Earliest expansion of animal husbandry beyond the Mediterranean zone in the sixth millennium BC.

ABSTRACT: Since their domestication in the Mediterranean zone of Southwest Asia in the eighth millennium BC, sheep, goats, pigs and cattle have been remarkably successful in colonizing a broad variety of environments. The initial steps in this process can be traced back to the dispersal of farming groups into the interior of the Balkans in the early sixth millennium BC, who were the first to introduce Mediterranean livestock beyond its natural climatic range. Here, we combine analysis of biomolecular and isotopic compositions of lipids preserved in prehistoric pottery with faunal analyses of taxonomic composition from the earliest farming sites in southeast Europe to reconstruct this pivotal event in the early history of animal husbandry. We observe a marked divergence between the (sub)Mediterranean

SUBMITTER: Ethier J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5541088 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature