that employ easily incorporated into systems of rainfed shifting modern techniques to recover, analyze, and directly cultivation, with little or no irrigation, and they would date plant and animal remains, as well as artifacts of have enabled agro-pastoralism to spread into drier material culture. Appendices

Appendix 3.1: For the 1990 survey, the first two auger holes Soil/Sediment Profiles in the were made in the most extensive takyr of the locality, an area sometimes occupied by the herders’ lake near- Vicinity of Jeitun est to the site of Jeitun but not flooded in 1990. The recent history of flooding and draining had eroded Susan Limbrey the upper horizons of the takyr and left an uneven brief reconnaissance of the soils and sediments surface with hollows of varying depth, rather than the A in the immediate vicinity of Jeitun was carried even, gently sloping surface characteristic of a takyr. out in 1990 by means of hand augering and digging Brief descriptions are given below, with approximate pits (Limbrey 1992a) in an initial attempt to locate surface leveling data, expressed in meters below the soils contemporaneous with the occupation of the 190.00 m above msl site datum. site and to identify the profile previously described by Profile 1 was located in a hollow at the southern Lisitsina (1965). end of the lake bed closest to Jeitun; surface 8.86 m Lisitsina described a profile “in the supposed lo- below site datum. No Munsell notation was recorded cation of fields near the settlement of Jeitun,” in which for this profile, but the colors are comparable to those a contemporary takyr soil covered an older soil horizon of Profile 2. “seemingly referable to the time of the Jeitun culture.” The location is not further specified. The following is cm her description of the profile (SL’s translation): 0–5 silty crust, lacustrine deposition 5–8 brown clay cm 8–160 yellowish brown sand, darker in the upper 20 0–5 Takyr crust, loamy, compact, shaley, slightly cm; some charcoal at 15–20 cm; becoming porous, pale yellowish gray grayer at about 115–125 cm below a thin clay 5–15 Medium loam, friable, in upper part slatey, layer; water saturation at 125 cm lower part fine blocky, pale yellowish gray; 160+ clay uneven boundary with underlying layer 15–35 Compact loam, blocky, with abundant saline Profile 2 was located in the deepest part of the efflorescence, dark brown to brown lake bed, at the northern end, where in 1990 a hollow 35–120 Medium loam, blocky, with humus staining was separated from the course of the Kara Su by a and gleying, with a little saline efflorescence, temporary dam; surface 9.33 m below site datum. pale yellowish gray 120–160 Ancient alluvial sandy clay deposits, varie- cm gated in lithological composition and color- 0–5 puffed silty crust, lacustrine deposition ing. It appears that Lisitsina interpreted the 5–25 brown to grayish brown sandy clay, Munsell brown horizon at 15–35 cm as the buried Color Chart notation 10YR–2.5Y 5/3 soil. 25–30 yellowish brown sand, 10YR 5/4 238 origins o f agriculture in western c e n t r a l asia

30–35 brown to grayish brown sandy clay, 10YR– color, with traces of fine organic material in 7.5Y R 5/3 the grayer layers 35–65 yellowish brown sand, 10YR 5/4 172+ sand 65–105 finer, grayer micaceous sand with some clay, 10YR–2.5Y 5/3–4/3, with intercalations of Profile 4 was recorded in a pit dug in the bot- less gray and less clayey sand tom of another deep hollow close to the track passing 105–120 yellowish brown clay, 10YR 5/4, fine angular east of the site; surface 9.85 m below site datum. The blocky structure, very faintly mottled and profile consisted entirely of yellowish brown sand. A some distinct iron stains in fine pores scatter of charcoal, very small bone fragments, and 120+ fine micaceous grayish brown sand with occasional small pieces of mudbrick occurred at about very little clay, 10YR 5/3; water saturation 30 cm. Water at 50 cm prevented further digging or at 155 cm; no further augering possible at augering because of the sand texture. Comparison 175 cm with the nearby profile 3, together with the archaeo- logical material derived from the site, indicate distur- Profiles 3 and 4 were located in the bottom of bance and sand infill in this area. hollows between ridges of blown sand below the steep A further profile, 5, was located in the extensive northern slope of the site. flat area to the southwest of the site, about 50 m from Profile 3 was separated from the lake bed by a the irrigation drainage ditch, in an area of tamarisk 3.5 m sand ridge; surface 9.39 m below site datum. thickets with solonchak soil. No level was obtained, and Munsell color notation was not determined. cm 0–5 puffed saline crust cm 5–75 yellowish brown sand, 10YR 5/4; water en- 1–5 puffed saline crust countered at 75 cm 5–7 brown clay 75–78 light brownish gray to light yellowish brown, 7–55 brown sand with some clay 10YR 6/2–6/5, laminated clay 55–95 paler brown sand, with a lower clay content 78–102 fine gray, 10YR 6/1, micaceous sand 95–155 brown sand with more clay again, slightly 102–107 light yellowish brown, 10YR–7.5YR 6/4, clay mottled; water encountered at 100 cm 107–115 fine gray, 10YR 6/1, micaceous sand 155+ strongly mottled, light olive gray and yellow- 115–172 mainly clayey, alternating grayer and browner ish brown sand with some clay appendices 8.1–8.2 239

Appendices 8.1–8.5 with or later than it (a more extensive excavation would allow their exact relationship to be established). Chris Gosden Ash layers from the lower hearths run under the phase 2 building, which is therefore later than the hearths and the building they adjoin. Context 32 thus predates Appendix 8.1: context 18. This relative phasing is not particularly Jeitun: Detailed Description of the significant in itself but it does demonstrate the kind Excavation of Trench 1991a of fine phasing that could be carried out at the site if a more extensive excavation were undertaken using the The surface of the area excavated had previously methods we employed. been investigated by Masson in the 1950s and 1960s Several small hearths and associated ash lenses and his work had provided a fairly full picture of the were found across the trench that were contempo- upper layers of the site. In the uppermost parts of our rary with the earliest hearths in the northwestern excavation we found the remains of mudbrick struc- corner. It may be that the larger number of hearths tures. In the northeastern end of the trench we found here represents a different use of this small area with evidence of mudbrick in the form of a solid block some activities less exclusively focused on the ovens. The 20 cm below the surface at which we started excavating hearths may well be contemporary with a wall that (contexts 5 and 18)—almost certainly the remains of a Berezkin had discovered close to our 1991 trench and wall of a building belonging to Masson’s phase 2. In the had ascribed to phase 4. Again, only more extensive northwestern end of the trench, less than 10 cm below area excavations could decide this point. These were the surface at which we started, we uncovered the first the lowest layers that we excavated with full care. Due of a series of hearths which were superimposed on each to lack of time, lower contexts were removed in bulk, other and connected with pedestals of mudbrick on with pauses at layers that appeared likely to produce their perimeter. These mudbrick pedestals were pre- plant remains or looked interesting from a pedologi- sumably connected with activities carried out near the cal point of view. hearths, but their exact functions remain unclear. Berezkin’s excavation had revealed the existence The uppermost hearths may still have been in of sands beneath the main complex of layers of ash place when the phase 2 building was constructed, but and hearths. These lower layers contained smaller it is evident that the main use of the hearths belongs quantities of artifacts and ash, and some evidence of to an earlier period. This is demonstrated by a layer structures that were much more widely spaced than in of dark ash (context 22) which emanated from the the upper levels. It is clear that these lower levels repre- hearths and ran directly under the mudbrick of phase sent a different form and intensity of occupation, but 2. The lower hearths were constructed with some care, we cannot be more definite than that. Originally it was context 31 being a baked clay hollow with a continuous hoped to excavate down into these layers of sand in the mudbrick surround. The hearths in this area were re- trench, but lack of time meant that we were only able used over some period of time, showing consistency in to investigate them in a small (c. 1 m x 1.5 m) sound- the use of this part of the site. ing on the southern side of the section. It had been The hearths were built up against the walls of a started by Susan Limbrey in 1990 and was dug further second mudbrick construction (context 32) which ap- by troweling and shoveling in 1991. We reached layers peared right in the northwestern corner of the trench (>3.5 m below the site datum) that showed no obvious and ran along, and into, the section of the northwest- evidence of human occupation. ern side of the trench. This probably represents the corner of a building of unknown type, the bulk of which lies to the north of our trench. Individual mud- Appendix 8.2: bricks were visible in the wall, being almost a meter Jeitun: Detailed Description of the long in some cases, and giving us a good impression Excavation of House A in 1993 of the construction of this feature. The hearths in this area make possible a relative The first major layer we removed inside House phasing of this part of the site. As they were built up A was context 4 (Berezkin’s III-1b): a floor extending against the wall (context 32), they are contemporary over much of the house which did not contain many 240 appendices 8.2–8.3 finds. Context 4 overlay context 11, which was a mud- clear pattern or purpose. It is conceivable that they brick destruction layer almost devoid of finds. It was were made by people who camped in the house while beneath this layer that most finds were made. In the it was temporarily out of use. center of the house there was a posthole (context 14), From the southwestern corner of the oven two cut in at least from context 4. A burnt area (context low mudbrick extensions about 12 cm thick and slightly 10) was found against the northeastern wall of the over 50 cm long ran southwest from it (contexts 88 and house overlying the platform east of the oven and was 91). They probably served to contain the ash from the sampled for charcoal. Within context 11 there were oven, and it was between them that the major areas several small hearths (contexts 12, 15, 16), the exact of ashy lenses and burning of the underlying floor function of which is unknown, but they were prob- were found. ably the sites of small fires lit while the building was On top of the final gypsum floor (context 42) out of use. Context 11 was underlain by context 17, a were thin layers of sand and gypsum (contexts 39 and brown clay layer together with some underlying sand 40) which may possibly have been the remains of or- into which were cut a series of holes (contexts 19–28, ganic floor coverings placed on the original floor of 93–96, 98–106). They varied in size and shape and the house and of sand trapped by them. Against the appeared to have no systematic arrangement. Some northwestern wall of the house there was a circular were obviously artificial and were probably postholes mudbrick feature (55) with the remains of a clay lin- whereas others may have been animal burrows. There ing in the center (54) which may have been a stand was also an area of ash directly in front of the oven for a pottery vessel. To the west of the oven two small which may well have resulted from oven cleaning. pits (56, 57) and a stakehole were found, as well as a The next major layer was context 30. It produced small pit (87) cut into the mudbrick base underlying many more finds than any of the previous layers, in- the gypsum floor toward the southwestern corner. cluding the first figurines discovered by the British The functions of these features are unknown. After team. Figurine fragments were also found in context removing the final floor (42) we dug into the mudbrick 29 inside the oven. The oven fills had been partially (58) underlying the gypsum. It was solid and showed excavated in 1992 by Berezkin and we completed their evidence of burning. The walls of House A stood over excavation (Fig. 8.8, color). The top of the oven stood 1.5 m above this floor in places. There was a small just over 1 m high above the floor of the house. The opening (c. 40 cm high) in the southeastern wall of next major context beneath 30 was 35 which stretched the house, thought to be a doorway, and three smaller across the whole of the house and was overlain by openings higher up in the walls that may well have a series of lenses of ash and charcoal to the west of been windows (Fig. 8.7). the oven (contexts 31–4) which presumably derived from it. Such features were found in this area until we reached the final floor of the house. Appendix 8.3: The platform adjacent to the oven was found Jeitun: Detailed Description of the under context 35. It was about 1.4 m wide and 1.7 m Excavation of House B in 1994 long, composed of mudbrick (context 43), and may have been used for sleeping, but even if this were The leveling layer (context 181) on which House the case it is unlikely to have been used only for that A was built lay over, and was possibly intermingled purpose. It had a small extension stretching out diago- with, context 182, which consisted of burnt clay ema- nally toward the center of the house. There was also nating from the House B oven. Below 181 there were a sand layer (context 37) of variable thickness under several smaller contexts, such as 184, a small sand lens context 35. It contained many finds, particularly along in the southwestern corner of the house which prob- the southwestern wall of the house where figurines ably represents an episode of blown sand. Context 196 were especially numerous (Fig. 8.9, color). This sand covered the whole of the interior of the house and may well represent a period of disuse after the initial was composed of firm clay with occasional patches floors in the house were laid down. We found another of charcoal and gypsum, suggesting that it may have series of small holes, mainly in the southwestern cor- been some type of temporary floor level. It butted up ner of the house (contexts 59–84), but they may not against the “sleeping” platform (context 197) and the all be postholes and they did not appear to have any oven (context 193) and was laid down after the latter appendices 8.3–8.4 241 had gone out of use. Three contexts composed of sand doorway (context 252) in the southeastern wall of and mudbrick underlaid 196: 199 on the northwestern the house. Context 195 comprised a layer of sand side of the house composed of clean yellow sand with with mudbrick lumps, burnt clay, and charcoal at the lumps of clay; 200 on the southwestern side composed southern corner of the house. It lay under the mud- of clay and sand; and 202 on the northwestern side, brick destruction layer (context 181) which covered which resembled 199, consisting of clean sand and the whole of House B, and it overlaid context 208, mudbrick. These contexts overlaid the floor of House which was formed of brown sand with charcoal and B and probably represent sand blown into this area gypsum flecks. Context 208 overlaid a gray silt and of the site while it was out of use. Context 203 was a sand layer with many charcoal flecks (context 217) small area of clay and ash in the southern corner of which was found immediately outside the doorway the house. The gypsum floor of House B (204/225) (252). Underlying 217 was context 220, a sterile sand underlaid contexts 202 and 200 and was made up of layer c. 10 mm thick which overlaid gray/black silt and an upper layer of plaster on top of a thin layer contain- sand containing much charcoal (context 224). This ing abundant charcoal fragments. Under these lay deposit did not abut the house outside the doorway, the solid mudbrick floor of the house (context 249) but came within 10 cm of it. Immediately outside the which extended over the whole of the floor, except door and underlying 224 was a layer of gray clay with for the area northwest of the oven where there was a some charcoal smears (context 229) approximately 50 layer of yellow sand with some charcoal flecks (context mm thick, beneath which was a yellow sand layer with 223) into which was cut a small (c. 30 cm diameter) much charcoal (context 232) overlying a firm mud- bowl-shaped depression (context 222) filled with a brick surface approximately 10 mm thick and 70 cm mudbrick material (context 221). Sterile sand (context in diameter (context 234). Under this was an almost 244) lay beneath the house. sterile layer of yellow sand with rare flecks of charcoal The oven was excavated as a separate set of con- (context 235) overlying another layer of clay (context texts which were largely contained within it. The up- 242) some 25 mm thick. This sat on top of basal sterile permost layer was composed of lumps of clay (context sand (context 244). This area was subsequently re- 194), some of which were burnt and may be the same as vealed in a strip some 2 m wide and 3.5 m long which context 182 which extended out of the hearth. Under provided the only basis for assessing relationships with this were large lumps of burnt mudbrick (context 206) House B and therefore only tentative conclusions can which were probably the collapsed dome of the oven be drawn. However, we can say that these deposits and which overlaid unburnt lumps of clay with plant probably represent a series of yard layers (contexts impressions (context 216). Beneath 216 there were 195, 208, 217, 224, 232) connected with House B, with two sandy layers with few inclusions: one in the front deliberately laid floors (contexts 229, 234, 242) inter- of the oven (233) and one beneath 233 and in the cen- spersed with layers of sterile sand (contexts 220, 235) ter and back of the oven (226). Context 227 probably blown in by wind storms. They represent the deepest represents a relining of the oven and was composed yard layers so far discovered on the site, although only of compact clay, red in parts and vitrified towards the exposed over small areas. center. It overlaid a pink-orange burnt and vitrified A second set of contexts was excavated along the layer about 25 mm thick (context 236) which was the southwestern wall of the house and around its south- original base of the oven. The oven reached a height ern corner. This area was first exposed when five clear- of about 50 cm from the floor and was not as tall as ing spits (contexts 170–174) were shoveled off from the the one in House A. upper area of excavation, as already described. This removed a series of sands and came down on a layer of sand with rare charcoal fragments and pieces of mud- Appendix 8.4: brick (context 175). When this was removed a loose Jeitun: Detailed Description of Small-scale yellow sand with many lumps of clay (context 179) was Excavations in 1994 Adjacent to House B found over the whole of the area outside the wall of House A, and at its southern corner, abutting the wall, On the outside of the southeastern wall (con- there was a small (c. 50 x 70 cm) area of mudbrick ap- text 214) of House B there was a series of layers which proximately 20 mm thick (context 180). Toward the were initially excavated in a 2 m2 trench outside the southern end of the wall of House A there was, within 242 appendices 8.4–8.5 context 175, a small (70 x 20 cm) mudbrick lens some a brown-yellow sand containing many charcoal frag- 5 mm thick with burnt clay and charcoal fragments ments (context 239) was found running along wall 211. (context 185). Once House A had been removed a se- Under 239 four more contexts overlying one another ries of small holes was revealed both inside (188, 189) were identified: 241, a patch of gray clayey sand with and outside (186, 187) House B, some of which were abundant charcoal in the middle of wall 211; 245, a irregular in shape and may have been animal burrows patch of loose mid-brown sand with much charcoal (190, 191). All these holes were cut into a gray mud- and some mudbrick; 246, a small patch of silty sand brick layer which appeared to abut the upper house also with much charcoal; and 247, compact black sand and overlie the wall of the lower house. They post-date with burnt mudbrick. Further excavation in this area the lower house and may be contemporary with the would be needed to ascertain the significance of these upper one, but they formed no apparent pattern and deposits. their function remains obscure. External to House B at its southern corner there was an area of mudbrick and sand with some charcoal Appendix 8.5: (context 205), which butted up against the wall of the Bolshoi Balkhan: Description of the Main house. Below this was a small mudbrick wall (context Contexts of Trenches 1 and 2 at 215) projecting out from the southeastern wall of Dam Dam Cheshme 3 the house, which may have been built in order to stabilize the building. Beneath this wall there was a layer of sand with charcoal fragments and white flecks Trench 1 (context 219) which overlaid yellow sand containing Context 1 was a silty clay with limestone frag- mudbrick lumps and charcoal fragments (context ments, which deepened toward the back of the shelter. 228), and under it lay a mid-brown sand with abun- Context 2 was made up of discontinuous hearths with dant charcoal fragments (context 243). Beneath 243 many fragments of charcoal and limestone. Context there was a small spread of mudbrick (context 250) 3 was at the mouth of the shelter and was made up of around the southern corner of the house and butting coarse sand and gravel, underlying 2. Contexts 5 and 7 up against it. were yellow-brown silt with few inclusions. Context 11 In the southern corner of House B, under con- was a cut made through contexts 1–3. Contexts 5, 23, text 179, there was an area of firm sand with rare 24, and 36 were small lenses of silt and sand. Contexts charcoal fragments which contained numerous pieces 10 and 11 were coarse gray-brown silts with frequent of pottery, probably all from the same pot broken and inclusions. Contexts 14, 16, 21, and 25 were hearths left in situ. This deposit overlaid a firm silty clay, gray with stones, charcoal, and gypsum flecks. Contexts 25 to black in color, containing many lumps of burnt clay and 27 were layers of gray-brown sediment and con- (context 237) under which was a dark brown sand with texts 29, 31, and 32 represented layers of ash. These many charcoal flecks which appeared to peter out away ashes caused scorching which was represented by from the house (context 240). The next context (251) context 39. Contexts 37 and 40 were layers of sand and was a spread of mudbrick around the southern corner silt, the latter also containing some gravel. Context 41 of the house, similar to those found at the southern was a hearth. Contexts 43 and 44 were made up of a and northern corners, beneath which there was sterile tumble of stones and burnt deposits. Context 45 was sand (context 244). the fill of steep-sided pit. Contexts 49 and 50 consisted At the northern corner of the house there was a of yellow-brown sandy silt and context 51 was a darker series of deposits of mudbrick and sand. Context 125 version of this with some charcoal. Contexts 53 and consisted of a spread of mudbrick, abutting wall 211 55 were fine silts (the latter more compact) with few and extending 2 m from the wall. It overlaid context inclusions. Contexts 57, 58, and 59 were hearths or 207 which was composed of mudbrick with patches of evidence of scorching. Context 60 was a homogenous sand and charcoal (only exposed in a small slot trench gray-brown silt. Context 61 was made up of four running along wall 211). At the very corner of wall pieces of limestone in a partial circle and filled with 211 a mudbrick wall butted up against it which either contexts 61 and 62 which were a variety of silts with acted as a buttress or was part of an ancillary structure colors ranging from yellow to dark brown. Contexts covered by unexcavated deposit. Beneath context 207 64–67 were gray-brown sandy silts with increasing appendix 8.5 243 numbers of pieces of limestone toward the base of former. Contexts 113–123 were a series of deposits the excavation. only found at the back of the shelter and sloping down sharply toward the front. Context 113 was light brown, Trench 2 but with patches of darker brown material. Context Context 101 was an uncompacted yellow-brown 119 underlaid this and was compact and sandy with silt, overlying 102, which was coarser in texture and small stones. Contexts 121–123 were sandy silts with lighter in color than 101. Context 103 was a gray-brown increasing clay content and stones towards the floor silt underlying and more compact than 102. Context of the shelter. Contexts 114 and 118 were at the front 104 was a patchy yellow and brown sandy silt, with of the cave, the former a sandy silt of uniform light a hearth (105) within it. Contexts 106–109 were all brown color with many calcium carbonate inclusions, small hearths. Contexts 110 and 111 were yellow-brown and the latter looser and more stony. Contexts 115 and sands, the latter more homogenous in color than the 116 were hearth features. 244 appendix 9.1

