The Secondary Exploitation of Animals in the Old WorldAuthor(s): Andrew SherrattSource: World Archaeology, Vol. 15, No. 1, Transhumance and Pastoralism (Jun., 1983), pp. 90-104Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/124640Accessed: 26/10/2010 10:40

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancis.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Taylor & Francis, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to WorldArchaeology.

http://www.jstor.org

The secondary exploitation of animals in the Old World

Andrew Sherratt

Introduction

In the historical and ethnographic record, western Eurasia appears as a mosaic of pastoral and mixed-farming groups in which domestic livestock has played a major role. Specialised forms of animal husbandry have been adapted to a wide range of geographical and economic conditions, from steppe nomadism to large-scale commercial livestock rearing. In the perspective of pre- history, however, this picture is a relatively recent one. Many of the features which now appear basic to the Old World economic pattern only became widespread three or four millennia after the beginning of farming.

In a recent paper (Sherratt 1981), I drew together archaeological and archaeozoological evidence for the early use of the secondary products and applications of domestic animals in the Old World. The hypothesis presented was that domesticated livestock was first used largely for meat, and only some millennia later for milk, wool, riding, traction and pack transport. The evidence for each of these elements was varied in character and nowhere conclusive, but seemed to converge on a critical phase of change in the fourth millennium BC, which I labelled the 'secondary products revolution'.

The purpose of this article is to present some additional information which modifies and confirms these conclusions, and also to sketch the outlines of a general model of the develop- ment of animal husbandry from c.6000 to 2000 BC. Many of the innovations considered here seem to have emerged in restricted parts of the Near East, and to have been exchanged and disseminated as part of the process leading to urbanisation. Important interactions also occurred with the steppe belt, where new ways of life appeared at this time, and the new features which were introduced to temperate Europe caused a revolutionary change in the character of agriculture and social systems there. Despite the fragmentary nature of present evidence, therefore, it is useful to consider this phenomenon as a whole, since its elements are clearly interconnected. The dating of these features will first be discussed in a European context, and then considered as part of the pattern of development in the Near East.

World Archaeology Volume 15 No. 1 Transhumance and pastoralism

i R.K.P. 1983 043-8243/83/1501-90 $1.50/1

The secondary exploitation of animals in the Old World 91

Use of the scratch-plough (ard)

The best evidence so far for the regular use of the plough in agriculture comes from the discovery of actual plough-marks on old land surfaces, and the recent multiplication of such discoveries offers the hope that this will lead to a more precise definition of the date at which animal traction was first applied to cultivation. The most impressive corpus of early plough-marks comes from Denmark, where they have recently been comprehensively reviewed by Henrik Thrane (1982). A dozen of these examples belong to the Corded Ware period of the third millennium BC, but nineteen can be dated to the Early or Middle Neolithic -the TRB culture of the fourth millennium. Of these, the earliest are the four which belong to the Early Neolithic C phase, with another five dated to this time or the opening phase of the Middle Neolithic. Among the latter is the splendid example from Snave near Dreslette, where 175 square metres of criss-cross furrows have been exposed under a long dolmen-mound. These examples can be dated by a series of radiocarbon determinations on material of these phases to c. 3700-3300 BC (see e.g. Bakker 1979: 141-5). These fit well with the date of c. 3500 BC for furrows in the surface below the South Street longbarrow (Avebury) and other evidence (Sherratt 1981: Fig. 10.8).

Further welcome evidence comes from the circum-Alpine region. In the Valle d'Aosta, from phase II of the site of Saint-Martin-de-Corleans in the suburbs of Aosta in northern Italy, an area of plough-marks has been exposed on a ritual site beneath Neolithic cist-graves (Mezzena 1981). The furrows are bracketed by radiocarbon dates of c. 2900 bc and 2400 bc (averages of seven dates: Mezzena 1981: 32-3), giving a calibrated range of 3600-3000 BC. These show an impressive congruence with the Scandinavian dates. Slightly later, with a radiocarbon determin- ation of 2400 bc (= 3000 BC), is the site of Castaneda at the mouth of the Calanca valley in Graubunden, Switzerland, where another large area of criss-cross furrows has been exposed beneath an Iron Age cemetery (Zindel and Deluns 1980). Another Swiss site, Chur-Welshdorfli, yielded furrows sandwiched between Lutzenguetle (late Neolithic) and Early Bronze layers, and so dating to the later fourth or third millennium BC (ibid.: 44).

Although the occurrence of such finds is naturally dependent on the preservation of old land surfaces, the existence of such conditions under monuments dating to before 3500 BC (e.g. earthen longbarrows) offers some control on this type of evidence: and the emerging pattern of dates both for plough-marks and figurines from several parts of Europe seems to be a convincing one.

As well as the contemporary iconographic evidence for paired draught in the form of pottery cart and yoke-models (listed in Sherratt 1981: 264-5), the copper models of yoked oxen from Bytyn' near Poznan in Poland (Piggott 1968: Plate 25) also date to around 3500 BC on the evidence of the associated flat copper axes. Since the ox-figures were made by a more sophisti- cated method of casting (probably lost-wax) than was practised in Europe at that time, it is possible that they were imports from a more advanced area such as Anatolia. The possibility of such contacts is suggested by a remarkable pottery vessel from Oldenburg, north-west Germany, which was clearly based on a metal prototype (Bakker 1979: 123). This. evidence of long- distance contacts is important for the apparently rapid spread of yoked traction at this time.

