Roots of Animal Domestication in Central Asia Stretch Back at Least 8,000 Years

Early Dispersal of Neolithic Domesticated Sheep Into the Heart of Central Asia

Along the Tian Shan and Alay range of mountains of Central Asia, sheep and other domestic animals form the core economy of modern life. Although it was here that the motions of their ancient predecessors assisted to form the excellent trade networks of the Silk Road, domestic animals were believed to have actually come fairly late to the area. A brand-new research study, released just recently in the journal Nature: Human Behavior, exposes that the roots of animal domestication in Central Asia stretch back a minimum of 8,000 years — making the area among the earliest continually occupied pastoral landscapes worldwide.

The domestication of sheep, goat, and livestock initially happened in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia and the close-by mountain zones of western Asia approximately 10,000 years earlier, in lockstep with the very first domestication of plant crops like wheat and barley. This development in human subsistence, called the Neolithic Revolution, spread northwards to Europe and southwards to Africa and India, changing human societies throughout 3 continents. But till just recently, it appeared that this significant growth of domestic plants and animals stopped working to reach eastward to the abundant mountain zones of Central Asia, where — in spite of their outsized significance in the later centuries of the Bronze Age and beyond — there was little proof of a Neolithic dispersal.

Curious domestic goats straddle the hillside above the historical site of Obishir V. Credit: Magdalena Krajcarz

That altered when a joint group of global researchers, led by Dr. Svetlana Shnaider of Russia’s Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography (RAS-Siberia, Novosibirsk) and Dr. Aida Abdykanova of the American University of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan), chose to review rockshelter Obishir V, tucked into a mountain precipice along Kyrgyzstan’s southern border with Uzbekistan. The website, which was very first found and excavated by Soviet archaeologists in the 20th century, had actually yielded an uncommon assemblage of stone tools, a few of which appeared to have actually been utilized for processing grains. Furthermore, sprayed throughout the layers of the website’s geologic strata were the fragmented remains of what seemed sheep and goats.

Could this be proof of an ancient, undocumented Neolithic motion of domestic animals deep into the interior of Central Asia? To discover, Shnaider and Abykanova partnered with lead author Dr. William Taylor, an expert in the research study of animal domestication at the University of Colorado-Boulder’s Museum of Natural History and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, together with a group of global professionals from throughout Europe and the United States. After radiocarbon dating bones and teeth from the website, it ended up being clear that the earliest cultural layer dated a minimum of as far back as ca. 6000 BCE, or more than 8,000 years earlier — 3 centuries earlier than domestic animals were believed to have actually reached Central Asia.

Bronze-Iron Age Petroglyphs on the cliff face above the website of Obishir reveal what are either wild goats, or early domestic goats. Credit: William Taylor

Burning, cut marks, and other modifications to the animal bones revealed that they had actually been butchered, while patterns of tiny seasonal layering within the animals’ tooth cementum showed that they were butchered in the fall, as prevails in lots of rounding up societies. But due to the fact that the bones were extremely fragmented, the types might not be determined utilizing basic physiological analysis. Instead, the scientists used an interdisciplinary technique utilizing both paleogenomics and collagen peptide fingerprinting to determine the animal stays. Comparing their outcomes with the genomes of wild and domestic sheep types from throughout Eurasia, the scientists made a stunning discovery.

“With each new line of evidence, it became increasingly clear… these were not wild sheep — they were domestic animals,” states Taylor.

For those that have actually worked for years to comprehend Central Asia’s prehistory, the outcomes are stunning.

“This discovery just illustrates how many mysteries still remain regarding the prehistory of Inner Asia — the cultural crossroads of the ancient world,” states the Max Planck Institute’s Dr. Robert Spengler — a research study co-author and author of Fruits from the Sands: The Silk Road origins of the foods we consume.

Future work will be essential to comprehend the complete effect of the research study’s findings and their ramifications for the rest of ancient Eurasia. Shnaider prepares to go back to Obishir this coming summertime to search for ideas and to identify whether other domestic animals, like livestock, or domestic plants, such as wheat and barley, likewise infected Kyrgyzstan from Mesopotamia in the deep past. With an award from the European Research Council, job partner and co-author Dr. Christina Warinner (Harvard/MPI-SHH) is leading an effort to examine whether these very first Central Asian sheep spread somewhere else in the area and whether they were utilized to produce dairy or wool.

“This work is just the beginning,” states Taylor. “By applying these interdisciplinary techniques from archaeological science, we are starting to unlock the clues to Central Asia’s past.”

Reference: “Evidence for early dispersal of domestic sheep into Central Asia” by William T. T. Taylor, Mélanie Pruvost, Cosimo Posth, William Rendu, Maciej T. Krajcarz, Aida Abdykanova, Greta Brancaleoni, Robert Spengler, Taylor Hermes, Stéphanie Schiavinato, Gregory Hodgins, Raphaela Stahl, Jina Min, Saltanat Alisher kyzy, Stanisław Fedorowicz, Ludovic Orlando, Katerina Douka, Andrey Krivoshapkin, Choongwon Jeong, Christina Warinner and Svetlana Shnaider, 8 April 2021, Nature Human Behaviour.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-021-01083-y