Appendices 9.1–9.2 be quite pure, fine ash, or variably mixed with sand. Micromorphology . Ashes are very rich in plant Susan Limbrey materials in the form of silica skeletons and separate phytoliths, charred and partly charred material in the form of coherent structures and cells fragments, Appendix 9.1: in laminar and flat-lying arrangements or chaotic. Jeitun: Detailed Descriptions by Calcite spherulites are very abundant, dominating Fabric Type of the Micromorphology the fabric as a continuous mass in some areas, absent Samples from the Section through Yard from other areas. The possible presence of calcium- Deposits in Trench 1991a oxylate druses (infilled plant cells) was considered. Very large spherulites, up to 50 microns in diameter, The descriptions use the internationally agreed are quite frequent, some having a bipartite structure terminology of The Handbook for Soil Thin Section De- of a core and an outer zone of radiating crystallites. scription (Bullock et al. 1985). Where it was possible to determine optical sign, the length-negative sign characteristic of calcite, was Sand-dominated Fabric always found, not the length-positive sign of the com- Present in samples J4 and J6, represented by moner form of oxylate (Canti 1998). These complex context 27; covering also the predominantly sandy structures need further study, and the presence of contexts throughout the deposits, as well as laminae oxylate druses is not ruled out. Some of the infill of and infill of faunal burrows in other contexts. charcoal cells is likely to be oxylate, but the structure Micromorphology . Well-sorted fine sand with fine of these infills was obscured by staining, so optical sign material in the form of grain coatings, bridges, and in- could not be obtained. tergrain groundmass. Fine material yellowish brown, Silica skeletons are dominated by graminaceous birefringent as thin grain coatings, light brown, iso- leaf or husk and stem fragments, commonly incurled tropic and speckled calcitic birefrinence between or spiral cross-sections of epidermis showing the pal- grains, some areas of denser fabric with thicker grain lisade layer and fragmentary remains of parenchyma, coatings of more strongly yellowish brown, with blobby and planar views, showing crinkly cell walls, stomata, form. Mineralogical characteristics of the sand are and hair bases (Fig. 9.4a,b, color). the same as those described in the report on buried Comparison with fresh material shows, for the soils at Jeitun (Section 9.3). Related distribution (the commonest fragments, closest similarity to barley in relationship between coarse and fine material) is chi- scale, degree of convolution of cell walls, and morphol- tonic (coarse grains with coatings of finer material) to ogy of the stomata. Bulliform cells of reed grasses, open porphyric (spaced-out coarse grains set in finer probably Phragmites sp., are also present, and these are ground mass), locally gefuric (coarse grains linked by the most common distinctive silica bodies in the case bridges of finer material). Voids are vughs (irregular, of sample J12, from a house floor. Numerous uniden- non-interconnecting), chambers, and intergrain voids. tified organic structures occur, most of plant origin, Gypsum infill of voids is common. Included material with cellulose residue fluorescing in uv (ultraviolet) consists of brick, mortar, and charcoal fragments. light, but occasional fragments of apparently animal origin also occur. Burnt and unburnt bone fragments Ash-dominated Fabric are fairly common. Wood charcoal is common in Present in samples J4, J5, and J6, represented by the darker ashes, and often has gypsum crystallized contexts 26 and 30. Macroscopically, the ashes vary within cracks in it, and sometimes calcite or oxylate from very pale gray, almost white, with very little or no within its cells, particularly in ray cells. Gypsum oc- large charred particles to dark gray, with conspicuous curs in nodules, lenses, and laminae, parts of the charcoal fragments as well as much very fine black dark gray ashes consist mainly of gypsum and charred material, and common white nodules of gypsum. and siliceous plant material. Calcitic and gypsiferous Lighter-colored ashes tend to occur as thin layers and fabrics are variable in their distribution and in their elongated lenses, associated with darker units, some- interrelationships. In the coarser and darker ash units times as distinct layers at the top or bottom of them, fragments of brick and mortar are common, and oc- and interstratified within the sandy contexts. They may casional fragments of pottery occur. appendix 9.1 245

Gypsum-dominated Fabric or densely packed, with calcite spherulites, includ- Gypsum occurs in all fabrics, but there are ing also possible calcium oxylate druses. Yellowish laminae and lenses in which it is the dominant feature. brown organic matter occurs in similar relationships The gypsum hearth (in context 44) and the sample to YOM, and also as localized areas of grain coatings, of house floor (sample J12, see below) are examples; bridges, and intergrain material. It is birefringent, within other contexts, macroscopically conspicuous frequently calcitic, and often associated with calcite gypsum forms elongated lenses and white nodules spherulites. which may be hard or soft and powdery. Humified plant fragments and flecks of brown Micromorphology . Individual examples may con- humic residues are common in all fabrics. In the sist entirely of a continuous mosaic of micritic (<4 ash contexts, there is a complete range from brown micron in diameter) and microsparitic (4–50 micron) humified plant material, through partly charred to gypsum, but in many areas these and sparitic (>50 fully charred material, and from material with cell micron) forms occur together, with crystal size up to structure still visible to strongly degraded material 1 mm or more. Sparitic gypsum frequently contains merging with amorphous organic matter. a scatter of fine black, brown, and yellow inclusions. Laminae rich in gypsum, appearing macroscopically Building Materials in section as white streaks, are composed of contigu- The sample ( J11) was taken to include both mud- ous or slightly separated rounded or sausage-shaped brick and mortar. Macroscopically, the brick is very masses, sometimes in overlapping or imbricated pat- pale brown (10YR 7/3) loamy sand, predominantly fine terns, its crystallization having apparently pushed the with unevenly distributed coarser sand and occasional ashy material apart along particular planes. Micritic silt/clay lumps, and gypsum nodules; a few voids left and microsparitic gypsum commonly occurs as void by decay of plant material; faunal burrows filled with infill in the ash contexts. crescentic looser coarse and fine material, or empty. In some examples, anhydrite occurs associated The mortar is light brownish gray (10YR 6/2), loamy with the gypsum as complex intergrowths. Within sand, darker in color than the brick due to a higher sparitic crystals of gypsum, anhydrite forms cross-wise proportion of fine dark particles. There is more fine bands, or separate composite crystals, with complex gypsum and fewer plant-material voids and coarse nod- patterns of birefringence related to cleavage, sug- ules than in the brick. The brick, when dry or moist, gesting transition to gypsum. In micritic masses, the has a stronger resistance to crushing than the mortar, higher relief of anhydrite produces areas of appar- and collapses less readily when saturated with water. ently darker fabric which at very high magnification, Examination of sand separates showed that medium and under crossed polars, can be seen to be striated sand consisted predominantly of calcitic concretions, patterns of intergrown gypsum and anhydrite. The plus, in the case of the mortar, abundant fragments of presence of other associated salts is not excluded. shell, predominantly from gastropods, but including one valve of a bivalve comparable to Pisidium. Fine Organic Matter sand was rich in micas, particularly biotite. Materials of organic origin dominate the ashes in Micromorphology , Mu dbr ic k . The texture of the the form of siliceous materials. Coloring of both sands coarse component is fine sand and silt, well sorted; the and ashes by amorphous organic matter occurs, giving fine material is brown with calcitic speckled birefrin- brown and yellowish-brown color, and laminae of more gence, forming grain coatings and bridges. Structure richly organic matter are also present. is angular blocky, with planar voids tending to hori- Micromorphology . Yellow organic matter (YOM) zontal orientation as partially accommodated inter- occurs in association with ash and sand fabrics as thin connected cracks, and occasional chambers; related laminae. Bright yellow and isotropic, it may be com- distribution is open porphyric; locally, micas show a pletely amorphous or show some degree of structure, tendency to more or less horizontal orientation. Very from clearly visible plant-cell morphology to a blocky uniform texture and related distribution, together to globular structure which in places can be seen to be with micritic gypsum infilling, gives a continuous the residual trace of disintegrating plant-cell forms, fabric with few fine voids. Brown flecks of humified or- and traces of cellulose are fluorescent under uv light. ganic material and fine black particles are common, YOM may be non-calcareous, or may be scattered, and there are shell fragments. Particles coarser than 246 appendix 9.1