One more type of evidence should be noted, since it has sometimes been used to argue for an earlier use of ox-traction for ploughing. This is the morphology of cattle bones from the early fifth millennium BC site of VNdastra on the lower Danube in Romania (Chetie and Mateesco

92 Andrew Sherratt

1973; Mateesco 1975). On the basis of deformation in the epiphyses of the humerus and femur it was suggested that the forelimbs of subadult animals had been subjected to vertical compression as the result of carrying loads. While this phenomenon deserves further study, it cannot by itself be taken as evidence of the use of bovines for traction. There is thus no reason to suppose that the plough was in use in Europe before the mid-fourth millennium BC. There is thus good agreement among the various lines of evidence for paired draught (plough-marks, models or drawings of oxen and carts, paired-ox burials) to date its introduction to c.3500 BC, coinciding with a major horizon of change in European settlement patterns.

The spread of the horse in Europe

The pattern in which domestic horses spread through Europe from their origin on the Pontic steppes (Sherratt 1981: 272-3) is proving to be a complex one. The first horses appeared in small numbers in temperate Europe towards the end of the fifth millennium BC, and are found in graves of the Tiszapolgdr culture in eastern Hungary (Bokonyi 1978: 25). Their occurrence here at this time is significant, for it coincides with other evidence for trans-Carpathian links such as imported types of flint and status items (Kaczanowska 1980). As Bokonyi (1978: 25) notes, these early horses were probably 'regarded as novelties or status symbols' and did not form the basis of a local breeding population, since they do not reappear in Hungary until the Baden period and only in any numbers in the Early Bronze Age (Beaker) period around 2500 BC.

During the intervening period, in the later fourth and early third millennia, horses seem to have spread among elite groups in the North European Plain through contacts between later TRB and Baden cultures. Horse bones are known from the TRB and related contexts in central Germany (Muller 1978: 204), Czechoslovakia (Peske 1982) and Bavaria (Driehaus 1960: 88-9); but the most convincing evidence of their domestic status is the series of antler objects recently interpreted by Lichardus (1980) as the cheek-pieces of bits. These occur as grave-finds on three late TRB (Elb-Havel) sites in the north of the DDR, on a TRB (Tiefstich) settlement in Lower Saxony, and as stray finds in northern France (probably S.O.M.). Two more examples, from Bernburg graves at Barby near Schonebeck in central Germany, are illustrated by Behrens (1981: 13). The objects are crescentic in section and about 20 cm in length, with a single hole through their thickened mid-section. They resemble the finds from Sredni Stog sites like Dereivka near Kiev, where the first evidence of horse domestication occurs, and have parallels in some later, Bronze Age types from a period in which more complex types of antler cheek- pieces are known. Experimental use has demonstrated their effectiveness as bits (Lichardus 1980: 16-19). At the type-site of Ostorf (Kr. Schwerin, DDR) they occur in two graves of mature males, in one of which a pair of such cheek-pieces was associated with rich grave-goods including twenty-two arrowheads, a stone axe, flints, organic and amber beads, and a miniature amber double-axe. (No bones of horses were found in the burials.) This evidence suggests that by 3000 BC small numbers of horses were being kept for riding by certain elements of the TRB population in northern and central Europe, shortly after the time at which the plough first came into use in these areas.

This initial spread of horses in temperate Europe thus coincides with the increasing opening- up of the east/west corridor of the North European Plain, which in the following Corded Ware and Beaker periods was to transmit important innovations to other areas of Europe. It is at this

The secondary exploitation of animals in the Old World 93

time that horses appeared more widely in Europe (e.g. Ireland: van Wijngaarden-Bakker 1974: 345-7), that the first horse-burials are found (e.g. Grosshoflein-Follik in the Austrian Burgen- land: Pittioni 1954: 247), and that horse bones reach substantial proportions on certain sites (e.g. Csepel-Haros near Budapest: Bokonyi 1978). By 2000 BC horses occurred regularly on Bronze Age domestic sites in central Europe, and were probably available to a larger part of the population.

The spread of wool-sheep in Europe

The basic problem in assessing the change from textiles based on plant fibres (linen and bast) to those made of wool is one of differential preservation. Vegetable fibres survive only in alkaline contexts such as the calcareous muds of Neolithic Switzerland, while woollen fibres survive only in acid contexts such as the oligotrophic peat-bogs of northern Europe (although carbon- isation may preserve exceptional examples).

The great abundance of textile finds from Switzerland in the period from 4000 to 3000 BC (Vogt 1937) shows that linen was widely used in the Neolithic. After this time, in the Corded Ware and Early Bronze Age periods, the sharp decline in textile remains suggests that it had been largely replaced by wool, which would not be preserved in such environments. On the other hand, there is abundant evidence from northern Europe (especially in Denmark and adjacent areas: Hald 1950) that woollen cloth was the major textile in use during the Bronze Age, from 2000 onwards. The problem is thus to identify the point in the third millennium at which the change-over occurred.

An important find in this context is the 'Spitzes Hoch' tumulus at Latdorf near Bernburg in central Germany (DDR), excavatated by Klopfleisch in 1880. This contained a collective burial with Bemburg (TRB) pots and copper beads, within a circular stone setting covered by oak planks. The burning of this wooden covering had carbonised nearly sixty textile fragments, which have been examined by Schlabow (1959). These he described as being of 'erstaunlicher Feinheit', and consisting of 'feine, langhaarige Schafwolle'--finer than wool from the Bronze Age. However, Dr M. L. Ryder (in litt. April 1981) informs me that he examined this supposedly Neolithic 'wool' in 1964, and is of the opinion that it is flax; and carbonised flax- seeds occurred in the grave (Vogt 1937: 43). It seems most likely, therefore, that this late- fourth-millennium sample is linen, like contemporary Swiss textiles.

