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Seed Eaters of the Ancient Near East: Human Or Herbivore Naomi F University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Papers and Anthropology 6-1996 Seed Eaters of the Ancient Near East: Human or Herbivore Naomi F. Miller University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/penn_museum_papers Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, Biological and Physical Anthropology Commons, and the Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Miller, N. F. (1996). Seed Eaters of the Ancient Near East: Human or Herbivore. Current Anthropology, 37 (3), 521-528. Retrieved from http://repository.upenn.edu/penn_museum_papers/29 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/penn_museum_papers/29 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Seed Eaters of the Ancient Near East: Human or Herbivore Disciplines Archaeological Anthropology | Biological and Physical Anthropology | Near Eastern Languages and Societies This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/penn_museum_papers/29 Volume 37, Number 3, fune 1996 I 521 PAUNESCU, A.1 A. CONEA, M. CARCIUMARU, V. CODAAREA, 1993:3; Kozlowski 1989:30; Watkins, Baird, and Betts A. v. GROSSU, AND R. POPOVIC!. 1976. Consideratii arheo­ 1989:21).2 logice, geocronologice §i paleoclimatice privind a§ezarea Ripi­ Despite rapid advances in research, at least a few gen­ ceni-Izvor (Archaeological, geochronological, and paleoclimati­ cal considerations concerning the site of Ripiceni-Izvor). Stud.ii eralizations about the economic base of the early ag­ §i Cercetii.ri de Istorie Veche §i Arheologie 27(1):5-21. ricultural societies and their predecessors are likely to hold up: r. Plant cultivation began in the Jordan Valley during the 9th millennium b.c. and spread along the hilly­ Seed Eaters of the Ancient Near flanks/Zagros arc (van Zeist 1986, Bar-Yosef and Kislev 1989). East: Human or Herbivore? 1 2. Plant domestication followed permanent settled village life not just in the Natufian Levant but also in Anatolia and Iraq (Rosenberg 1993, Watkins, Baird, and NAOMI F. MILLER Betts 1989, Kozlowski 1989). Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology, 3. Domestication of ungulates for meat probably be­ University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia, Pa. gan in the 9th millenium b.c. in the hilly-flanks/Zagros r9ro4, U.S.A. 15 IX 95 uplands and spread to the west (Hole 1984). New discov­ eries, however, suggest that the first such domesticate In 1969, Kent Flannery hypothesized that at the end of may well have been pig (Rosenberg, Nesbitt, and Redd­ the Pleistocene human populations grew in the Near ing n.d.). East and people began to eat a broader range of animals Still unresolved is the nature of the dietary adaptation and plants. It was clear from faunal remains that rela­ implied by the material culture and settlement changes tively few ungulate taxa provided most of the meat sup­ that occurred between about 12,ooo and 9000 b.c. in the ply. Botanical remains extracted by the new technique Levant and, as recently recognized, in Anatolia and the of flotation, however, pointed to a previously unimag­ Iraqi Jezira. Ambiguities in the evidence of postglacial ined range of plant foods-not only obviously nutritious vegetation change inspire some of the questions: Did the cereals and nuts but small-seeded wild plants such as natural habitat of the wild wheats and barleys expand or clover. Although these resources would have been sec­ did it not? If the answer is yes, do the social and eco­ ond-choice foods in terms of processing costs, Flannery nomic changes visible in the archaeological record re­ said that they were more reliable and would have per­ flect people's responses to the richness of new resources, mitted more people to occupy the same territory. This and does dependence on these plant foods represent a dietary reconstruction has therefore been used to sup­ decision to seek out plentiful, reliable resources? If the port the theory that food production began in southwest­ answer is no, were the grasses famine foods at best, and ern Asia because of population pressure (Smith and was it population pressure that forced people to resort Young 1972, 1983; Cohen and Armelagos 1984). to labor-intensive, second-choice resources? Without re­ A number of new discoveries have begun to make an capitulating all the arguments here, there are those who impact on our thinking about preagricultural subsis­ propose that late Natufian and related sedentary groups tence. When Flannery formulated the "broad-spectrum­ increasingly concentrated on only a few plant and ani­ revolution" model, he had to extrapolate from the early mal resources (mainly the wild wheats and barleys and agricultural site of Ali Kosh, which had the most com­ gazelle in the Levant, though some stress the impor­ plete archaeobotanical assemblage then available. We