fine sand are rounded masses of calcareous clay, with Fabric 1: Fine sand in an abundant matrix of occasional fragments of shell, charcoal, and bone. grayish-brown fine material, with micas and elongated Micromorphology , Mo r t a r . The texture is of cal- organic and charred fragments showing horizontal careous clay and more sand-rich material, with grada- orientation. Related distribution is open porphyric. tions and mixtures between them forming swirling Coarse material includes aggregates of micro-sparitic, patterns; clay predominates in large areas of fabric. Lo- and some larger, lenticular gypsum. Fine material is cally, concentrations of medium silt, a size segregation dominated by closely packed calcite spherulites, in not seen elswhere in the yard deposits, forms part of places forming discontinuous microlaminae. Organic the pattern. Structure is blocky with unaccommodated material consists of charred and partially charred cracks and chambers. Clay fabric has very fine fissuring humified fragments, and siliceous materials include into lenticular patterns. Clay fabric areas up to 2 cm phytoliths of bulliform cells of reed and occasional across, some sand-free, some sand-rich, are yellowish graminiferous epidermal skeletons. brown and pale brown, some areas being well-mixed in- Fabric 2: Gypsum, predominantly micritic, but ternally, others having swirling patterns and strings of grain size varies laterally in rounded and arcuate sand; yellow staining occurs in lenticular, banded, and patterns, and there are some coarser lenticular areas swirling patterns. Clay is micritic calcitic; where light within micritic masses. Areas of fine lenticular and of yellowish-brown staining occurs, calcite grain size is less micritic gypsum have interstitial voids, with idiomor- fine, and there are flecks of humified organic matter, phic crystals growing freely into them. Some lenses and in these areas birefringence is striated, following have a scatter of fine sand, most do not and are free of the swirling patterns. Locally small areas of yellow or- calcite spherulites and organic and charred particles, ganic matter impregnate the calcitic clay. Where sand but one lens does have abundant spherulites and a predominates, its grains are more closely packed than scatter of organic particles. Some areas appear brown elsewhere and have thicker, darker-brown calcitic grain in plane polarized light, and under very high magni- coatings and bridges, and little or no interstitial gyp- fication, striated, linear inclusions of high relief oc- sum. Included material is charcoal, rounded clay pel- curring within crystals appear. Gypsum and charred lets, and calcite-cemented sand pellets. Animal burrows material are interleaved, often with little or no sand, are filled with loose material derived from the same gypsum being in rounded masses along its laminae. fabric, plus aggregates of micro-sparitic gypsum. One area has gypsum pseudomorphing plant-cell Mudbrick and mortar draw on the same source structure, with traces of remaining organic material materials: a calcareous clay and a well-sorted sand and giving faint yellow fluorescence in uv light. Fabrics 1 silt. The brick is more thoroughly mixed and pugged, and 2 also combine in fine interlamination. Micro mortar being very poorly mixed, retaining swirling lenses of micritic gypsum are interleaved with calcite patterns, and being less compact. Animal burrows spherulites and siliceous material, including very com- are much more common in the mortar, perhaps mon bulliform phytoliths from reed, and with brown because of its less compact nature. Contact between stained material with charred particles. brick and mortar is smooth and even, with no trace Fabric 3: Organic matter, limpid, intense egg of smearing. yellow to pale yellow, isotropic, continuous or locally rounded to blocky. Areas showing residual cell struc- Flooring ture (with bodies within the cells that fluoresce yellow Macroscopically, the sample (J12) consists of in uv light) merge into areas with no organic structure laminae of gypsum and light gray ash (10YR 6.5/1.5), (Fig. 9.5, color). Some lenses contain abundant calcite with some charcoal, mostly in the upper part. Gypsum spherulites, locally phytoliths are common, and silica is variable in continuity of lamina and in thickness. skeletons are invaded by the yellow. Scatters of organic There are some iron-stained lenses, very dark and and charred particles occur. Sand grains are few. Fine glassy in appearance. particles of very high relief that appear black form Micromorphology . Laminae and lenses, from 0.2 networks in cracks and voids in the yellow material; to 2.0 mm thick, consist of ash, sandy ash, gypsum, they appear to have cell structure, and are associated finer lenses of charred material, and yellowish-brown particularly with silica skeletons, which fluoresce and yellow organic matter. Three main fabrics are faintly yellow in uv light. Adjacent to the lenses of present. yellow organic matter, fabric 3 also penetrates and appendices 9.1–9.2 247

is finely laminated with fabric 1, giving it an overall ones up to 50 microns (possible druses); (ii) darker, yellow color. yellowish to reddish brown to black, birefringent to isotropic in laminar zones, the black isotropic form Gypsum Hearth tending to form pseudocoatings to partings; where Sample J3 in context 44. Macroscopically, the less dark, the appearance is in part of humified or- sample consists of rounded lumps of gypsum, hard ganic tissue shreds, with occasional phytoliths visible. and white, several cm in diameter, together with softer Variation (i) occupies large areas in the upper part of and variably pink material (5YR 7/3) that tends to the slide, (ii) is more common in the lower part. surround the hard lumps, with interleaving and in Fabric 2: Gypsum fabric (see above) in sausage- places an admixture of reddish brown sand (5Y R 5/5), shaped masses of micritic gypsum, stained pale yel- surrounded by ashy sand. low, in imbricated pattern in concentrated horizontal Micromorphology . The white material is a continu- zones, the masses being separated and surrounded by ous mass of microsparitic lenticular gypsum crystals, very thin laminae of fabric 1. with occasional sparitic areas. The pink material has areas of very large intergrown crystals of gypsum, up Flattened Mass of Putative Faecal Material to 1 mm in length, mixed with more variable sparitic Sample J9 from context 30. Macroscopically, this and microsparitic gypsum mixed with sand. The large consists of a fine whitish material enclosing fibrous crystals show some intergrowth with anhydrite and pos- material in partially laminar form with common sibly other mixed-lattice salts, and have a scatter of very laminar voids. fine grains of detrital minerals included, often con- Micromorphology . Uncharred plant remains, leaf centrated in cleavage planes. Sand grains are locally and/or husk fragments, with fluorescence showing enclosed in or surrounded by sparitic gysum, and sand cellulose still present to varying degree, releasing fabric (as in other contexts, but with color intensified silica skeletons and phytoliths, many of them still in by heat) lies between the gypsum masses. Large frag- continuous articulation. Lath-shaped voids remain ments of burnt mudbrick are included in the slide. where plant material has gone completely. Fine ma- terial is a combination of continuous masses and Humic Layer clusters of calcite spherulites and areas of micritic Sample J2 in context 46. Macroscopically this calcitic fabric, with occasional areas strong brown, consists of laminated compact, fairly coherent brown non-calcareous. Included materials are some large material, 7.5Y R 5/3 to 5/4, with thinner, 1–2 mm, sand charcoal fragments, a few small bone fragments, and and gray ashy laminae and lenses; gypsum forming many fragments of mudbrick. There are several ex- white elongated masses does not consistently follow amples of an organic structure not seen in any other the laminar structure. Intense reddish-brown staining slides: yellow to white, isotropic, fluorescent, and is related in part to lamination. apparently funnel-shaped, composed of segments of Micromorphology . Two main fabrics are present. rounded pentagonal form, each showing banding, Fabric 1: Fine sand in a matrix of yellowish-brown surrounding a central tubular void. to dark brown and reddish-brown birefingent fine material, open porphyric, locally chitonic, related dis- tribution. Marked laminar microstructure is formed Appendix 9.2: by variations in amount and color of the fine compo- Jeitun: Detailed Descriptions of nent and by some degree of orientation of mineral Micromorphological Samples J16 and J17 grains. Porosity varies, more sandy laminae having from Buried Soils I and III, with Comments intergrain pores and chambers, those with less sand on the Loose Preparations Taken between having lower porosity, mainly chambers and vughs; Them occasional horizontal unaccommodated rough cracks separate laminae. Fine material is in two variations: (i) a continuous mass of calcite spherulites, variably Sample J16, the Upper Buried Soil (I) stained yellowish to reddish brown (Fig. 9.6, color); The sample was taken to include the transition the spherulites are predominantly 10–20 microns in between blown sand and the upper horizon of the diameter, occasionally larger and with rare very large upper soil (Table 9.6). 248 appendix 9.2

Fa br ic 1. This fabric predominates in the upper part with a few planar voids. Textural pedofeatures: limpid of the sample, mainly blown sand. There is little fine yellow grain coatings, partial coatings, and bridges. material other than that forming thin grain coatings Crescentic infillings of tubular pores with fabric 2 ma- to most grains, and bridges between them; rare thin, terial (see below). Ferruginous pedofeatures: common limpid yellowish brown isotropic partial coatings red, reddish brown, to yellowish brown and yellow occur, mostly on concave surfaces. Porosity is high, non-pleochroic isotropic granules of framboid struc- simple packing voids and vughs, occasional rough, ture (raspberry-like aggregates of crystallites), 5–25 unaccommodated planar voids. Organic material con- microns in diameter, and smaller granules that appear sists of shell fragments and occasional fine charcoal. to be separate components of these occurring within Pedofeatures: micritic calcite impregnation and void limpid yellow coatings (Fig. 9.9, color) and bridges, or coatings; gypsum as rare micro-sparitic void infill. in fragments of these, or having a halo of limpid yellow Fa br ic 2. This fabric predominates in the lower part in the partings of foliating biotites and in humified of the sample, the top of the buried soil. There is organic material; larger framboids can appear black at more fine material than in fabric 1, much of it highly lower magnifications and need high light intensity to calcitic. Related distribution and microstructure are show transmitted light color. Relief is very high. Some chitonic, locally open to closed porphyric, bridged show a core of darker color and a segmented yellow grain to compact grain. Porosity is lower than in outer zone. They are brilliant red in reflected light. fabric 1, with fewer simple packing voids, more vughs The framboids and smaller granules occur singly and and chambers. Organic material consists of charcoal, in clusters. Optical characteristics are those of iron and humified, partially charred material showing oxides, but framboid habit is not. Pyrites can develop some cell structure, fragments from 3 mm down- in soils with a framboid form, and it is suggested that ward, entire or fragmented. Humified fragments these are pyritic in origin but altered to ferric hydrox- form a focus for black impregnations or aggregating ide. Calcitic pedofeatures: localized micritic infillings mineral grains. Pedofeatures: calcitic impregnation and impregnations. Included materials: a few frag- is common. Much of the fabric is formed of textural ments of burnt bone; fragment of calcite-cemented pedofeatures in crescentic, reticulate, and texturally material with a smooth edge; pottery fragments. laminated form in complex patterns of void infill and Fa br ic 2. This fabric occupies most of the lower quar- partial infill, and fill of voids within existing infill. ter of the sample, the substrate of distinct texture, Reddish brown to dark red impregnations occur lo- and it also occurs as crescentic fillings of large (c. 5 cally. Fabric 1 occurs as void infill within fabric 2 and mm) tubular pores extending up into fabric 1. The vice versa. The transition between blown sand and coarse material is moderately sorted, coarse silt with soil is clearly formed by bioturbation, fabric 2 also a smaller amount of fine sand, with a distinct size dif- showing that the soil itself was strongly bioturbated ference between the two grades, there being little in prior to its burial. the 0.1 to 0.06 mm range. Related distribution is close porphyric. There is some slight evidence of microlami- Sample J 17, the Lower Buried Soil (III) nation in textural grade and in alignment of micas. The sample was taken to include the lower 7.5 Microstructure is massive to weakly developed blocky, cm of Soil III and the upper 2.5 cm of the subjacent with a few rough unaccommodated planar voids, horizon (Table 9.6). and some vughs. Fine material is very pale brown, Fa br ic 1. This fabric occurs in the upper three quar- speckled birefringence with micritic calcite and mi- ters of the slide: the buried soil. The coarse material critic and micro-sparitic gypsum largely in different is well sorted. Fine material is light brown calcitic, areas. Organic material consists of humified plant speckled birefringence, and limpid yellow isotropic, fragments with traces of cell structure, brown and as grain coatings and partial coatings and bridges. yellowish brown isotropic, and as cellulose remnants. Limpid yellow material also occurs as broken frag- Textural pedofeatures: limpid yellow grain coatings ments of bridges and coatings. Related distribution and hypocoatings; localized yellowish brown grain and microstructure are gefuric and chitonic, with pre- coatings, hypocoatings, and staining. Tubular pore dominantly single-grain and bridged-grain structure, infills in crescentic form of fabric 1 material; localized but some areas pellicular and intergrain. Porosity is infills of uniform coarse sand with little finer material. mainly simple packing voids, vughs, and chambers, Ferruginous pedofeatures: framboids, aggregates of appendix 9.2 249 framboids, and smaller grains, as above, within limpid yellow coatings on grains were rare in the A and Bg yellow coatings and within humified plant fragments. horizon of the upper soil, becoming common in the Calcitic pedofeatures: areas of dense micritic calcite Bg/C horizon, with fragments of coatings and bridges impregnation, void infill, and forming components of also present. Limpid yellow material was present only crescentic infill. Included material: occasional shell as traces in the A horizon of the lower soil, becoming fragments. common in the Ag and Bg horizons. Framboids were Loose preparations of samples taken between still common in the middle soil and they were absent the two micromorphology samples showed that limpid from the upper soil. 250 appendix 9.3

Appendices 9.3–9.5 Mary Larkum

Appendix 9.3: Types of Phytolith (based on data in Bowes 1996, Bracegirdle and Miles 1971, Esau 1965, Fahn 1990, Metcalfe 1960, Piperno 2006, and Rosen pers. comm. 2004)

Cell Type Cell Shape/Appearance Cell Location Taxonomy Function and/or Significance bilobe dumbbell-shaped two-lobe idioblast cells overlying Panicoideae/C4 indicates presence of Panicoid short cell and between veins of leaf grass epidermis bulliform three-dimensional adaxial leaf epidermis Gramineae, many monocots may facilitate the opening of rectangular cell, often wedge between leaf veins, abaxial (except the Helobiae) leaves from the bud and the shaped surface in some species hygrochastic movement of mature leaves cone funnel-shaped short cell epidermis tissue differing morphologies indicates presence of Cyperaceae diagnostic of Cyperaceae and Gramineae crenate two-dimensional short cell idioblast cells overlying C3 and C4 taxa currently unknown with sinuous edges of three and between veins of leaf or more lobes epidermis

dendritic spiny dendriform long cell inflorescences/floral bracts present in many taxa indicates presence of grass flowers or seed husks elongate quadrilateral form with unknown, possibly woody dicotyledonous taxa indicates presence of woody smooth tapering sides epidermal tissue dicotyledonous taxa hair elongated prickle, often appendage on epidermis of all graminaceous subfamilies protection, support and lanceolate in shape leaf, fruit, and seed and some woody dicots glandular secretion keystone shield-shaped bulliform cell leaf epidermis Chloridoid and Panicoid may faciltate the opening of leaves from the bud and the hygrochastic movement of mature leaves platey non-uniform plate-like shape extra-cellular deposits in woody dicotyledonous taxa indicates presence of woody taxa with rough uneven surface wood and leaves of dicots polyhedron two-dimensional four-to- dicot leaf epidermis woody dicotyledonous taxa indicates presence of woody taxa eight sided short cell polylobe three-dimensional short cell idioblast cells overlying Panicoideae indicates presence of Panicoid with three or more lobes and between veins of leaf grass epidermis rod acicular (needle-like) long leaf and stem epidermal present in many taxa sometimes indicates presence of cell tissues Cyperaceae rondel hat-shaped or round short primarily in epidermis of Pooideae/C3 indicates presence of Pooid cell husk (all parts), stem, and grasses stem sheath saddle saddle-shaped short cell idioblast cells overlying Chloridoid/C4 and some indicates presence of C4 taxa and between veins of leaf Panicoids such as Phragmites such as Phragmites sp. epidermis sp.

scalloped crescent-shaped short form unknown, possibly extra- woody dicotyledonous taxa indicates presence of woody taxa with scalloped edges cellular, from wood and leaves of dicots sinuous long long cell with low wave on leaf and stem epidermal Gramineae, no distinctive indicates presence of grasses cell cell walls tissues characteristics appendices 9.3–9.4 251

Appendix 9.3 (cont’d.)