The earliest European find of woollen fibres is the wrapping from the handle of a flint dagger, found in its leather sheath in a peat-bog at Wiepenkathen, in northern Germany (Cassau 1935). This fabric is particularly interesting, since it consisted of woollen threads that had originally been interwoven with others, presumably linen, that had not survived the acid conditions. This is neatly paralleled by a contemporary Swiss find (Ruoff 1981), in which the converse obtained: linen fibres interwoven with now vanished ones, presumably of wool. The Wiepenkathen dagger can be dated typologically (Lomborg 1973) to the earliest phase of the late Neolithic 'Dagger Period', beginning around 2400 BC. Moreover a recent unpublished find of'carbonised wool from Switzerland can be dated to c. 2900 BC (P. Petrequin, pers. comm.). It seems reasonable, therefore, to suggest that wool was introduced to north-central Europe some time in the early to mid-third millennium (probably in a Corded Ware context), and was used in conjunction with linen until it became the dominant textile fibre in the second millennium.

94 Andrew Sherratt

The evidence set out above thus suggests an extended period of around a thousand years, from c.3 500 to 2500 BC, in which three important innovations reached Europe, in the order: plough, horse, wool.

The antiquity of dairying

One of the most important questions about prehistoric economies is the origin of milking. It cannot be assumed that this was practised from the beginning of domestication (Sherratt 1981: 275-82); although it was probably older than the first iconographic evidence for the practice, which appears only in Uruk contexts of the fourth millennium BC. The answer can only come from a large number of faunal studies using age- and sex-specific mortality estimates; and although many more such studies are required, some initial results relevant to the early use of milk in Europe will be noted here.

Sakellaridis (1979) has provided detailed data on faunal assemblages from Neolithic Switzerland, and although some of the sample sizes are small, some consistent patterns emerge. In the Pfyn and Cortaillod cultures (3800-3500 BC) 40 to 80 per cent of the cattle survived to maturity, of which the majority were female. The lack of adult males confirms that they were not kept as draught animals, and the high proportion of adult females implies the possibility of milking as well as breeding stock. Although some sites of this period only produced immature animals, the very high proportions of adult females in certain assemblages make the practice of milking quite likely. Moreover, this pattern occurs as early as the Roessen levels at Eschen- Lutzenguetle (c.4000 BC), where over 80 per cent of cattle were more than 2-3 years old. A similar pattern was also noted for ovicaprids: Cortaillod populations also contain 20-60 per cent of adult animals, mostly female. This precludes their use for wool, as predicted, but leaves open the possibility that goats, in particular, were used for milking. (Incidentally, sheep were regularly used as milk animals in northern Europe until the Industrial Revolution, as in southern Europe today.) It is thus not improbable that milking was being practised in Europe by 4000 BC, or even earlier, though the use of milk in Neolithic Europe seems to be a local rather than a general feature.

How does this fit with other indications as to the aitiquity of dairying? In an earlier paper (Sherratt 1981: 276-7) I discussed the relevance of the restricted adult tolerance of lactose (milk-sugar) in human populations. The ability to digest milk, owing to the persistence of the enzyme lactase into adulthood, is very low or absent in Mongoloid, New World, Melanesian, Australoid and Khoisan populations. In the Near East it is generally low, with the exception of the Bedouin of Saudi Arabia. Likewise in Africa, most Negroid populations except pastoralists like the Fulani, Hima and Tussi are intolerant to lactose. Roughly half of the inhabitants of the Mediterranean countries are intolerant, and the only populations in which the majority of adults can digest milk are those of north-west Europe. Although the practice of milking has some correspondence with the distribution of lactose-tolerant individuals, it does not depend on the existence of high levels of lactose tolerance in the population. The use of milk products such as yoghurt and cheese (in which the lactose is broken down into simpler sugars) is thus likely to have preceded the ability to drink milk directly.

Two selective factors are thus likely to have been responsible for the present distribution of lactose tolerance. One is the advantage, under extreme conditions on desert margins with few

The secondary exploitation of animals in the Old World 95

alternative food sources, of being able to consume large amounts of fresh milk. This does not explain the high levels of tolerance in northern Europe, however, and an ingenious hypothesis to account for this has recently been put forward by Flatz and Rotthauwe (1977). This relates lactose to the promotion of calcium absorption where there is a deficiency of vitamin D, when it is beneficial in preventing rickets. The development of lactose tolerance would thus parallel the selective advantage for de-pigmentation in areas of low sunlight (since vitamin D is produced in the body by UV radiation). With a cereal-based diet, and little vitamin D from fish and liver, agricultural populations in Europe would have been prone to calcium deficiency and consequent bone deformations. If milk was available, there would be a selective advantage for the prolongation of lactase activity into adult life which would allow it to be consumed directly, thus helping to prevent rickets.

We may therefore suggest that milking was probably practised in Europe by Neolithic populations, and that selective pressure in favour of milk-drinking became increasingly important with the northwards spread of agriculture. The limited opportunities for grazing in the primary forest would have inhibited the development of large herds, but the ability to keep small quantities of domestic livestock for milk would have been valuable in small scattered communities. Enlargement of the pastoral sector, and the development of larger-scale dairying, would have depended on the progress of forest clearance and in particular the change from small-scale horticulture (Sherratt 1980: 316) to a larger scale of agriculture. It is in this context that the arrival of the plough and wool-sheep were important.

