Transition of human-animal interaction in the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene of Central Anatolia: Aspects in faunal remains of three prominent Epi-Palaeolithic and Early Neolithic settlements

Abstract

The Late Pleistocene - Early Holocene is considered to be the transitional phase of a new formation of human-environment interaction in Anatolia and the Near East that eventually changed the planet Earth. Human first started to domesticate animals in a region between the Levant and Central Anatolia. In contrast of most other areas, the Anatolian Plateau has environmental characteristics that hosted wild ancestors of the earliest domestic species. Evidence shows that those wild ancestors were present in the Late Pleistocene, before 8000 cal. BC, in the plateau itself. Pınarbaşı rock shelter provides the first detailed evidence of Epi-Palaeolithic occupation as well as the nature of Late Glacial and earliest Holocene environment in the Anatolian Plateau during the second half of the 9th millennum cal. BC. Aşıklı Höyük, a mound site, represents the birth of the Aceramic Neolithic in Central Anatolia dated back to ca. 9,000 cal. BC. Sheep herding and cultivation of wheat took place with distinct local characteristics by sedentary village communities of this settlement at least in 8000 cal. BC. Boncuklu Höyük, a tell site, shows the transition from hunter-gatherer-foragers to agriculturalists in Central Anatolia. Mammal species found in Boncuklu Höyük were hunted and they exploited a mosaic of habitats including wetlands, grasslands and woodlands during the half of 9th millennium BC. Therefore, the faunal assamblage of these three sites illustrates the best witness to an understanding of the beginning of sedentism, cultivation and the transition of human-animal-environment interaction through the Late Pleistocene - Early Holocene of Central Anatolian Plateau. My PhD thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of this transition. This communication wants to give a glimpse of how it might have occurred and to establish some of the questions I will consider in the future.