Cell Type Cell Shape/Appearance Cell Location Taxonomy Function and/or Significance smooth long smooth-sided long cell leaf and stem epidermal Gramineae, no distinctive indicates presences of grasses cell tissues characteristics stomata oval-shaped cell with interior abaxial surface of leaf Gramineae, no distinctive gas exchange “guard” cells epidermis characteristics tracheid imperforate, cylindrical xylem tissues of stem present across higher plant conduction of water and structure with spiral taxa nutrients thickenings trichome prickle or micro-hair appendage, all plant parts differing morphologies secretion of essential oils and across many plant families enzymes

Appendix 9.4: wheat type, cereal straw, leaf/stem wild grass, and Jeitun: Summaries of the Contexts of Phragmites leaf and stem skeletons are present on this the 15 Phytolith Samples and of slide, as are large keystones (>10 microns) and saddles the Analytical Results associated with Phragmites. C3 pooid rondels dominate the slide (8,607,000 per gm), followed by platey cells from woody plants. There are many dendritics, bul- Yard Deposits: The P Samples liforms, and smooth long cells (leaf/stem cells). Rods Co n t e x t 22 (sample P4): ashy laminae with gypsum, and cones from sedges are also present, as are single mudbrick fragments, and charcoal; a distinct light polyhedron cells and elongates from woody plants. gray ashy lens comes in at the top from the west and Co n t e x t 26 (sample P6): a grayish-brown ashy tapers out. layer. P4 analysis: JE-01-11. Grass skeletons dominate P6 analysis: JE-01-15. This slide contains leaf/ this slide, followed numerically by leaves and stems stem, barley, and wild grass silica skeletons, with of Phragmites sp. There are 43 unidentified silica more smooth long cells than any other type, cones skeletons, 3 of wheat-type multi-cells, and a large from sedges, and saddles possibly from Phragmites. barley multi-cell (Fig. 9.13d). There are a great many As with the other samples, the greatest number of C3 pooid rondels (7,016,000 per gm) and numerous cells are from the C3 pooid rondels (11,300 per gm). dendritic cells from grass inflorescences which may Many of the cells appear pitted and the pH value of indicate deposition in spring/early summer when the sedimentary matrix increases the likelihood that grasses flower, although they might have entered the the deposit has been chemically weathered. There are deposit later as by-products of stored grain crops or dendritic cells from grass inflorescences and, from fodder plants (this comment applies also to samples woody plants, platey cells as well as single polyhedron P5, P6, P10, P14, P19, and P 28). Smooth long cells cells and scalloped cells. (leaf/stem) and bulliform (leaf/leaf joint) cells are Co n t e x t 30 (sample P7): gray ash with fine white also present in large numbers. The presence of Phrag- flecks and fragments of charcoal and mudbrick; lami- mites is indicated by the inclusion of bulliforms (Fig. nar structure, parting readily along planes on which 9.13a), large keystones (over 10 microns), and saddles, lie silica skeletons of graminaceous plant material. and there are many rods from plants such as sedges, P7 analysis: JE-01-14. The silica skeletons counted and platey cells from woody plants. There are also a were of leaf/stem, wild grass, barley (some greater few cones from sedges. than, or equal to, 100 contiguous cells), Bromus sp. type, Co n t e x t 24 (sample P5): grayish-brown sand with Phragmites leaves (14,000 per gm) and stems (11,000 laminae of gray ash. per gm), cereal straw, and wheat type. As in the other P5 analysis: JE-01-16. Phytoliths of barley (some samples, C3 pooid rondels (13,806,000 per gm) out- greater than, or equal to, 100 contiguous cells) and number panicoid C4 bilobes (894,000 per gm). Rods, 252 appendix 9.4

cones from sedges, and elongates from woody plants numerous wild grass, wheat type, cereal straw, and bar- are present and many platey cells from wood were ley multi-cells. Large wheat type and leaf/stem multi- counted. There are also bulliforms (leaves), trichomes cells (some greater than, or equal to, 100 contiguous (awns and leaves), smooth long cells from leaf and stem cells) were noted, as well as many platey cells from plant parts, and dendritics from inflorescences. Large wood. Many Phragmites leaf skeletons as well as large keystones (>10 microns) and saddles associated with C4 keystones (>10 microns) and saddles were counted, but panicoid plants, including Phragmites, are present. no stem skeletons of reed were found. Co n t e x t 33 (sample P10): light brown-gray lami- The large number of Phragmites leaf skeletons nated ash with charcoal and gypsum. present suggested that there could be a dung com- P10 analysis: JE-01-7. This slide contains cells of ponent in the sample, because reed was commonly wheat type (Fig. 9.13c), barley, wild grass, and Phrag- used as fodder in ancient Southwest and Central mites. There are large keystones (>10 microns) and Asia (Rosen, pers. comm. 2003). However, no faecal saddle shaped cells also associated with Phragmites. spherulites were observed when the slide was exam- Dendritics are abundant and trichomes (from awns ined under cross-polarized light. A second slide was and leaves) are also present, suggesting derivation therefore prepared (by the process described above from grain-processing. Starch grains were observed, under Methods). It showed aggregates of spherulites but no spherulites from dung. that would have been processed out of the first sample Co n t e x t 41 (sample P14): grayish-brown charcoal- because of their specific gravity, or dissolved by HCl. rich ash within context 42. Overall, the slide gives the impression that both wood P14 analysis: JE-01-8. Large silica skeletons (some and dung were used as fuel in the adjacent hearth. greater than, or equal to, 100 contiguous cells) of This impression is reinforced by the presence of char- wheat type, barley, and cereal straw are present. Iden- coal particles, which were noted but not counted. tifiable multi-cells of wheat type outnumber those of Co n t e x t 46 (sample P23): brown humic material barley, but this sample contains many other silica skel- laminated with gypsum and gray ash forming a con- etons that lack the diagnostic attributes necessary for tinuous layer across the section, with a very high positive identification. Wild grass andPhragmites (both concentration of faecal spherulites indicative of dung stems and leaves) are present. C3 rondels dominate (see Section 9.2). the sample (5,597,000 per gm) and there are also C4 P23 analysis: JE-01-9. Two slides were made from bilobed cells, as well as small numbers of cones from the sample. The first was counted for phytoliths. It sedges and elongates from woody plants. did not contain any cereal skeletons and only a few Co n t e x t 44 (sample P18): a gypsum-filled hollow leaf skeletons of wild grass and Phragmites. Many C3 with charcoal in its base, referred to by Limbrey as a and C4 single-celled phytoliths, including dendritics, “gypsum hearth.” were present, as well as cones from sedges and leaf P18 analysis: JE-01-12. Only four barley skeletons, cells (bulliforms and Phragmites leaf skeletons). Platey two of cereal straw and six of cereal leaf/stem were cells from woody plants were also present. However, observed in this slide. Amorphous silica aggregates faecal spherulites were absent, and because they were from wood were noted but not counted. Platey cells very abundant in a micromorphological slide from a from woody plants dominate the sample (7,106 per similar sample (J2, Appendix 9.1), a second slide was gm) followed by C3 pooid rondels (6,560 per gm). prepared (by the same procedure used to make the Sedge cones are also present, as are single polyhedron second slide of sample P19; see above). The second cells from woody plants. There are a few bulliforms on slide contained aggregates of spherulites that had the slide, as well as some dendritics and smooth long been processed out of the first slide by the applica- leaf/stem cells. tion of HCl and SPT. Calcitic druses from wood also Co n t e x t 45 (sample P19): reddish-brown/dark brown appeared to be present in this second slide, although heat-discolored sand and ash adjacent to the gypsum not in the first (but see Appendix 9.1 for comment by hearth (context 44). Limbrey on the possible presence of druses). P 19 analysis: JE-01-13. Two slides were made from Sa m pl e P28. No context number was assigned to the this sample. The first was used to count phytoliths source of sample P28. It came from a light-gray ashy and was found to contain the largest number of silica lens at a depth of 113.0–116.0 cm below the section skeletons of both wild and domestic taxa, including datum in the deposits of predominantly fine sands appendix 9.4 253

of typical windblown lenticular structure containing Off-site Dune Sands and Buried Soils: The S some charcoal and occasional fragments of mudbrick Samples that underlie the deepest context (46) and which were Sa m pl e S2 (laboratory number JE-01-3): from the sounded to a maximum depth of c.158 cm below the upper buried soil at 14–20 cm below section datum; section datum. brown loamy sand (10YR 5/3) with faint gray and yel- P28 analysis: JE-01-10. A few barley and wild grass low mottling; pH 8.5. silica skeletons, as well as some unidentified skeletons, S2 analysis: JE-01-3. The main components were observed. C3 rondels dominate this sample of this sample are rondels from pooid C3 grasses (5,055,000 per gm), which also includes bulliforms (5,087,000 per gm), as well as keystones and non- (leaf cells), platey cells from woody plants, and cones keystone bulliforms found in leaves. There are single from sedges. Large keystones (>10 microns), often as- polyhedrons from dicotyledonous plants, but no sociated with Phragmites, are present, although there smooth-walled long cells from leaves and stems, or are no Phragmites skeletons either from the leaves or dendritic cells from inflorescences, although rod- from the stems. There are many trichomes (awns and shaped long cells are present in smaller numbers leaves). Charcoal particles were noted in this sample, (51,000 per gm). Many of the cells appear to be pit- but not counted. ted, indicating that they may have been subjected to chemical weathering. Mudbrick and Mortar: Samples JE-01-1 and JE-01-2 Sa m pl e S7 (laboratory number JE-01-4): from the The mudbrick consisted of very pale brown middle buried soil at 45–51 below section datum; loamy sand with unevenly distributed coarse sand and yellowish brown sand (10YR5/4) with faint gray mot- occasional lumps of silt/clay and nodules of gypsum. tling; pH 8.6. In her micromorphological thin section (sample J11), S7 analysis: JE-01-4. Few phytoliths were observed Limbrey observed occasional fragments of shell, char- on this slide and no silica skeletons. Bulliforms appear coal, and bone. in small numbers, as do keystone bulliforms, smooth Mu dbr ic k a n a ly s i s : JE-01-1. This sample is domi- long cells (from leaves and stems), and trichomes. nated by platey cells from woody plants (1,339,762 Rondels from pooid C3 grasses are present in greater per gm), but it also contained a significant number numbers than any other cell type (85,000 per gm). of C3 pooid rondels (347, 024 per gm). Sedge cones, One sedge cone, one C4 bilobe, and one scalloped cell bulliforms, C4 bilobes and saddles, large keystones from a woody plant were counted. Starch grains and (>10 microns, as found in Phragmites), scalloped cells spherulites were visible in cross-polarized light. of woody plants, dendritics, and smooth long leaf/ Sa m pl e S11 (laboratory number JE-01-5): from the stem cells are all present. The only silica skeletons lower buried soil at 80–100 cm below section datum; are smooth long cells from leaf/stem plant parts. The gray and grayish brown (10YR 5/1, 5/2) and yellowish presence of spherulites (Fig. 9.13b) suggests that dung brown (10YR 5/4) sandy loam with yellowish staining may have been added to the mudbrick to increase its around gray patches (10YR 5/8); pH 9.0. tensile strength (Rosen, pers. comm. 2003). S11 analysis: JE-01-5. Two slides were made from The mortar consisted of light brownish-gray this sample. The appearance of the first suggested loamy sand with more fine gypsum but fewer coarse that the fine fraction was missing from the original nodules than the mudbrick and abundant fragments subsample, and so a second slide was made. However, of shell. Limbrey noted charcoal, rounded clay pellets, the second slide showed that the appearance of the and calcite-cemented sand pellets in the micromor- first was characteristic of the sandy loam matrix of phological thin section (sample J11). the sample, and so the first was analyzed. It contained Mo r t a r a n a ly s i s : JE-01-2. This sample is dominated no silica skeletons. Rondels from pooid C3 grasses by C3 rondels (3,483,000 per gm) and platey cells from were the most common cell type (191,000 per gm), woody plants (2,563,000 per gm). There are also many but smooth long leaf/stem cells, rods, bilobes from C4 bulliforms. Smooth long cells and leaf/stem silica skel- grasses, cones from sedges, and elongates from woody etons are also present, as are sedge cones. Charcoal plants were also present. Amorphous silica aggregates particles were noted but not counted. from wood were noted but not counted. 254 appendix 9.5

Appendix 9.5: Jeitun: Numbers of Types of Phytolith per Gram for Each Sample Analyzed ➾

Sample P4 P5 P6 P7 P10 P14 P18 P19 P23 SINGLE-CELL Long (Smooth) 2339000 427000 607 2679000 1239000 1847000 328 277714 3245000 Long (Sinuate) 540000 98000 87 1580000 315000 788000 55 98739 1508000 Long (Rods) 1320000 228000 260 1854000 440000 598000 382 86400 2087000 Long (Dendritic) 1559000 589000 520 825000 1805000 5624000 164 203658 1624000 Papillae 0 0 87 0 84000 109000 0 24686 0 Hairs 301000 623000 347 2266000 357000 625000 546 117258 1855000 Trichomes 1139000 1444000 867 3503000 1637000 3532000 819 141943 5222000 Bulliforms 1139000 3021000 3042 7075000 2792000 5923000 4649 129600 12518000 Ovals 0 0 0 0 0 109000 0 0 0 Keystones 240000 560000 1301 2817000 461000 761000 874 117258 1158000 Crenates 119000 589000 0 206000 231000 1005000 55 43200 1508000 Bilobes 0 0 0 894000 0 82000 0 37029 232000 Rondels 7016000 8607000 11300 13806000 1176000 5597000 6560 2048914 24340000 Saddles 480000 755000 434 1031000 84000 408000 0 43200 1158000 Cones 61000 361000 260 894000 252000 897000 164 12343 463000 Flat Tower 0 162000 347 137000 42000 82000 0 24686 0 Horned Tower 61000 100000 0 755000 0 136000 0 12343 0 Rugulose Spheroid 0 0 0 69000 0 0 55 6171 232000 Smooth Spheroid 0 0 0 275000 0 0 0 0 232000 Bottle-shaped 0 0 347 0 0 188000 0 0 116000 Elongate 480000 33000 0 549000 482000 788000 109 24686 1158000 Tracheids 0 0 260 0 84000 109000 0 24686 232000 Two-tiered 0 0 0 69000 0 0 0 0 116000 Blocks 0 328000 867 275000 440000 1032000 55 49371 5795000 Platey 1859000 1905000 3909 2885000 713000 1847000 7106 771429 5447000 Sheet 480000 0 0 0 189000 679000 205 154286 1274000 Single Polyhedron 0 888000 260 1168000 210000 489000 2130 74057 1508000 Scalloped 0 0 87 137000 84000 109000 0 0 0 Single Jigsaw Puzzle 0 0 0 686000 0 0 874 166629 9387000 MULTI-CELL Leaf/Stem 253000 71000 145 379000 48000 231000 41 672686 176000 Unidentified Husks 54000 149000 29 322000 97000 573000 14 271543 236000 Wheat Husks 4000 8000 0 6000 39000 93000 0 49371 10000 Barley Husks 0 21000 36 86000 66000 88000 27 37029 27000 Aegilops 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Wild Grass Husks 277000 23000 7 110000 8000 129000 0 55543 22000 Phragmites Stem 117000 3000 29 11000 5000 50000 0 43200 0 Bromus-type Stem 0 0 0 24000 0 9 0 0 0 Phragmites Leaf 127000 7000 7 14000 7000 29000 0 425829 7000 Cyperaceae 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Cereal Straw 4000 11000 0 9000 54000 188000 14 37029 17000 appendix 9.5 255

Appendix 9.5 (cont’d.)