Transport and trade in the fourth and third millennia BC

Having surveyed the European evidence for secondary exploitation, we may now turn to the Near East, and in particular to transport animals which spread only marginally into prehistoric Europe.

Equids

As with paired draught, the use of pack animals can be illuminated from the evidence of figurines. A group of terracottas from southern Palestine is the first known indication of the use of the donkey. The earliest are from the Ghassulian (Late Chalcolithic) period, of the fifth millennium BC, while others come from EB 1 contexts, equivalent to the Egyptian Gerzean and Protodynastic periods of the fourth millennium BC. From a Ghassulian context in a tomb at Giv'atoyim is a small donkey figure with two globular containers (pots? baskets?) high on its back (Kaplan 1969). It is paralleled by other figurines from Ghassulian ritual centres: a bull carrying 'churns' from En-gedi (Ussishkin 1980: 35), and a woman with a 'churn' on her head, and a ram with conical vessels on its back, from Gilat (Alon 1976). The best representation of a pack donkey comes from an EB 1 tomb at Tel Azor (nor far from Tel Aviv) along with a copper dagger and a predynastic Egyptian palette (Druks and Tsaferis 1970). It carries two tall containers. A somewhat similar figure of a donkey, broken from the rim of a vessel, comes from Cyprus and belongs to the EB 3 period at the end of the third millennium (Sherratt 1981: Fig. 10.11).

The context of these early figurines from Palestine is interesting: the Late Chalcolithic Ghassulian culture saw a major expansion in the Negev and Sinai, associated with an expansion

96 Andrew Sherratt

of trade and metallurgical activity (Rothenberg 1970), and the formation of links across the arid part of southem Palestine with the cultures of predynastic Egypt, where metal objects appear in the Gerzean (Naqada II). These routes became increasingly important during the period of formation of the Egyptian state. Loaded donkeys appear on the rock drawings of Upper Egypt (Winckler 1939), and in Protodynastic representations of trade or tribute scenes. Egyptian interest in the Levant is indicated by the occurrence of traded objects (and even the hieroglyph of Narmer on a sherd from Tel'Erany) and this sphere of influence in southern Palestine parallels the interaction zone around the early Mesopotamian states, indicated for example by the occurrence of proto-Elamite tablets on the Iranian plateau. These Egyptian land routes based on pack transport were superseded from the fifth dynasty onwards by the develop- ment of effective maritime transport and bulk trade by sea (Marfoe 1981). The scope of these earlier contacts was clearly dependent on the existence of domestic donkeys used as pack animals.

Faunal evidence shows that the donkey was present in both Palestine and Upper Egypt at least from the fourth millennium onwards, and the evidence of the figurines suggests that it came to be important locally among semi-pastoralist groups in southern Palestine, perhaps first in transporting milk and milk-products, and in carrying rare materials from distant extraction sites. The growing demand from expanding populations in the Nile valley, however, gave it a broader significance within the expanding network of trade routes. This spread of innovations in transport (for example the use of the sail, which also came into wider use during this time: Sherratt 1982) took features formerly important in local niches and gave them an international role in the expanding relations between early complex societies and their peripheries.

The donkey was introduced to the Aegean during the third millennium, occurring both at Lerna and in Troy IV (Gejvall 1969, 1946), and is thus likely to have spread widely through the Near East during this period. Tracing this spread is complicated, however, by the difficulty of distinguishing donkey from the remains of other equids which were present in this region. A further complicating element is the probability of hybridisation between the various equids. These complexities have been comprehensively assessed by Juris Zarins (1976) in a work which is a fundamental source of information on this question. Central to his thesis is the contention that onagers, although hunted and occasionally tamed, were unlikely to have been domesticated in the same sense as the donkey. However, onager-like equids such as those shown pulling battle-cars on the 'standard of Ur' might well represent hybrids, either with donkeys or perhaps even with horses. The use of the onager, therefore, both as a traction and riding animal, seems to be secondary to the use of other equids, and may represent local attempts to extend the stock of a rare and valuable imported species by the developing techniques of hybridisation with a locally abundant equid.

This raises the further question of the date at which horses spread in the Near East. The earliest reported specimens are from Anatolia and north-west Iran (Late Chalcolithic and EBA specimens from Nor?un tepe and Geoy tepe), though these may represent local wild populations within the natural distribution of the species. Apparently domestic horses appeared at Korucatepe, Troy VI and Servia only towards the end of the third millennium. There are some suggestions, however, that domestic horses may perhaps have been present in southern Iran in the fourth millennium: Zarins (1976) notes identifications from Tal i Iblis, Choga Mish and perhaps Susa, and the possibility that both the bone plaque from Susa and the famous proto- Elamite tablet (Scheil 1923: P1. XVII) may represent horses (or their hybrids).