tance of acorns) (e.g., Edwards 1989, Henry 1989, Ol­ now know of several sites in the Syrian steppe, in Ana­ szewski 1993) and others who would agree with Flan­ tolia, and along the northern Zagros arc that were year­ nery's original proposal that the preagricultural round or nearly year-round settlements and that are con­ "hunter-gatherers may well have specifically adapted temporary or nearly contemporary with earlier Natufian their harvesting methods to maximize the spectrum of and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A sites in the Levant (notable edible seeds" (Hillman, Colledge, and Harris 1989:260). Abu Hureyra, Hallan c;:emi, and two "Neolithic" sites, Nemrik 9 and Qermez Dere [fig. l]). Archaeobotanists working on these sites have found no evidence of mor­ ALI KOSH: THE BROAD-SPECTRUM phologically domesticated plants or even of cultivated REVOLUTION RECONSIDERED ones (Hillman, Colledge, and Harris 1989; Rosenberg Helbaek (1969) analyzed a series of archaeobotanical samples from Ali Kosh and provided summary counts 1. © 1996 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological of seeds and rachis fragments dating to the Bus Mordeh Research. All rights reserved oou-3204/96/3703-0006$1.00. I thank Patty To Watson and Henry T. Wright for comments on an (1500-6750 b.c.), Ali Kosh (6750-6000 b.c.), and Mo­ earlier draft of this paper. Gordon Hillman and Richard Redding hammad Jaffar (6000-5600 b.c.) phases. His work had also offered comments and suggested references for which I am two long-lasting results. First, he documented the pres- grateful, and Karl Kranz provided useful references about gazelle territorial behavior. None of these persons bears responsibility for the interpretations presented here. Paul Zimmerman produced the 2. The Nemrik 9 faunal remains may include pig, cattle, and goat illustrations. transitional to the domesticated forms (Lasota-Moskalewska 1990). This content downloaded from 165.123.34.86 on Thu, 19 May 2016 03:38:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 522 I CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Taurus MtS· •Ali Kosh 0 km 500 FIG. I. Epipaleolithic and early Neolithic sites mentioned in text. ence of early agricultural communities far from the nat­ largely restricted to riverbanks and marshes. Agriculture ural habitat zones of the wild cereals. Second, he estab­ was based on the cultivation of emmer wheat and barley, lished a descriptive economic and environmental base possibly in such naturally moist areas. line against which new data could be compared. He Helbaek traced economic and environmental change noted that the absence of wood charcoal and the pres­ at Ali Kosh. Changes in the proportions of the seeds of ence of seeds of steppe plants at Ali Kosh suggests that various ecologically sensitive wild and domestic plants the climate has not changed appreciably over the past demonstrate shifts in the agricultural system. For exam­ eight millennia; the natural vegetation is and was ple, domesticates make up a small percentage of the steppe, with trees such as poplar, willow, and tamarisk seeds from Bus Mordeh phase deposits (table 1, fig. 2, a). TABLE I Plant Remains from Ali Kosh Bus Ali Mohammad Mordeh Kosh Jaffar No. samples 21 13 13 Seed count Cultivated plants l,072 369 278 Introduced weeds 71 130 39 Indigenous grasses 277 40 l,253 Indigenous legumes 29,421 171 4,771 Swamp plants 53 l 0 Other wild plants 410 18 l,359 Tree, shrub fruits 6 188 403 Wheat spikelet forks' 2,812 905 957 Total 31,310 917 8,103 SOURCE: Helbaek (1969:391). 'Not included in sum. This content downloaded from 165.123.34.86 on Thu, 19 May 2016 03:38:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Volume 37, Number 3, fune 1996 I 523 45 During the Ali Kosh phase, the proportion of cultigens 40 a increases, which suggests that agricultural production 35 expanded, perhaps as a result of increasing sedentism m (cf. Hole, Flannery, and Neely 1969:347), and there is a 0 30 corresponding decline in the proportion of indigenous - 25 legumes of the steppe. Seeds and pollen of Prosopis, "'2Q) IJ) 20 probably an introduced perennial field weed, become 0 15 more numerous over time (Helbaek 1969, Woosley and '#. 10 Hole 1978). An economic change with ecological impli­ 5 cations can be seen in the ratio of wheat to barley, which 0 increases between the Bus Mordeh and Ali Kosh phases but undergoes a steep decline in the Mohammad Jaffar 3.5 phase (fig. 2, b). Helbaek considered this to be evidence b for an increase in soil salinization near Ali Kosh, since 3.0 barley is the more salt-tolerant crop. An increase in the 2.5 percentage of the pollen of the usually halophytic family ~ "i:'.'. Chenopodiaceae supports this interpretation (Woosley ca 2.0 ..c and Hole 1978). Finally, swamp plants disappear. This 1.5 1'lQ) result is in accord with the pollen (Woosley and Hole ..t::.
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