Sample P28 Brick Mortar S2 S7 S11 SINGLE-CELL Long (Smooth) 183000 109065 362000 0 7000 10000 Long (Sinuate) 386000 19830 28000 103000 0 0 Long (Rods) 82000 29745 28000 51000 0 7000 Long (Dendritic) 202000 39660 0 0 0 0 Papillae 61000 0 0 0 0 0 Hairs 426000 0 0 0 0 0 Trichomes 2436000 0 0 0 0 0 Bulliforms 2537000 198300 1727000 5911000 20000 0 Ovals 0 0 0 0 0 0 Keystones 873000 0 1031000 1491000 10000 0 Crenates 386000 39660 111000 411000 1000 0 Bilobes 61000 19830 28000 0 1000 4000 Rondels 5055000 347024 3483000 5087000 85000 191000 Saddles 202000 49575 0 47000 0 0 Cones 386000 69405 139000 205000 1000 6000 Flat Tower 40000 9915 28000 154000 0 0 Horned Tower 0 0 0 0 0 0 Rugulose Spheroid 21000 19830 0 0 0 0 Smooth Spheroid 21000 0 0 51000 0 0 Bottle-shaped 40000 59490 0 0 0 0 Elongate 224000 19830 84000 51000 0 2000 Tracheids 40094000 0 0 0 0 0 Two-tiered 264000 0 84000 0 2000 0 Blocks 2212000 29745 28000 51000 0 0 Platey 101000 1339762 2563000 0 0 0 Sheet 527000 19830 56000 0 3000 0 Single Polyhedron 0 0 28000 926000 0 0 Scalloped 0 19830 56000 0 1000 0 Single Jigsaw Puzzle 0 0 557000 0 0 0 MULTI-CELL Leaf/Stem 21000 32224 24000 17000 0 0 Unidentified Husks 25000 1239 0 0 0 0 Wheat Husks 0 0 0 0 0 0 Barley Husks 6000 0 0 0 0 0 Aegilops 0 0 0 2000 0 0 Wild Grass Husks 7000 0 0 0 0 0 Phragmites Stem 0 0 0 0 0 0 Bromus-type Stem 0 0 0 0 0 0 Phragmites Leaf 0 0 0 0 0 0 Cyperaceae 0 0 1000 2000 0 0 Cereal Straw 0 0 0 0 0 0 256 appendix 9.6

Appendix 9.6: Jeitun: Summary Table of the Archaeobotanical Composition of the Samples (only wild plant types occurring in five or more samples are included) Michael Charles and Amy Bogaard

➾

Soil Sample # 8911 9023 9025 9032 9034 9042 9044 9052 9107 9111 9117 9118 9121 9122 9125 9126 9129 9131 9132 ashy ashy ashy ashy Context Type floor ctyd. ctyd. ctyd. ctyd. ctyd. ctyd. floor other hearth hearth dump hearth dump hearth dump hearth other dump Vol. Floated (L) 5 30 15 30 7.5 5 10 10 5.0 11 5.5 5 5 3.75 6 8 7.5 7.5 1.875 No. of Items/L 88 62 124 54 57 229 142 24 66 25 247 100 155 301 268 252 12 199 462 Cereal Grain Einkorn 2 6 8 14 3 5 14 700242477922 1-grained Einkorn 2 7 5 2 8 7 13 15 0 1 2 7 1 40 43 19 8 2 3 2-grained Einkorn indeter- 0514000122051 25 8 2 0 1 1 minate

Emmer grain, cf. 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0

Glume wheat 3 2 8 5 5 0 11 15 21000360603 indeterminate Hulled barley 0000000000000110100 grain Naked barley 1111324200221132001 grain Barley indeter- 1 0 1 5 2 0 0 18 00200000033 minate grain Cereal/large grass indetermi- 0 9 4 2 15 10003200013002 nate grain Cereal Chaff Glume wheat, terminal glume 4 0 0 2 12 0 40 420042000000 bases Glume wheat, other glume 196 134 209 486 59 98 1124 71 162 256 46 250 115 331 254 249 24 30 143 bases cf. Free-thresh- 0000000001004000000 ing wheat rachis

Basal wheat 0000000000004000200 rachis Naked barley 0000004000200000001 rachis Barley indeter- 00000000110 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 minate rachis Basal barley 0000002000000000000 rachis Culm nodes (>1 0411000100020140001 mm diam.) Culm nodes (<1 0050000000000000000 mm diam.) Culm bases 1000000000000000100 ➾ appendix 9.6 257

Appendix 9.6 (cont’d.)

Soil Sample # 9201 9212 9214 9217.1 9217.2 9225 9227 9228 9232 9237 9238 9304 9320 9323 9324 9423 9443 9444 9447 9448 floor- floor- ashy ashy ashy ashy ashy ashy ashy sandy ashy sandy ashy Context Type other hearth ctyd. ashy ashy dump dump dump dump dump dump hearth dump other hearth other dump dump dump dump Vol. Floated (L) 10 1 10 5 10 22 2.5 12.5 25 10 4.5 22 10 7 18 20 24 17 50 10 No. of Items/L 51 92 19 196 155 23 1682 130 158 87 554 82 24 472 31 10 5 14 3 26 Cereal Grain Einkorn 0 0 0 5 0 0 3 11 17 02100000000 1-grained Einkorn 00045229932002042 14 6 2 2-grained Einkorn indeter- 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 12 500010000000 minate

Emmer grain, cf. 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Glume wheat 0 0 0 2 1 3 2 10 30 41000002000 indeterminate Hulled barley 00026000001000022213 grain Naked barley 00001012000000000000 grain Barley indeter- 0 0 0 1 2 2 0 1 10 01100000000 minate grain Cereal/large grass indetermi- 00010317210050100000 nate grain Cereal Chaff Glume wheat, terminal glume 0 0 0 1 0 0 3 48 8 20 12 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 bases Glume wheat, other glume 85 0 4 339 368 109 64 1076 352 600 975 2 139 4 6 88 23 115 82 32 bases cf. Free-thresh- 00000000000020000000 ing wheat rachis

Basal wheat 00011007100000000000 rachis Naked barley 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3180020000000 rachis Barley indeter- 00010002400000010000 minate rachis Basal barley 00000002100000000000 rachis Culm nodes (>1 00000013221000000000 mm diam.) Culm nodes (<1 00000001000000000010 mm diam.) Culm bases 00001000000000000000 ➾ 258 appendix 9.6

Appendix 9.6 (cont’d.) ➾

Soil Sample # 8911 9023 9025 9032 9034 9042 9044 9052 9107 9111 9117 9118 9121 9122 9125 9126 9129 9131 9132 ashy ashy ashy ashy Context Type floor ctyd. ctyd. ctyd. ctyd. ctyd. ctyd. floor other hearth hearth dump hearth dump hearth dump hearth other dump Vol. Floated (L) 5 30 15 30 7.5 5 10 10 5.0 11 5.5 5 5 3.75 6 8 7.5 7.5 1.875 No. of Items/L 88 62 124 54 57 229 142 24 66 25 247 100 155 301 268 252 12 199 462 Wild Plants (seeds unless stated) Heliotropium sp. 0 40 13030010010000000 Capparis sp. 4 44 116 20 311140202101528 Chenopodium 0 0 0 40 000020000000000 album Suaeda type 1 6 40 24 33 4 4 4 2 2 0 0 5 10 16 7 0 0 4 8 Suaeda type 2 0 0 84 64 74 150 36 26 0 5 28 112 38 232 189 0 0 216 89 Suaeda indeter- 0 112 24 65 5 7 4 2 2 0 0 8 0 0 63 0 2 0 0 minate Centaurea sp. 0010110000001001000 Alyssum sp. 0 0 12 17 146 88 8 35 2 0 0 0 0 8 1 4 0 56 9 CRUCIFERAE 4 360 608 16 0 0 0 0 32 0 1 0 0 56 15 4 0 0 0 type 1 CRUCIFERAE 0 32 72 145 6 0 0 0 0 0 1 10 0 8 1 0 0 0 0 indeterminate Scirpus mariti- 17 82 28 142 8 37 0 5 2 0 8 14 4 1 2 2 8 23 16 mus CYPERACEAE 6 0 20 8 2 3 5 5 1 1 2 0 16 1 7 13 0 32 8 indeterminate Erodium type 1 0000200000006 16 0 28 0 41 0 Aegilops sp. 4 8 1 12 12 10 20 6 2 5 9 7 0 3 25 10 8 0 20 (glume bases) Aegilops sp. 4 22 2 12 8 5 60 5 2 2 9 11 10 12 7 5 0 1 5 Aeluropus sp. 44 528 0600 24 0 616 0 5 74 0 1180 28 510 352 811 1600 0 1012 192 Bromus type 1 2 68 9 85 14 24 20 4 18 0 15 8 29 2 2 2 3 14 11 Bromus type 2 0 28 00061110005000101 Eremopyrum sp. 5 32 1 29 14 6 20 240020101005 reed culm nodes (Phrag- 0100052000000000000 mites/Arundo) Stipagrostis sp. 0 0 12 000010008401 44 0 44 304 GRAMINEAE (<1mm) indeter- 00000004000000 124 1 0 0 0 minate GRAMINEAE (>1mm) indeter- 0 8 0 36 001000000018001 minate Astragalus/ Trigonella inde- 133 277 1 85 8 31 25 3 6 1 33 4 4 2 6 3 13 12 12 terminate Melilotus/Trifo- lium indetermi- 0 1 0 19 2 13 0 1 0 0 1 6 0 3 15 5 0 0 1 nate Asparagus sp. 0 2 1 13 670000001100000 Polygonum cf. 0040200000000010008 aviculare Galium type 1 2 0 0 16 210120904834008 Galium type 2 0209000110020100000 Other Material sheep/goat 0.3 0.4 2.4 0.5 0.1 3.0 0.1 0.1 1.0 0.0 0.2 0.1 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.3 0.4 0.1 dung (vol. in ml) appendix 9.6 259

Appendix 9.6 (cont’d.)

Soil Sample #. 9201 9212 9214 9217.1 9217.2 9225 9227 9228 9232 9237 9238 9304 9320 9323 9324 9423 9443 9444 9447 9448 floor- floor- ashy ashy ashy ashy ashy ashy ashy sandy ashy sandy ashy Context Type other hearth ctyd. ashy ashy dump dump dump dump dump dump hearth dump other hearth other dump dump dump dump Vol. Floated (L) 10 1 10 5 10 22 2.5 12.5 25 10 4.5 22 10 7 18 20 24 17 50 10 No. of Items/L 51 92 19 196 155 23 1682 130 158 87 554 82 24 472 31 10 5 14 3 26 Wild Plants (seeds unless stated) Heliotropium sp. 02000020400010000000 Capparis sp. 0 16 0 30 64 16 0 15 96 50 35 50 0 31 27 49 26 27 1 25 Chenopodium 0 0 1 8 4 0 0 0 2 0 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 album Suaeda type 1 4 5 4 8 8 0 0 0 902 00000000000 Suaeda type 2 140 25 71 24 240 48 158 0 1106 80 208 8 15 304 16 0 0 0 0 0 Suaeda indeter- 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 56 32 00000000000 minate Centaurea sp. 00000001000000000000 Alyssum sp. 16 0800100080000100000 CRUCIFERAE 03000000000010000000 type 1 CRUCIFERAE 0 2 0 0 16 20 28000108000000 indeterminate Scirpus mariti- 0 0 0 27 1 16 160 3 94 14 42 32 0 9 3 0 0 0 0 0 mus CYPERACEAE 4 2 0 2 4 1 53 24 28 10 0 24 0 0 49 0 0 0 0 0 indeterminate Erodium type 1 00000000800000000000 Aegilops sp. 208 0 0 8 18 3 2 8 64 22 5 0 4 1 0 8 0 4 1 3 (glume bases) Aegilops sp. 0 0 0 26 47 5 1 15 48 7 9 4 4 1 0 22 4 7 7 4 Aeluropus sp. 40 16 101 296 640 248 3702 184 0 16 960 1680 57 2712 450 24 26 15 3 140 Bromus type 1 0 0 1 8 5 9 6 75 143 8 19 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 Bromus type 2 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 11 22 01000000000 Eremopyrum sp. 0 0 2 6 5 0 6 11 80 19000100000 reed culm nodes (Phrag- 00000000000000000110 mites/Arundo) Stipagrostis sp. 8 0 0 64 12 0 6 0 0 0 80 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 GRAMINEAE (<1mm) indeter- 0 0 0 40 4000008000100000 minate GRAMINEAE (>1mm) indeter- 01002006631000100000 minate Astragalus/ Trigonella inde- 0 20 0 50 66 13 28 8 52 0 9 0 1 0 0 11 8 55 24 54 terminate Melilotus/Trifo- lium indetermi- 0 0 0 25 8 0 0 0 0 0 17 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 nate Asparagus sp. 00004000600000000000 Polygonum cf. 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 806 9 81 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 aviculare Galium type 1 00008000000000000000 Galium type 2 00000000000000000000 Other Material sheep/goat 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.9 0.0 0.1 0.0 0.0 1.2 0.5 0.0 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.2 1.0 0.2 0.0 dung (vol. in ml) 260 appendix 9.7a

Appendices 9.7–9.10 Keith Dobney and Deborah Jaques

Appendix 9.7a–g: Jeitun: Skeletal Elements by Taxa Recovered by Wet- and Dry-Sieving (W/S, D/S)

9.7a Caprines and Gazelle Caprine/ Caprine Capra cf. Capra Ovis cf. Ovis Gazella cf. Gazella Total Gazella Elements D/S W/S D/S W/S ­D/S W/S D/S W/S D/S W/S D/S W/S D/S W/S D/S W/S D/S W/S horncore ----1-1------20 cranium ---2------01 maxilla + teeth --1------10 mandible 4-22------1-1-82 isolated teeth 31 - 12 19 ------43 19 scapula 5-21------1182 humerus 5------2-70 radius/ulna ------1---10 radius 5-4------2--- 11 0 ulna --1------10 metacarpal 7-11------81 carpal 10 - 4 14 ------14 14 pelvis 2---1------30 femur 112------31 tibia 4-2---1-12------82 astragalus 1-2-2---1------60 calcaneum 1-41--1------61 tarsal 2------20 metatarsal 1-2------1-----40 metapodial 7 5 4 1 - 1 ------14 4 phalanx 1 5-31------2--- 10 1 phalanx 2 2--11-1-1---1---61 phalanx 3 - - 1 1 1 - 1 - - - - 2 - 1 - 6 2 phalanx --1------10 patella ------1------1 0 cuboid-navicular --2------1--21 hyoid --2------20 axis 1------10 vertebra 1--1------10 Total 95 1 53 48 707032109151 180 53 appendix 9.7b–e 261

Appendix 9.7a–g (cont’d.)