Horses became more widespread in the Near East in the second half of the third millennium,

The secondary exploitation of animals in the Old World 97

when the earlier forms of solid-wheeled carts were refined by way of the cross-bar and spoked wheels into the horse-drawn chariot. This seems to have taken place on the northern edge of the fertile crescent, from Syria and Anatolia to north-west Iran. There are no examples of bits from this early period, and the animals were controlled by a noseband or ring. The further development of chariotry took place on the steppes with their longer tradition of horsemanship, including use of the bit. It was probably from this source that chariots reached Europe around 2000 BC, where their presence is shown by models of spoked wheels in the Otomani culture of eastern Hungary and Romania. These are associated with a characteristic style of compass- decorated bonework for cheek-pieces and (?) whip-caps, that has some analogies on the steppe. Professor Piggott (1983) has recently pointed out that the occurrence of features of this style in the Mycenae shaft-graves around 1600 BC probably represents the arrival of this technological complex in Greece, thereby reversing the direction of a long-held horizon of 'Mycenean influence' (Vladar 1973). Such penetration from the steppes of chariotry and horse-rearing expertise (with its technical vocabulary) probably took place in a wide arc around the older civilisations of the Near East in the early second millennium, where it is reflected for instance in the appearance of Indo-European minorities such as the maryannu (Drower 1969).

Camels

Returning briefly to the early stages of urbanisation in the fourth millennium, it is possible to suggest that the domestication of the camel closely paralleled that of the donkey, but in a complementary area. Two species are involved, the Bactrian and the Arabian camel or dromedary. Although there is no unambiguous evidence for the domestic status of either animal before the second millennium, indications of its presence on settlements, together with the long overland routes which came into use in the fourth millennium on the Iranian plateau, suggest that it was already in use as a transport animal. Tosi (1974) has suggested an early focus of use of the Bactrian camel at sites like Shahr-i Sokhta in Seistan, where its bones, dung and hair have beeh identified, and this area shows close cultural links with Turkmenia, where figurines suggest that it may have been used as a traction animal (Sherratt 1981: 275; Masson and Sarianidi 1972: plate 36; Bulliet 1975). Seistan is linked southwards to the area of Kerman and the Makrari, where there are further indications of the presence of the Bactrian camel (e.g. Zeuner 1955: see now also Compagnoni and Tosi 1978).

On the other side of the Gulf, the Oman peninsula was part of the same interaction-sphere (probably the historical Magan), and there are fourth-millennium camel bones at Hili and Umm an-Nar, while representations on grave-stones show that the species present was the dromedary (Ripinski 1975; Zarins 1978). The camel also occurs at Bahrain (Dilmun). It is thus possible that domestication of the two species occurred in the developing zone of long-distance trade contacts on opposite sides of the Gulf, linked to the growing urban area of Mesopotamia. While the initial focus of camel-domestication may have been in some localised area of Iran, it achieved a major significance within the expanding network of fourth-millennium trade routes. These trade routes did not at this time extend to western Arabia, and the relatively slow spread of the dromedary may reflect the undeveloped nature of this hinterland until the first millennium BC.

The Bactrian camel, however, seems to have undergone a major dispersal as a transport animal in the third millennium. Camel bones appear on Harappan sites (Ratnagar 1981: 173),

98 Andrew Sherratt

and somewhat later on Andronovo sites in central Asia, where they may be linked to drawings of camels pulling carts in the Minusinsk depression (Bulliet 1975: 185). They may even have penetrated by way of the Pontic steppes into Europe in the third millennium: fabrics identified as camel-hair have been noted at Maikop in the Caucasus (Gimbutas 1956: 60) and camel bones in barrows on the Pontic steppes and at Gurbaneqti east of Bucharest in Romania (Rosetti 1959: 802). It is clear that the steppes acted as an important secondary axis of dispersal, as with other secondary forms of animal exploitation.

In summary, therefore, the fourth and third millennia saw the emergence and dispersal of three major means of transport beginning in three major zones from north to south: riding, wheeled vehicles and pack transport. These techniques, and the domestic species on which they were based, spread and interacted both within the Near East and on its steppe hinterland.

The origins of secondary animal exploitation

Previous sections have reviewed evidence for the widespread appearance of secondary uses and products in the fourth millennium BC. How far back may these innovations be traced, and what were their areas of origin?

The earliest forms of cereal cultivation in the Near East were closely tied to restricted areas of seasonally moist soil (Sherratt 1980), requiring minimal soil preparation. Neolithic sites first proliferated in the scattered environments where such cultivation could take place. Expansion beyond these limits took place in the Early Chalcolithic (sixth millennium BC), particularly in two sorts of location. Samarran cultivators on the fans of eastern Iraq (on or beyond the present 200-mm isohyet) pioneered the use of water-spreading by constructing channels across braided streams (Oates and Oates 1976). At the same time, Hassuna farmers expanded on the brown steppe soils of northern Iraq (within the 200-mm isohyet). The latter area offered few opportunities for irrigation; and while precipitation at that time may have been higher, it is likely that greater soil preparation would have been necessary for cereal-growing. Since cattle were at that time becoming widespread on lowland sites, the preconditions for traction cultivation were present. Although the first representations of ploughs occur in southern Mesopotamia only in the fourth millennium (Sherratt 1981: 266), it is likely that (as with irrigation) ploughs were first developed within Greater Mesopotamia in the preceding millennia. These considerations would point to an origin in northern Iraq in the sixth or fifth millennia BC.

Although this innovation was probably a basic element in the spread of irrigation-cultivation on the alluvial plain of Mesopotamia, it may not have been widely used outside the lowland area. At this stage it is likely to have been a localised feature of cultivation systems where sufficient numbers of cattle were available, and there were sharp contrasts in the type of animal husbandry in adjacent regions. For instance, faunal assemblages from the Kermanshah region of western Iran show that down to the mid-fifth millennium BC the animal economy there was based on meat, principally juvenile goat and gazelle (Davis 1982).

