August
11, 2008
Science Visuals
How the First Farmers
Colonized the Mediterranean
By NICHOLAS WADE
The invention of agriculture was a pivotal event in human history,
but archaeologists studying its origins may have made a simple
error in dating the domestication of animals like sheep and goats.
The signal of the process, they believed, was the first appearance
in the archaeological record of smaller boned animals. But in
fact this reflects just a switch to culling females, which are
smaller than males, concludes Melinda Zeder, an archaeologist
at the Smithsonian Institution.
Using a different criterion, that of when herds first show signs
of human management, Dr. Zeder finds that goats and sheep were
first domesticated about 11,000 years ago, much earlier than previously
thought, with pigs and cattle following shortly afterwards. The
map, from her article in the August 11 issue of the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, shows the regions and dates
where the four species were first domesticated. Other dates, color-coded
as to species, show where domesticated animals first appear elsewhere
in the Fertile Crescent.
The earlier dates mean that animals were domesticated at much
the same time as crop plants, and bear on the issue of how this
ensemble of new agricultural species †the farming
package known as the Neolithic revolution â€
spread from the Near East to Europe.
Some experts say the technology spread by cultural diffusion,
others that the first farmers themselves moved into Europe, bringing
their new technology with them and displacing the resident hunter
gatherers.
Dr. Zeder concludes that both processes were involved. A test
case is the island of Cyprus, where the four domesticated species
of livestock appear as early as 10,500 years ago, replacing native
fauna such as pygmy elephants and pygmy hippopotamuses (large
animals often get downsized in island settings).
Since Cyprus lies 60 kilometers off the Turkish coast, the suite
of agricultural species must have been brought there on boats
by the new farmers. That establishes one episode of colonization,
and Dr. Zeder sees evidence for several others. The second map
shows, in red circles, the dates when farming colonists' enclaves
were set up around the Mediterranean.
Dr. Zeder believes that in France and Spain the indigenous hunter
gatherers adopted the new farming technology by cultural diffusion
(shown as green dots). The farmers themselves settled the regions
that are now Turkey and the Balkans (red dots) but in surrounding
areas they integrated with indigenous peoples (blue dots).
Dr. Zeder says her evidence indicates that several waves of settlers
spread the new farming technology through the Mediterranean. It's
yet not known what drove the expansion, or what the relationship
was between the colonists and the native inhabitants. Studies
of ancient DNA, she said, may help test her thesis that farming
spread through a mix of colonization and cultural diffusion.