9.7b Rodents and Small Mammals; rodent=approximately rat size, small mammal=rodent smaller than rat size Element cf. Spermophilopsis Rodent Small mammal Total D/S W/S D/S W/S D/S W/S D/S W/S maxilla + teeth 1 - 1 1 - - 2 1 maxilla - 1 - - - - 0 1 mandible 2 - 3 2 - 1 5 3 isolated teeth 1 3 - 15 - 2 1 20 incisor - - 1 1 - - 1 1 scapula - 2 - - - - 0 2 humerus - - - - - 1 0 1 radius - 1 - 1 1 - 1 2 ulna 1 4 - 2 - 1 1 7 metacarpal - 1 - - - - 0 1 pelvis 3 - - 1 - - 3 1 femur 1 1 - 3 1 3 2 7 tibia 2 1 3 1 1 2 6 4 astragalus - 1 - 4 - - - 5 calcaneum - 2 - 3 - 2 - 7 metatarsal - - - 1 - - - 1 metapodial - 1 - 10 - 5 - 16 phalanx 1 - - - 1 - - - 1 phalanx - 2 - 4 - 4 - 10 vertebra 1 1 - - - - 1 1 Total 12 21 8 50 3 21 23 92

9.7c Lepus tolai and cf. Lepus sp. 9.7d Hemiechinus auritus Element Lepus cf. Lepus Total Element Hemiechinus auritus D/S W/S D/S W/S D/S W/S D/S W/S cranium 4 - - - 4 - maxilla + teeth 2 - maxilla + teeth 1 - - - 1 - mandible 9 - mandible 2 - - - 2 - isolated teeth - 2 isolated teeth - 3 - - - 3 phalanges - 1 scapula 1 - 1 - 2 - Total 11 3 humerus - - 1 - 1 - metacarpal - - 1 - 1 - femur 2 - 1 - 3 - 9.7e Felis cf. silvestris/manul and Felis sp. tibia 1 - 1 - 2 - Felis cf. silves- Element cf. Felis sp. Total calcaneum - - 1 - 1 - tris/manul metatarsal 1 3 - 1 1 4 D/S W/S D/S W/S D/S W/S metapodial - 1 - 1 - 2 isolated teeth - - - 1 - 1 phalanges - 2 - 5 - 6 humerus 1 - - 1 1 1 Total 12 9 6 7 18 16 tarsal 1 - - - 1 - metatarsal 3 - - - 3 - metapodial 1 - - - 1 - phalanx 2 1 - - 2 1 Total 7 1 0 2 7 3 262 appendices 9.7f–g a n d 9.8

Appendix 9.7a–g (cont’d.)

9.7f Vulpes cf. corsac, large Canideae and cf. Canideae Vulpes cf. large Element cf. Canidae Total corsac Canidae D/S W/S D/S W/S D/S W/S D/S W/S mandible 1 - - - - - 1 0 isolated teeth - 1 - - - 1 0 2 humerus 1 - - - - - 1 0 metacarpal 4 - - - - - 4 0 tibia 4 1 - - - - 4 1 metatarsal 1 - 1 - - - 2 0 phalanx 1 - - - - - 1 0 Total 12 2 1 0 0 1 13 3

9.7g Amphibian, Lizard sp., Agrionemys and cf. Agrionemys Element Amphibian Lizard sp. Agrionemys cf. Agrionemys Total D/S D/S D/S D/S D/S cranium - 1 - - 1 mandible - 2 - - 2 humerus - - 2 - 2 ?scapula - - 1 - 1 tibia 1 - - - 1 carapace - - 97 - 97 vertebra - 1 - - 1 unidentified - - - 2 2 Total 1 4 100 2 107

Appendix 9.8: Jeitun: Toothwear Data for Caprines

Site code Context Bone id. no. Species Tooth Wear stage JT93 30 42 Caprine P4 12S JT93 30 43 Caprine M1/M2 12A JT94 141 119 Caprine M1/M2 15A JT94 141 120 Caprine P4 15A JT94 137 142 Caprine M1/M2 15A JT94 171 164 Caprine M3 14G JT94 171 165 Caprine M1/M2 15A JT94 171 166 Caprine P4 15A JT94 179 196 Caprine M1/M2 15A

Site code Context Bone id. no. Species Element dp4 P4 M1 M2 M3 JT93 30 41 Caprine mandible 18L - 8A -- JT94 244 230 Caprine mandible - 14S 15A - 11G appendix 9.9 263

Appendix 9.9: Jeitun: Skeletal-element Fusion for Caprines and Caprine/Gazella (pf=proximal fused, pu=proximal unfused, df=distal fused, du=distal unfused, j=juvenile, neo=neonatal, a=adult)

Site Code Context Bone Id. No. Taxon Element Proximal Fusion Distal Fusion JT94 140 100 Capra f. domestic metapodial du JT94 141 117 Capra f. domestic phalanx 2 pf JT94 141 123 Capra f. domestic pelvis a JT94 145 135 Capra f. domestic astragalus a JT94 89 148 Capra f. domestic astragalus a JT93 40 3 Caprine scapula neo JT93 40 4 Caprine metacarpal neo JT93 40 5 Caprine tibia neo neo JT93 40 8 Caprine scapula j JT93 39 14 Caprine humerus j JT93 32 19 Caprine phalanx 2 a JT93 38 28 Caprine astragalus a JT93 38 29 Caprine tibia du JT93 38 30 Caprine scapula du JT93 38 31 Caprine phalanx 1 JT93 37 59 Caprine metapodial du JT93 29 65 Caprine metatarsal j JT93 18 80 Caprine metacarpal j j JT93 18 81 Caprine metacarpal j JT94 158 106 Caprine humerus df JT94 158 107 Caprine radius pf JT94 158 108 Caprine metapodial du JT94 141 121 Caprine metapodial du JT94 141 122 Caprine metapodial du JT94 141 124 Caprine humerus j JT94 137 143 Caprine phalanx 1 pf JT94 162 158 Caprine phalanx 1 pf JT94 162 160 Caprine tibia df JT94 176 181 Caprine phalanx 1 pf JT94 176 186 Caprine radius pf JT94 178 189 Caprine scapula df JT94 179 199 Caprine calcaneum pu JT94 179 203 Caprine femur pf JT94 170 368 Caprine metapodial du JT93 32 20 Caprine/gazelle calcaneum pu JT93 38 32 Caprine/gazelle phalanx 3 neo JT93 6 67 Caprine/gazelle metatarsal df JT93 4 72 Caprine/gazelle metacarpal j ➾ 264 appendix 9.9

Appendix 9.9 (cont’d.)

Site Code Context Bone Id. No. Taxon Element Proximal Fusion Distal Fusion JT93 4 73 Caprine/gazelle metapodial df JT93 36 78 Caprine/gazelle metapodial du JT93 123 86 Caprine/gazelle phalanx 1 pu JT93 123 88 Caprine/gazelle tibia pu JT93 123 89 Caprine/gazelle astragalus neo JT93 123 90 Caprine/gazelle femur neo JT94 158 114 Caprine/gazelle scapula j JT94 142 130 Caprine/gazelle radius pf JT94 176 185 Caprine/gazelle radius j j JT94 179 195 Caprine/gazelle radius j j JT94 179 200 Caprine/gazelle metapodial du JT94 181 209 Caprine/gazelle metatarsal du JT94 173 218 Caprine/gazelle phalanx du JT94 173 219 Caprine/gazelle femur du JT94 205 222 Caprine/gazelle calcaneum pu JT94 209 226 Caprine/gazelle calcaneum pu JT94 244 234 Caprine/gazelle phalanx 1 pu JT94 244 235 Caprine/gazelle metapodial du JT94 131 242 Caprine/gazelle phalanx 2 pu JT94 144 261 Caprine/gazelle phalanx 1 pu JT94 152 277 Caprine/gazelle metapodial du JT94 162 296 Caprine/gazelle metapodial du JT94 175 326 Caprine/gazelle calcaneum pu JT93 30 45 cf. Capra f. domestic patella a JT94 138 104 cf. Capra f. domestic calcaneum pf JT94 148 146 cf. Capra f. domestic metapodial df JT94 89 149 cf. Capra f. domestic tibia df JT94 152 133 cf. Ovis f. domestic metatarsal df JT94 141 118 Ovis f. domestic phalanx 2 pf JT94 175 178 Ovis f. domestic astragalus a JT94 179 193 Ovis f. domestic tibia du JT94 131 241 Ovis f. domestic tibia df JT94 146 265 Ovis f. domestic tibia du appendix 9.10 265

Appendix 9.10: Jeitun: Biometrical Archive for the 1993 and 1994 Animal Bone Assemblage. Measurements follow von den Driesch (1976); additional measurements, not detailed by von den Driesch, follow those described by Dobney (2007).

Astragalus Context Taxa Bd Dl GLl GLm 145 Capra f. domestic 18.34 14.94 27.78 27.8 89 Capra f. domestic 17.2 13.9 26.79 24.74 175 Ovis f. domestic 16.48 16.52 29.41 26.72

Humerus Context Taxa BT HT HTC 152 ?Felis sp. 20.2* –– 158 Caprine 35.35 23.19 – 226 ?Gazella 27.17 19.71 16.32

Metacarpal Context Taxon BFp 172 Caprine 23

Metatarsal IV Context Taxon GL 172 Canis sp. 68.67

Radius/Ulna Context Taxa Bd Bp BFp BFd 181 Gazella sp. 26.43 –– 24.44 216 Gazella sp. – 27.92 26.77 –

Tibia Context Taxa Bd SD Dd 131 Ovis f. domestic 26.68 – 20.06 39 Canis sp. 13.44 7.78 – 89 ?Capra 24.39 – 19.5

*BT=Bd 266 appendix 9.11

Appendix 9.11: Jeitun: The 1994 Lithic Assemblage James Conolly

Length (mm) Color (see Width (mm) Context Recovery Table 9.21) Cortex Thickness (mm) Technological Category Used? surface hand pr 75.8 13.5 3.8 complete blade Yes surface hand myb 1–33 % 67.3 14.2 3.3 complete blade Yes surface hand g 60.3 15.7 3.3 medial blade fragment Yes surface hand lyb 49.7 10.1 2.6 proximal blade fragment Yes surface hand myb 41.6 11.9 2.6 distal blade fragment No surface hand lyb 38.6 9.4 1.8 proximal blade fragment Yes surface hand w 30.6 13.1 3.4 medial blade fragment Yes surface hand lyb 25.4 9.5 1.9 proximal blade fragment Yes surface hand dyb 25.5 11.2 2.9 medial blade fragment Yes surface hand g 29.7 10.4 2.6 medial blade fragment No surface hand w 16.9 7.1 2.2 medial blade fragment No surface hand lyb 10.4 9.9 2.8 medial blade fragment No surface hand rb 13.8 10.7 2.3 medial blade fragment No surface hand lyb 15.0 9.1 3.3 medial blade fragment Yes surface hand lyb 13.9 10.3 3.0 distal blade fragment Yes surface hand rb 23.3 14.3 3.9 flake fragment Yes surface hand lyb 7.7 10.4 3.2 flake fragment Yes 42 >3mm fraction lyb 12.6 12.6 2.3 distal blade fragment No 42 >3mm fraction lyb 10.6 broken flake No 127 >3mm fraction lyb 1–33 % 32.5 13 4.3 complete blade Yes 131 >3mm fraction g chip No 133 dry sieve lyb 37.5 13.9 3.1 proximal blade fragment No 135 >3mm fraction vdb chip No 135 >3mm fraction lyb 13.5 11.2 1.6 distal blade fragment No 136 dry sieve lyb 18.2 8.5 1.4 medial blade fragment No 137 dry sieve g 11.0 14.8 6.3 burnt shatter No 137 dry sieve lyb 16.2 13.4 2.1 distal blade fragment Yes 137 dry sieve myb 13.0 15.3 2.7 broken flake No 139 dry sieve g 35.5 14.5 2.4 medial blade fragment No 142 dry sieve lyb 48.1 11.1 4.1 proximal blade fragment Yes 144 >3mm fraction lyb 8.1 complete flake No 144 >3mm fraction lyb 4.9 proximal blade fragment No 144 >3mm fraction rb chip No 144 >3mm fraction myb chip No 145 dry sieve myb 52.4 9.4 2.6 proximal blade fragment No 146 >3mm fraction g chip No 146 >3mm fraction g chip No

➾ appendix 9.11 267

Appendix 9.11 (cont’d.)

Length (mm) Color (see Width (mm) Context Recovery Table 9.21) Cortex Thickness (mm) Technological Category Used? 146 >3mm fraction pr chip No 146 >3mm fraction rb chip No 146 >3mm fraction g chip No 146 >3mm fraction g chip No 146 >3mm fraction w chip No 146 >3mm fraction pr 6.0 7.8 1.2 broken flake No 146 >3mm fraction myb chip No 146 >3mm fraction g 10.8 5.5 1.4 distal blade fragment No 146 >3mm fraction g chip No 146 >3mm fraction lyb chip No 147 dry sieve dyb 26.6 11.1 2.6 proximal blade fragment No 148 >1mm lyb chip No 148 >1mm lyb 1–33 % chip No 148 >1mm rb 1–33 % chip No 148 >3mm fraction lyb chip No 148 >3mm fraction lyb chip No 148 >3mm fraction g chip No 148 >3mm fraction g chip No 148 >3mm fraction myb chip No 148 >3mm fraction myb 6.5 proximal blade fragment No 148 >3mm fraction g 5.9 complete flake No 148 >3mm fraction myb 3.5 complete flake No 152 >3mm fraction lyb 16.1 11.8 2.5 medial blade fragment Yes 152 >3mm fraction myb 16.7 9 2.9 medial blade fragment Yes 152 dry sieve lyb 7.5 9.8 2.0 complete flake No 154 >3mm fraction myb 10.3 broken flake No 154 >3mm fraction myb 4.3 broken flake No 154 >3mm fraction lyb 5.7 complete flake No 154 >3mm fraction lyb 11.5 flake fragment No 154 >3mm fraction lyb 12.4 flake fragment No 154 >3mm fraction lyb 19.3 flake fragment No 154 >3mm fraction dyb 11.3 flake fragment No 155 dry sieve myb 56.5 12 2.5 proximal blade fragment Yes 155 dry sieve lyb 38.0 9 1.8 proximal blade fragment No 155 dry sieve myb 18.8 10 2.5 distal blade fragment No 158 dry sieve lyb 22.7 11.4 2.7 proximal blade fragment Yes 158 dry sieve rb 36.7 10.2 2.5 proximal blade fragment Yes 158 dry sieve rb 32.1 14.1 2.5 proximal blade fragment Yes 161 >3mm fraction myb 1–33 % 46.2 11.5 5.0 proximal blade fragment Yes 162 >3mm fraction lyb chip No 162 dry sieve lyb 29.4 9.6 2.8 proximal blade fragment Yes ➾ 268 appendix 9.11

Appendix 9.11 (cont’d.)