During the Late Chalcolithic (fifth millennium BC), at the same time as major agricultural expansion was taking place in the alluvial plain in the Ubaid period, there was a further development of animal economies on the fringes of Mesopotamia. In Kermanshah the economy diversified, with the appearance of cattle and an increase in sheep, which now became more important than goats (Davis 1982). Moreover, the sheep were now kept to a greater age, and it

The secondary exploitation of animals in the Old World 99

is likely that wool and milk were being used for the first time. Wool-sheep may have been present in this area from an earlier date, since the Sarab figurine (Bokonyi 1974: Fig. 44) seems to indicate the V-shaped staples of hairy medium wool (M. L. Ryder, pers. comm.). Wool- bearing sheep probably spread from the Zagros to the lowland steppe and semi-desert margins where significant changes were also taking place in the fifth millennium. In southern Palestine and Sinai the colonisation of new areas in the Ghassulian was associated with a similar increase in the importance of sheep, and the infilling of the area between Palestine and Egypt was important in linking the Nile valley with developments in western Asia.

The spread of new features within the fertile crescent created some of the preconditions for the urbanisation which took place in the fourth millennium. The conjunction of expanding populations on the alluvium using irrigation and plough agriculture, with the opportunities for long-distance trade, resulted in attempts to secure direct supplies of metal, stone and wood. The growing influence of lowland Mesopotamia and Egypt affected a wide hinterland, as trading partners and colonies were established in resource-rich areas of Palestine, Syria and Iran, using both river transport on the Nile and Euphrates and land routes with donkeys (Palestine) and camels (Iran). The sledge, probably used since the invention of the plough, was transformed by the Sumerians into the wagon or cart by the addition of wheels, as shown in the Uruk pictograms (Piggott 1968); and equids were used as traction animals for the first time to pull battle-cars in the Early Dynastic period.

In the larger-scale economies of lowland Mesopotamia it became possible to support a specialised pastoral sector in the interstices of the irrigated land. Herds of dairy cattle were kept in marshy areas (as shown by dairying scenes with reed huts), while wool flocks were maintained partly by stubble-grazing. Animal-keeping began to move (like the cultivation of tree crops which also began at this time) from thie sphere of subsistence to that of commodity production, and manufacturing industry based on wool provided textiles for export. Secondary products had become an essentail part of the urban economy.

Europe and the steppes

The various elements of secondary animal exploitation that had appeared in different parts of the Near East were dispersed on a large scale by the development of long-distance trade routes around the primary urban centres. The process opened up a wider hinterland, from Anatolia through the Caucasus to Iran, in which local communities -Troy, Maikop, Altyn tepe -were developed by wider contacts. The opening up of this mountain arc made possible further links with the Mediterranean, temperate Europe and the steppes. The spread of Near Eastem technologies to this wider periphery is well illustrated by metallurgy. Arsenical alloying and the two-piece mould appeared in the fourth millennium in Greece, eastern Europe and the Pontic area, at about the same time as the traction ,complex, equids and wool-sheep.

Eastern Europe lay open to contacts in two directions: from the Aegean, and around the northem margin of the Black Sea; and it seems likely that both routes played a role in the appearance of these new features. The dating evidence discussed in the first section suggests that the first element to be adopted in Europe was the plough, together with the cart or wagon. The connections which are evident in pottery types between Baden, Ezero and westem Anatolia present the possibility that this innovation reached central Europe from Anatolia.

100 Andrew Sherratt

However, a steppe route is also possible, and this is most likely for wool-sheep, and certain for the horse.

The open landscape of the Pontic steppes presented a more immediate opportunity for an increased scale of animal-keeping than did the forested conditions of temperate Europe. The true steppes had been avoided by early farmers, and their native population consisted of riverine groups living by fishing and keeping domestic livestock, mainly cattle (Bibikova 1975). During the later fourth millennium these populations made increasing use of the interfluves, constructing the characteristic pit-graves under round tumuli. Although not nomadic, this increasingly pastoral emphasis was promoted by the use of the horse, which was locally domesticated, and the cart which was adopted from neighbouring Caucasian groups. These populations expanded both eastwards, towards the steppes of central Asia, and westwards to intrude upon sedentary agricultural groups in eastern Europe.

By the early third millennium, there is evidence that some of these groups had penetrated as far as eastern Hungary, where they settled mainly in areas abandoned by local agricultural groups, probably because of increasing salination (Ecsedy 1979; Sherratt 1982-3). At the same time the sheep populations in this area of central Europe show an increase in size (Bokonyi 1974) which is likely to reflect their use for secondary products. This bridgehead seems to have acted as a point of dispersal both for wool-sheep and for the horse, which spread into the North European Plain where the sandy areas of this morainic landscape were being increasingly opened up by plough cultivation.

Up to this point, the livestock economies of temperate Europe had been constrained by the limited areas of forest clearance created by Neolithic cultivation. The introduction of the scratch-plough in the fourth millennium made possible a radical change in the character of land use, in which an extensive strategy replaced small-scale horticultural systems. The larger areas of fallow and abandoned land created by this more extensive form of agriculture made possible an expansion in the use of livestock, including both dairy cattle and subsequently wool-sheep. This major transformation in the character of European agriculture had profound effects on economy and social structure, beginning the pattern which was to characterise the Bronze Age.

Conclusion

The development of economies based on secondary animal exploitation thus began as a mosaic of individual innovations, mostly in the semi-arid areas of the Near East. It was a response to the problem of adapting early forms of farming to new environments, especially open landscapes where it was possible to maintain larger quantities of livestock. These innovations came together during the period of rapid economic change leading to the rise of urban communities, and were disseminated by the expansion of trade routes linking the early states with their resource-rich hinterlands.