Length (mm) Color (see Width (mm) Context Recovery Table 9.21) Cortex Thickness (mm) Technological Category Used? 162 dry sieve myb 1–33 % 16.7 11.5 3.1 flake fragment No 164 >3mm fraction rb chip No 164 >3mm fraction w 11.4 16.5 3.2 medial blade fragment No 166 dry sieve vdb 14.0 9.2 2.2 medial blade fragment Yes 166 >3mm fraction myb 21.5 13.6 4.2 complete flake No 166 dry sieve lyb 9.8 9.4 2.3 medial blade fragment Yes 167 dry sieve lyb 28.4 10.6 2.7 proximal blade fragment No 170 dry sieve dyb 22.9 12.5 3.6 proximal blade fragment Yes 170 dry sieve g 7.1 11.9 3.6 f­lake fragment Yes 171 dry sieve dyb 26.6 12.8 3.0 medial blade fragment No 172 >3mm fraction lyb 3.8 complete flake No 172 dry sieve rb 22.5 10.9 2.6 proximal blade fragment Yes 172 dry sieve myb 1–33 % 16.9 14.3 3.3 proximal blade fragment Yes 172 dry sieve lyb 46.7 10.6 3.2 complete blade Yes 173 dry sieve dyb 32.8 10.9 2.3 proximal blade fragment Yes 173 dry sieve dyb 33–66 % 27.5 13.5 3.1 proximal blade fragment No 178 dry sieve vdb 18.3 10.1 2.7 medial blade fragment No 179 dry sieve lyb 1–33 % 13.4 10.8 2.6 flake fragment No 179 >3mm fraction lyb 66.6 14.9 5.5 complete blade No 179 >3mm fraction myb chip No 179 >3mm fraction rb chip No 179 dry sieve myb 23.1 11.4 4.1 medial blade fragment Yes 181 dry sieve myb 57.7 9.9 2.7 complete blade No 181 dry sieve dyb 20.1 10 3.8 medial blade fragment Yes 184 dry sieve lyb 62.5 11.7 3.7 proximal blade fragment Yes >3mm 195 g chip No fraction 219 dry sieve pr 33.4 9.8 3.0 medial blade fragment Yes 223 dry sieve lyb 46.0 9.8 2.7 proximal blade fragment Yes 223 dry sieve dyb 1–33 % 23.8 11.9 3.1 medial blade fragment Yes 228 dry sieve dyb 14.2 12.1 1.6 medial blade fragment No 229 dry sieve dyb 37.4 13.2 3.6 distal blade fragment No 231 >3mm fraction pr 7.5 10.9 2.1 medial blade fragment No 231 >3mm fraction lyb 13.9 8.5 2.1 medial blade fragment Yes 239 >3mm fraction lyb 8.9 broken flake No 241 dry sieve myb 28.8 11.4 2.0 distal blade fragment Yes 243 dry sieve dyb 8.8 8.8 3.1 medial blade fragment Yes 245 dry sieve dyb 10.3 8.9 1.4 medial blade fragment No Bibliography

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Author Note

David R. Harris is Emeritus Professor of Human Environment at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (of which he was formerly Director), and a Fellow of the British Academy. His research has focused on plant and animal domestication and the emergence and spread of agriculture, for which he has undertaken fieldwork in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. His many publications include The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia, 1996 (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press and London: UCL Press) and (with Gordon Hillman) Foraging and Farming: the Evolution of Plant Exploitation, 1989 (London: Unwin Hyman).

Index

Note: The following are not included in the Index: names of authors and other individuals mentioned; most place names other than archaeological sites (which are indicated in bold); frequently used names of archaeological and geological periods; and the contents of the Appendices. Animals and plants are indexed by their common English names.

Achaemenian civilization/period 26, 50 Bacha Well, Turkmenistan 61, 218 Adjikuli, Turkmenistan 36, 116 badgers 11, 17, 34, 66 agro-pastoralism 26, 52, 107, 218, 227, 230–33, 234–36 Badghyz plateau 7, 10, 31, 33, 166, 213 Akchadarya, ancient delta 22, 45, 59, 64, 66, 228 Natural Reserve 10, 11, 14, 16, 74, 177, 213 Ak-depe, Turkmenistan 45 Bami, Turkmenistan 46, 60–63, 162, 186, 217–19 Akhal region 60–61, 68, 218 barley (Hordeum spp.) 74–76, 162, 188 alder (Alnus sp.) 32, 66, 167–69, 192 cultivation 59, 62, 119, 215–16, 225, 231 Ali Kosh, Iran 85, 162, 236 domestic (H. vulgare) 62, 68–69, 73–74, 153–54, 192, 198, Ali Tappeh, Iran 49, 55–57, 63, 78–79, 81, 87, 90 215, 232, 236 Allerød interstadial 24, 55 domestication 75–76, 91, 226, 231–32; genetics 74–75 almond (Amygdalus sp.) 9–10, 33, 74, 216, 225 wild (H. spontaneum) 10, 33, 74–75, 91, 163, 231 Altai mountains 54, 87, 89 Bashkovdan, Turkmenistan 36, 116, 186, 207 Altyn-depe, Turkmenistan 14, 45, 46, 79, 81, 83, 89, 213 beads 58, 61, 97, 179, 192, 212, 214, 217 Amorgos, Greece 151, 154, 156–57 bear, brown (Ursus arctos) 11, 15, 33, 34 Anatolia 67, 77, 78, 86, 170, 180, 226 cave 54 Anau, Turkmenistan 28, 44–47, 49, 62, 68–69, 73, 78–81, 84, Belt Cave, Iran. See Ghar-i Kamarband 87, 89, 194, 227, 236 Beshbulak, Uzbekistan 65 Anau IA phase 60, 68–69, 218 birds, domestic 18 ancient DNA 73, 79, 86, 226 remains 58, 66–67, 176, 179, 193, 201–2, 214 apple (Malus spp.) 9–10, 32, 216, 225 waterfowl 18, 66, 228 apricot (Armeniaca vulgaris) 9 bison 67 Aq Kupruk sites, Afghanistan 51, 55, 58–59, 82, 84, 87, 224, Bølling interstadial 24, 55 232, 234 Bolshoi Balkhan massif 5, 9–10, 12, 35–40, 57, 64, 84, 95, 113, Aq Tepe, Iran 50 188, 234 Aral Sea basin 7, 19, 222 climate 39 fluctuations 22 mammals 40 Arkash region 60–61, 217, 218 piedmont 35–37, 40, 57, 113, 234 Armadlu Tepe, Iran 50 sites 35, 113–17, 186, 197–207, 228, 234 ash, Syrian (Fraxinus syriaca) 9, 32, 166 vegetation 37, 39–40 ass/donkey (Equus asinus) 18, 68, 82 Borj Tepe, Iran 51 Auchin-depe, Turkmenistan 46 Botai, Kazakhstan 82, 89–90 aurochs (Bos primigenius) 54–55, 66–67, 79–80, 91, 227. See also buckthorn (Rhamnus coriacea) 199 cattle, wild burial, dog 89–90, 177 Ayakagytma, Uzbekistan 22, 48–49, 66–68, 78–79, 81, 84, goat 86 88–89, 91, 221 human 58, 86, 89–90, 195, 217 animal domestication 67–68, 79, 81, 91, 221 buried soil. See palaeosol 300 i n d e x

Burzahom, Kashmir 89 animal remains 115, 201–2 charred seeds 115, 197–98 camel 66–67, 80–83, 229 pottery 113–15, 204–5, 206–7 Bactrian (Camelus bactrianus) 18, 81–83, 91, 227 stone tools 54, 113–15, 203–5 domestic 62, 83, 227 wood charcoal 115, 199–200 domestication 67, 81–83, 91, 221 Darai Kalon, Tajikistan 23 dromedary (Camelus dromedarius) 18, 82–83, 91 Dara-i Kalon, Afghanistan 51, 55 wild 80–83, 91 Darbazakir, Uzbekistan 55 caper (Capparis sp.) 153, 164, 193, 214, 216 Dargaz/Darreh Gaz plain/zone 50–51, 60, 64, 218, 222–23, caracal/sand lynx (Caracal caracal) 16, 33, 58 235 Caspian Mesolithic 35, 45, 49, 55–58, 63, 90 Dar-i Kur, Afghanistan 51, 53 Caspian Sea, regressions 20–22, 24, 38, 230 Dashlidji, Turkmenistan 69, 78, 79, 236 transgressions 20–22, 24, 35, 38–39, 230 deer 11, 54, 56, 66–67 cat 178–179 Bokhara (Cervus elephas subsp. bactrianus) 15, 16, 33–34 jungle/swamp (Felis chaus) 17, 33 Deh Keir Tepe, Iran 50–51 sand (Felis margarita) 16, 17, 34, 58, 213 Deh Morasi Ghundai, Afghanistan) 51 steppe/manul (Felis manul) 16, 17, 33–34, 40, 58, 98, 176, Dereivka, Ukraine 82 213 desert kite 213 wild/yellow (Felis silvestris) 16–17, 34, 40, 176, 177, 193, desert vegetation 10–11, 14, 31, 231 213 desiccation/oasis theory 44, 230 Çatalhöyük, Turkey 67, 123, 170, 180, 182, 184, 194–95 diffusion, cultural 225, 231, 233 cattle/oxen, domestic 18, 56, 62, 67–69, 79–80, 201–2, 219, demic 185, 231, 233 226–27, 232–33, 236 dog 58, 67–68, 88–90 domestication 67–68, 79–80, 91, 221, 227, 232 domestic 18, 56, 62, 88–90, 91, 130, 174–77, 193 genetics 80 domestication 67–68, 89–90, 91 taurine 79–80 genetics 89 wild 54, 58, 69, 79–80, 227. See also aurochs hunting 89–90 zebu/indicine 79–80 Dorian, Turkmenistan 109, 110 Caucasus mountains 76–77, 88 cereals 62, 73–74, 95, 232–33. See also barley, wheat Elburz/Alborz mountains 5, 9, 49, 55, 62, 87, 222–23, 226, cultivation 10, 24, 33, 44, 58, 60, 67–69, 108, 158, 229, 234–35 231–36 elm (Ulmus carpinifolia) 9, 32, 166 wild-grain collection/harvesting 33, 58, 67, 216, 224, 229 equids 67, 80–82, 177, 201–2, 221, 227. See also ass, horse, Chagylly, Turkmenistan 46, 60–62, 79, 81, 89, 162, 186, 218– onager 19, 221, 236 erosion, soil 26, 64, 108, 112 Chakmakli, Turkmenistan 46, 60–61, 68–69, 186, 218–19 wind 32, 65, 192, 228 Chandyr rockshelter, Turkmenistan 109, 111–12 Etek region 60–61, 218 charcoal analysis 166–70, 171–73, 199–200 Charla’uk, Turkmenistan 36, 116–17 faecal spherulites 129, 143–44, 147–49, 193, 214 Chashmanigar, Tajikistan 23, 53 Fergana depression/oasis/valley 53, 55, 59, 222 cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) 11, 16, 33 Fertile Crescent, Southwest Asian 74–78, 80, 85, 87–88, 90–91, cherry (Cerasus spp.) 9–10, 32–33, 39, 216 162, 215, 217, 229, 231–32, 235–36 chert 181–83, 194, 203, 213 fig Ficus( carica) 9–10, 32–33, 39–40, 199–200, 216 Cheshmeh-Ali, Iran 50 figurines 192, 212, 234 pottery 50 animal 63, 83, 89, 97, 102 China 24–25, 75–76, 79, 82, 89–90, 235 human 97 Chopan, Turkmenistan 46, 60–63, 79, 119, 162, 186, 217–19, firewood 9, 11, 26, 31, 136, 148, 168–70, 189, 213 221, 228, 236 fish 18, 58, 66–67, 176, 179, 193, 201–2, 214, 228 Climatic Optimum/Altithermal 25–26, 31, 40, 66, 74, 81, 108, fishing 58–59, 67–68, 205, 229, 235 172, 212, 221, 227, 230–31, 233–34, 236 forests broadleaf deciduous 9, 23, 32, 55, 166, 216, 231 Dam Dam Cheshme rockshelters, Turkmenistan 35–36, 45, 55, evergreen coniferous 9 59, 64, 81, 84, 87, 90, 113–16, 186, 197–207, 217–18, 226, riparian. See tugai 228, 230, 232 fox 11, 30, 54, 66, 98, 177–179 i n d e x 301

corsac (Vulpes corsac) 15, 17, 33–34, 176, 193, 213 striped (Hyaena hyaena) 11, 15, 33–34, 40 red (Vulpes vulpes) 15, 17, 33–34, 40, 213 ice cores, Greenland 24 Gadymi, Turkmenistan 60–61, 218–19, 220 Ilgynly-depe, Turkmenistan 14, 16, 46, 79, 81, 89, 213, 236 Ganj Dareh, Iran 85–86, 232, 236 Io Sea 22, 191, 219 gathering 32–33, 58–59, 67–68, 185, 216. See also wild plant Iranian plateau 5, 47, 49, 50, 60, 61–63, 81–82, 86, 194, 219, foods 226 gazelle 11, 16, 24, 55, 58, 66–67, 174, 176–77, 179, 193, 201–2, irrigation agriculture 7, 18, 26, 28–29, 44, 62, 69, 79, 219, 227, 228 233, 235–36. See also Jeitun, irrigation goitered (Gazella subgutturosa) 13–14, 17, 33–34, 58, Islamic civilization/period 26, 51, 59 213–14 Geoksyur oasis 46, 69, 79, 82, 236 jackal, golden (Canis aureus) 11, 15, 30, 40, 89, 177 Geok-tepe region/zone 60–61 Janbas, Uzbekistan 45, 64–66, 228 Ghabristan, Iran 50, 82 Jarmo, Iraq 90, 96, 119, 182, 220, 236 Ghar-i Kamarband, Iran 49, 55–57, 63, 78–79, 81, 84, 87, 90, 232 Jebel, Turkmenistan 35–36, 45, 55, 57–59, 64, 81, 84, 87, 90, Gievdzhik, Turkmenistan 60–61, 219 113, 186, 188, 207, 217–18, 224, 226, 228, 230, 232, 234 goat 51, 67–68, 83–86, 175 Jeitun, Turkmenistan 11, 14, 17, 22, 27–34, 46, 48, 60–63, 84, bezoar (Capra aegagrus) 12–13, 16, 17, 33–34, 40, 83–86, 69 (n.), 95–107, 207, 211–18 91, 175–76, 193, 213, 226, 231 animal remains 78, 84, 87–89, 174–79, 193, 213–14 domestic 17–18, 56, 58–59, 62, 68–69, 84–86, 98, 175–77, bone working 178–79 179, 193, 201–2, 214–15, 223, 233–34, 236 building materials and yard deposits analysis 125–30, 146, domestication 51, 58, 67–68, 83–86, 91, 218, 221, 226, 148 228, 232 built structures 96–106, 123, 192, 194–95 genetics 85–86, 91, 226 charred plant macro-remains 73–74, 95, 98, 150–65, ibex (Capra ibex) 13, 83 166–70, 191, 215 markhor (Capra falconeri) 13, 83, 85 climate 27 wild 11, 53–54, 83–85 crop composition and processing 154–57, 162–65 Gobi desert 14, 82 cultivated plants 73–74, 147, 151–53, 164 Gohar Tepe, Iran 50 cultivation 119, 124, 136, 140, 147, 164, 214–17 Gonur 1, Turkmenistan 46, 47 Culture 22, 46, 59, 60–62, 68, 95, 107, 185, 211, 218–24, grapevine (Vitis sylvestris) 9, 32, 216, 225 227–31, 233–36 cultivation 27, 32, 131, 171 ditch-like features 119, 123–24, 131, 136, 137–40, 191, grindstones 58, 60, 67, 205, 224, 229 216 excavations 96–107, 137, 191–92, 211–12 hare 11, 66 herding 164, 214–16 desert (Lepus tolai) 16, 17, 33–34, 176, 177, 178–79, 193, hunting 179, 185, 213–14, 216–17 213 irrigation 124, 135, 137, 147, 149, 163–64, 188, 191, hawthorn (Crataegus spp.) 9, 32 215–16 hedgehog, long-eared (Hemiechinus auritus) 17, 34, 176–79, phytoliths 126–28, 136, 142–49, 191, 193 193, 213 pollen 171–73 European (Erinaceus europaeus) 178 pottery 49–51, 57, 61–64, 97, 102, 180–89, 193–94, 207, Himalaya mountains 74, 87 212–13, 222–24 Hindu Kush mountains 5, 9, 22, 51, 55, 58–59, 225 radiocarbon dating 119–24, 136 Hissar Culture 59, 224, 229, 234 rainfed agriculture/cultivation 124, 147, 163–64, 215 Hodja-su, Turkmenistan 55, 58 site occupation 106–7, 121–23, 164, 177, 190–94, 211–12 horse 67 soils 29–31, 123–24, 131–41, 146, 216 domestic 18, 62, 81–82, 227 stone tools 97, 180–85, 194, 213, 217, 224, 233 domestication 81–82, 91 vegetation 31–33, 191 genetics 82 Joyruk, Turkmenistan 36, 64, 117, 186, 207 wild (Equus ferus) 54, 80–82, 227 juniper, Turkmen (Juniperus turcomanica) 9–10, 13, 39–40, 166, Hotu, Iran 49, 55–57, 63, 232 199–200 hunting 11, 33–34, 58–59, 66–69, 89–90, 185, 205, 213–14, 217, 220, 229, 235 Kailyu, Turkmenistan 55, 58, 64, 217, 228, 232 hyaena, cave 54 Kalate Khan, Iran 51 302 i n d e x

Kantar, Turkmenistan 61 lynx, Eurasian (Lynx lynx) 11, 16, 33–34, 40 Karabil plateau 7 Kara-Bogaz Gol bay 7, 15, 58 magnetic susceptibility 124, 137–41, 91 Kara-depe, Turkmenistan 46, 89 Maly Balkhan massif 5, 35, 36 Kara Kamar, Afghanistan 51, 54–55, 58, 82, 87 manul, see cat, steppe Karakesy rockshelters, Turkmenistan 109–11 maple, Turkmen (Acer turcomanicum) 9–10, 32, 166 Karakum, desert 7, 11, 22, 96, 190, 213–14, 221–22, 233–34; Margiana 46, 83, 222 Canal 5, 14, 18, 26, 27–28, 96 marten, rock/stone (Martes foina) 11, 17, 33–34 former rivers and lakes 25–26, 221–22, 231 Meana-Chaacha district/zone 46, 47, 60–61 Kara Su river 5, 28–29, 32, 96, 124, 168–71, 179, 190, 214–16 Mediterranean-type climate 10, 33, 107, 235 Karatau, Tajikistan 23, 53 vegetation 10, 108 Kavat, Turkmenistan 65, 66, 228 Mehrgarh, Pakistan 75, 78, 80, 86, 88 Kelleli sites, Turkmenistan 46 Merv, Turkmenistan 7, 44, 47–48 Keltiminar Culture 45, 48, 59, 64–68, 220–22; Mesolithic–Neolithic transition 113, 116, 207, 217–18, 225, groups 68, 188, 194, 221 228, 232–33 Keltiminar-related sites 59, 64–66, 186, 189, 217, 228, 234 microliths 97, 180, 194, 218, 224 pottery 186, 188, 207, 218, 234 geometric 54, 57, 61, 180, 185, 203–5, 212–13, 217, 224, sites 22, 45, 49, 64–67, 186, 189, 221–22, 228–29, 233–34 233 Kelyata, Turkmenistan 61 micromorphological analysis 126–28, 132–35, 191 Kepele, Turkmenistan 61 milk 82, 176–77, 193, 214 Khapuz-depe, Turkmenistan 46 mollusks 55, 66, 228 Kharkush, Tajikistan 54 Mongolia 14, 87 Khoresmia 45, 59 Monjukli, Turkmenistan 46, 60–61, 68–69, 186, 219 Khorramabad, Iran 50 monsoon 8, 25 Kok Jar, Afghanistan 51 Mousterian period 53–54 Kopetdag mountains 5, 9–10, 27, 32–33, 35, 54, 61, 64, 77, 84, 107–8, 213–15, 222, 233, 235 Naiza, Turkmenistan 61 piedmont 5, 10, 28–29, 32–33, 44–46, 59, 60–62, 68–69, Namazga-depe, Turkmenistan 45 190, 213–14, 218–23, 226–29, 231–36 Neanderthal 53–54 Krasnovodsk plateau 7, 12, 45, 54, 58, 64, 213 New Nisa, Turkmenistan 45–46, 60–61, 219 Kugitang mountains 7, 10, 13 Novkhandan Tepe, Iran 51 Kuldara, Tajikistan 23, 53 Novroz Tepe, Iran 51 Kyzylkum desert 7, 22, 48–49, 59, 64, 78, 217, 221, 233 former rivers and lakes 25, 66, 221–22, 231 oak (Quercus spp.) 9, 19, 77 Old Nisa, Turkmenistan 45 Lakhuti, Tajikistan 23, 53 Older Dryas stadial 24, 55 Last Glacial Maximum 20–21, 23–24, 54, 230 oleaster/Russian olive (Elaeagnus orientalis) 9, 166 Lateglacial 20–21, 24, 49, 55, 229–30 onager/hemione (Equus hemionus) 11, 14, 16, 24, 33–34, 55, legume crops/pulses 74, 162, 215, 217, 225, 236 58, 62, 66–67, 80–82, 177, 213, 227 leopard 11, 40 organic residue 68 Persian (Panthera pardus) 16, 33 analysis 57, 82, 214 Levant 55, 74–78, 80, 87, 90, 119 oriental plane (Platanus orientalis) 9, 166 lion, Asiatic (Panthera leo) 16, 33 otter, Eurasian (Lutra lutra) 11, 17, 34 cave 54 Oyukli, Turkmenistan 36, 64–65, 117, 186, 207 liquidambar (Liquidambar sp.) 19 livestock, domestic 11, 26, 29, 33, 67, 108, 164 palaeosol 19, 23, 25, 29–30, 53, 98, 119, 123–24, 131–41, 146, herding 68–69, 85, 89, 214–15, 229, 231–35. See also ass, 190–91, 216 camel, cattle, goat, horse, pastoralism, stockbreeding, Pamir mountains 5, 7, 22, 55, 74 sheep, transhumance Parkhai cemetery/settlement, Turkmenistan 46, 64, 110 lizard 176–177 Parkhai rockshelter, Turkmenistan 109–10 gray monitor (Varanus griseus) 18, 30, 34, 193, 213 Parthian civilization/period 26, 109, 111–12 loess 22–23, 28, 53–54, 112 particle-size analysis 126–27, 129–30, 132–35, 140 Lyavlyakan, Uzbekistan 65 pastoralism 26, 58, 221. See also livestock herding, ancient lake 7, 25, 64, 66, 228 stockbreeding, transhumance i n d e x 303

caprine 60, 179, 221, 229, 233 sheep 67–68, 86–88, 175 pear (Pyrus spp.) 9–10, 32, 108, 216, 225 argali (Ovis ammon) 12, 86–88 Pessedjik , Turkmenistan 46, 60–61, 186, 219 Asiatic mouflon O.( orientalis) 12, 86–88, 91, 226, 232 phytolith analysis 126, 143–49 domestic 17–18, 56, 58–59, 62, 68–69, 86–88, 98, 175–77, pig, domestic 56, 62, 69, 78–79, 227 179, 193, 201–2, 214–15, 224, 233–34, 236 domestication 67–68, 78–79, 91, 221 domestication 51, 58, 67–68, 88, 91, 221, 226, 228, 232 genetics 78–79 genetics 87–88, 226 wild (Sus scrofa) 11, 15, 16, 17, 33–34, 40, 55, 66, 78–79, urial (O. vignei) 12, 17, 33–34, 40, 86–88, 175–76, 193, 91, 177, 179, 193, 213, 227 213, 226 pistachio (Pistacia vera) 10, 33, 74, 108, 166, 216 wild 11, 54–55, 66, 86–88 semisavanna 10, 33 shiblyak vegetation 10, 33, 39, 216, 235 plum (Prunus spp.) 9–10, 32, 216 shifting/swidden cultivation 214, 235–36 polecat, marbled (Vormela peregusna) 11, 17, 33–34 Shir-i Shayn, Iran 62, 223 pollen analysis/palynology 23, 166, 171–73 Shugnou, Tajikistan 54, 82 pomegranate (Punica granatum) 10, 33, 108, 216, 225 Siabcha, Uzbekistan 54 poplar (Populus spp.) 9, 23, 32, 40, 166–69, 177, 189 Sialk, Iran 61, 83, 220, 223 population growth/increase 26, 99, 194, 212, 228, 233, 235–36 sickle, blades 50, 60–61, 67, 95, 180, 183–85, 194, 212, 224, Postglacial 20–21, 24–26, 49, 55, 230–31 229, 234 8.2 ka climatic event 24–25, 230–31, 233, 235–36 gloss 68, 183 Pottery Neolithic period 78, 85, 88, 91 (n.), 185, 215, 236 handles 63, 179, 212 Pre-Pottery Neolithic period 75, 77–78, 80, 85, 88, 91 (n.), 185, solonchak soil 7, 29, 30, 32, 35, 40 226, 229, 232 solonetz soil 29, 191 pulses. See legume crops squirrel, long-clawed ground (Spermophilopsis leptodactylus) 17, 98, 34, 176–78 Qaleh Khan, Iran 51, 222 steppe vegetation 10, 23, 33, 54–55, 77, 216 Qar-i Komishan, Iran 50, 55 stockbreeding 59, 67–68, 221–22, 224, 229, 234 Surabe Tepe, Iran 223, 227, 234 radiocarbon dating 26 (n.), 50, 55–57, 63, 69 (n.), 119–24, 198, 201, 217–18 Tajik–Afghan basin 19, 22 rainfed agriculture/cultivation 27, 64, 107, 147, 163–64, 215, Takhirbai-depe, Turkmenistan 46 223, 231, 233, 235–36 takyr 6–7, 10, 29, 30, 59, 190, 215, 224 reed (Phragmites australis) 9, 32, 40, 143, 147–48, 167–69, 171, tamarisk (Tamarix spp.) 9, 23, 32, 40, 146–47, 166–69, 171–72, 177, 192–93 177, 189, 192, 199 Remisowka, Kazakhstan 23 Taurus mountains 85, 226, 232 Repetek Sand Desert Reserve 11, 31, 166 tectonic activity 19, 35, 64, 108, 112 Tepe Guran, Iran 96, 119, 220 Sadeghabadi, Iran 50 Tepe Hissar, Iran 49, 62 sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) 10, 23–24, 31–32, 40, 166 Tepe Pardis, Iran 50 Sagzabad, Iran 50, 82 Tepe Yahya, Iran 47 saiga (Saiga tatarica) 11, 14–15, 17, 24, 33–34, 66, 213–14 terrace, river 25, 29, 38–39, 59, 108, 219, 224 saksaul 57, 170 marine/shoreline 20, 25, 35, 57, 58 black (Haloxylon persicum) 11, 31, 40, 146–147, 166, 213 Teshik Tash, Uzbekistan 53 white (H. aphyllum) 11, 31, 40, 146–47, 166 Tibetan plateau 25, 87 salinization 26 Tien Shan mountains 5, 7, 9, 22, 54, 87 Samarkand site, Uzbekistan 54 tiger, Caspian/Turanian (Panthera tigris) 11, 16, 33–34 Sang-i Čakmaq, Iran 49, 51, 63–64, 69 (n.), 222–23 Togolok, Turkmenistan, Kopetdag piedmont 46, 60–61, 119, Sarab, Iran 220 186, 217–19, 228, 231, 236 Sarazm, Tajikistan 47 Togolok, Turkmenistan, Margiana 46, 83 Sarykamysh depression/lake 7, 15, 18, 19, 25–26, 59, 64, 66, Tolstov, Uzbekistan 66 228 tortoise 67 seal, Caspian (Phoca caspica) 55 steppe (Agrionemys horsfieldii) 18, 33–34, 106, 176–77, 179, Sel-Ungur, Kirgizstan 53–54 193, 213–14 Shar-i Sokhta, Iran 47, 83 transhumance 17, 215, 234 Shah Tepe, Iran 49, 223 tugai 9, 23, 32–33, 40, 66, 166–68, 177, 213, 214 304 i n d e x

Tugh Tepe, Iran 50, 63, 223 emmer, wild (T. dicoccoides) 76, 163 Tureng Tepe, Iran 49, 62, 223 free-threshing (T. aestivum/durum type) 62, 74, 77, 91, turquoise 61, 217 153–54, 162, 192, 215, 232 Tutkaul, Tajikistan 59, 224 genetics 76–77 glume 62, 74, 76–78, 91, 151–155, 162, 192, 215, 217, 226, Uchashchi, Uzbekistan 22, 228 232, 236 Ulug-depe, Turkmenistan 46 Timopheev’s, domestic (T. timopheevi) 76, wild (T. urban settlements 26, 43, 69 araraticum) 76 Urkutsay, Uzbekistan 23 T. urartu 76–77 Ustyurt plateau 7, 14, 64, 228 wild plant foods 9–10, 32–33, 67, 193, 216, 220, 229. See also Uzboi channel/river 7, 21, 25, 35–40, 57, 59, 64, 66, 117, 207, entries for species bearing edible fruits and nuts 228, 230, 234 willow (Salix spp.) 9, 32, 166–69, 177, 189 former delta 35, 40, 228 wolf, gray (Canis lupus) 11, 15, 17, 33–34, 40, 54, 88–90, 91, river terraces 38–39, 219 177 woodland 9–10, 23, 33, 39, 74, 77, 166, 231, 235 walnut (Juglans regia) 9, 32, 166, 225 water buffalo 67 Yam, Iran 50, 68 wheat (Triticum spp.) 62, 162, 188, 198 Yarti-Gumbez, Turkmenistan 61 bread (T. aestivum) 62, 69, 236 Yarim Tepe, Iran, Khorassan 51 cultivation 59, 62, 119, 215–216, 231–32 Yarim Tepe, Iran, Mazandaran 49, 62–63, 220, 222–23 domestication 76–78, 232 Yaz I, Turkmenistan 46, 47 einkorn, domestic (T. monococcum) 62, 68, 74, 76–78, 90, Younger Dryas stadial 24, 55, 230 152–53, 162, 192, 215, 225–26, 232, 236 einkorn, wild (T. m. boeoticum) 76–77, 163, 232 Zaghe, Iran 50, 82 emmer, domestic (T. dicoccum) 74, 76, 152, 162, 192, 215, Zagros mountains 54, 74–76, 85–87, 180, 226, 232, 234–35 232, 236 Zaman-baba, Uzbekistan 68