The introduction of these new elements to the Pontic steppes accelerated the local develop- ment of pastoral economies, already using the domestic horse. This zone became a major area of secondary development and dispersal, carrying the new elements both into central Asia and into eastern Europe. In the forested conditions of temperate Europe, livestock-keeping had been restricted in scale by the limited area of grazing; but the introduction of the plough initiated a more extensive type of agriculture that could support a larger pastoral component.

The secondary exploitation of animals in the Old World 101

The Carpathian Basin acted as an important centre of dispersal for steppe elements in Europe, and its links to the North European Plain carried advanced types of stock-raising to the Atlantic seaboard by the third millennium BC.

Note on dates

All dates in this article are calibrated radiocarbon dates, following the table provided by R. M. Clark in Antiquity, 49, 265-6.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to many colleagues who have brought new material to my attention, especially Jim Lewthwaite and John Watson, and particularly to Roger Moorey for his frequent advice on Near Eastern matters.

4.i. 1983 Ashmolean Museum University of Oxford

References

Alon, D. 1976. Two cult vessels from Gilat. A tiqot. 1 1: 1 16 -18.

Bakker, J. A. 1979. The TRB West Group. University of Amsterdam Subfaculty of Pre- and Protohistory, Amsterdam.

Behrens. H. 1981. Der Walternienburger und der Bernburger Keramikstil und die Walternienburg- Bernburg Kultur. Jahresschrift fur Mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte. 63: 11-16.

Bibikova, V. I. 1975. Formen der Viehzucht bei den Aneolitischen Stammen Sudosteuropas. In Moderne Probleme der Archaeologie (ed. K. H. Otto and H. J. Brachmann). Berlin: Akademie Verlag.

B6k6nyi, S. 1974. History of Domestic Mammals in Eastern and Central Europe. Budapest: Akademiai Kiad6.

B6k6nyi, S. 1978. The earliest waves of domestic horses in east Europe. Journal of Indo- European Studies. 6: 17-76.

B6k6nyi, S. 1979. Copper Age vertebrate fauna from Ketegyhaza. In Ecsedy (1979), pp. 101-18.

Bulliet, R. W. 1975. The Camel and the Wheel. Harvard University Press.

Cassau, A. 1935. Ein Feuersteindolch mit Holzgriff und Lederscheide aus Wiepenkathen, Kreis Stade. Mannus. 199.

Compagnoni, B. and Tosi, M. 1978. The camel: its distribution and state of domestication in the Middle East during the third millennium in light of finds from Shahr-i Sokhta. In Meadows and Zeder (1978), pp. 91-103.

102 Andrew Sherratt

Davis, S. 1982. Some Evidence of the Origin of Wool and Milk Production in the Near East Based upon a Sequence of Faunal Assemblages from Western Iran. Paper delivered at Fourth International Conference on Archaeozoology. London.

Driehaus, J. 1960. Die Altheimer Gruppe und das Jungneolithikum in Mitteleuropa. Mainz: RGZM.

Drower, M. 1969. The domestication of the tiorse. In The Dotnestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals (ed. P. Ucko and G. Dimbleby). London: Duckworth, pp. 471-8.

Druks, A. and Tsaferis, V. 1970. Tel Azor. Revue Biblique. 77: 578 and Plate XLb.

Ecsedy, I. 1979. The People of the Pit-grave K-urgans in eastern hIungary. Budapest: Akademiai Kiad6.

Flatz, G. and Rotthauwe, H. W. 1977. The human lactase polymorphism. Progress in Medical Genetics. 2: 203-44.

Gejvall, N. G. 1946. The Fauna of the Different Settlements of Troy: Part I: Dogs, Horses and Cattle. Unpublished typescript in London University Institute of Archaeology.

Gejvall, N. G. 1969. Lerna: a Preclassical Site in the Ar-golid, vol. 1: The Fauna. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies.

Ghetie, B. and Mateesco, C. N. 1973. Utilisation des bovins a la traction dans la phase plus recente de la civilisation Vadastra. Actes du VIjie Congres international des Sciences pre- historiques et protohistoriques: 454-60.

Gimbutas, M. 1956. The Prehistory of Eastern lEurope. Part I. Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum.

Hald, M. 1950. Olddanske Tekstiler. Copenhagern: Kongelige Nordiske-Oldskriftselkab.

Kaczanowska, M. 1980. Uwagi o surowcach, technice i typologii przemysXu krzemiennego kultury Bodrogkereszturskieji i Grupy Laznany. Acta Archaeologica Carpathica. 20: 19-56.

Kaplan, J. 1969. 'Ein el Jarba. Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research. 194: 2-39 and Plate VII.

Lichardus, J. 1980. Zur Funktion der Geweihspitzen des Typus Ostorf: Ueberlegungen zu einer vorbronzezeitlichen Pferdeschirrung. Germania. 58: 1 --24.

Lomborg, E. 1973. Die Flintdolche Ddnernarks. Copenhagen: Lynge.

Marfoe, L. 1981. Cedar Forest to Silver Mountairn: on Metaphors of Growth in Early Syrian Society. Paper delivered to the Arhus International Conference.

Masson, V. M. and Sarianidi, V. I. 1972. Central Asia. London: Thames & Hudson.

Mateesco, C. N. 1975. Remarks on cattle breeding and agriculture in the Middle and Late Neolithic on the Lower Danube. Dacia. 19: 13-18.

Meadows, R. H. and Zeder, M. A. 1978. Approaches to Faunal Analysis in the Middle East. Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum, Bulletin 2.

Mezzena, F. 1981. La Valle d'Aosta nella preistoria e nella protostoria. In Archaeologia in Valle d'Aosta dal Neolitico alla Caduta dell'Impero Romano 3500 a.v.-Vsec.d.c. Regione Valle d'Aosta: Assessorato del Turismo Urbanistica e Beni Culturali.

Muller, H. H. 1978. Tierreste aus eine Siedlung der Bernburger Gruppe bei Halle (Saale). Jahresschrift fur Mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte. 62: 203-20.

The secondary exploitation of animals in the Old World 103

Oates, D. and Oates, J. 1976. Early irrigation agriculture in Mesopotamia. In Problems in Economic and Social Archaeology (ed. G. Sieveking, I. Longworth and K. Wilson). London: Duckworth, pp. 109-36.

Peske, L. 1982. Neolithic and Aeneolithic Equids from Czechoslovakia in the Context of Central Europe. Paper delivered at the Fourth International Conference on Archaeozoology, London.

Piggott, S. 1968. The earliest wheeled vehicles and the Caucasian evidence. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 34: 266-318.

Piggott, S. 1983. The Earliest Wheeled Transport: from the A tlan tic Coast to the Caspian Sea. London: Thames & Hudson.

Pittioni, R. 1954. Urgeschichte des Osterreichischen Raumes. Vienna: Deuticke.

Ratnagar, S. 1981. Encounters: the Westerly Trade of the Harappa Civiisation. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Ripinski, M. 1975. The camel in ancient Arabia. Antiquity. 49: 295-8.

Rosetti, D. V. 1959. Movilele funerare de la Gurbaneqti. Materiale si Cercetari Archeologice. 6: 791-816.

Rothenberg, B. 1970. An archaeological survey in southern Sinai. Palestine Excavation Quarterly. 4-29.

Ruoff, E. 1981. Stein- und Bronzezeitliche Textilfunde aus dem Kanton Zurich. Helvetia Archaeologica. 45/48: 252-64.

Sakellaridis, M. 1979. The Mesolithic and Neolithic of the Swiss Area. Oxford: BAR (Inter- national Series 67).

Scheil, V. 1923. Textes de compatibilite proto-Elamites. Memoires de la delegation en Perse. 17.

Schlabow, K. 1959. Beitrage zur Erforschung der jungsteinzeitlichen und bronzezeitlichen Gewebetechnik Mitteldeutschlands. Jahresschrift fur Mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte. 43: 101- 20 and Plates.

Sherratt, A. G. 1980. Water soil and seasonality in early cereal cultivation. World Archaeology. 11: 313-30.

Sherratt, A. G. 1981. Plough and pastoralism: aspects of the secondary products revolution. In Pattern of the Past: Studies in honour of David Clarke (ed. I. Hodder, G. Isaac and N. Hammond). Cambridge University Press, pp. 261-305.

Sherratt, A. G. 1982. The first European sailing ships. The Ashmolean. 1: 12-14.

Sherratt, A. G. 1982-3. Neolithic and Copper Age settlement in the Great Hungarian Plain. Oxford Journal of Archaeology. (part 1) 1: 287-316; (part II) 2.

Thrane, H. 1982. Dyrkningsspor fra yngre stenalder i Danmark. Om Yngre Stenalders Bebyggelseshistorie. Skrifter fra Historisk Institut, Odense Universitet, no. 30, pp. 20-8.

Tosi, M. 1974. Some data for the study of prehistoric cultural areas on the Persian Gulf. Seminar for Arabian Studies. 4: 145-74.

Ussishikin, D. 1980. The Ghassulian shrine at En-gedi. Tel Aviv. 7: 1-44.

Vladar, J. 1973. Osteuropaische und mediterrine Einfliusse im Gebiet der Slovakei wahrend der Bronzezeit. Slovenskd Archaeologia. 21: 253-357.

104 Andrew Sherratt

Vogt, E. 1937. Geflechte und Gewebe der Steinzeit. Monographien zur Ur- und Fruhgeschichte der Schweiz.

van Wijngaarden-Bakker, L. 1974. The animal remains from the Beaker settlement at Newgrange, Co. Meath: first report. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (Section C). 74: 313-83.

Winckler, H. 1939. Rock Drawings of Southern Upper Egypt, 2 vols. London: Egypt Explo- ration Society.

Zarins, J. 1976. The Domestication of Equidae in Third Millennium Mesopotamia. PhD dissertation, University of Chicago.

Zarins, J. 1978. The camel in ancient Arabia: a further note. Antiquity. 52: 44-6.

Zeuner, F. 1955. The identity of the camel on the Khurab Pick. Iraq. 17: 162-3.

Zindel, C. and Deluns, A. 1980. Spuren von Pflugackerbau aus der Jungsteinzeit in Graubuinden. Helvetia Archaeologica. 11: 42-5.

Abstract

Sherratt, A. G.

The secondary exploitation of animals in the Old World

This paper considers the range of evidence for the secondary uses and products of animals: traction, transport, wool and milk. It suggests that early farming populations used livestock mainly for meat, and that other applications were explored as agriculturalists adapted to new conditions, especially in the semi-arid zone. Innovations in different parts of the Near East were exchanged and disseminated as part of the process leading to urbanisation. Their dispersal affected both the steppe belt, which saw a marked increase in population, and also temperate Europe, where agriculture was revolutionised by more extensive methods of farming and landscape clearance.