Investigating the emergence of mobile and sedentary pastoralism in Neolithic Iran through ancient food residues analyses and radiocarbon dating

Project Information

VARGAH

Grant agreement ID: 101024503

DOI

10.3030/101024503

Project closed

EC signature date 12 April 2021

Start date 1 June 2021

End date 31 May 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 184 707,84

EU contribution

€ 184 707,84

Coordinated by

MUSEUM NATIONAL D'HISTOIRE NATURELLE
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - VARGAH (Investigating the emergence of mobile and sedentary pastoralism in Neolithic Iran through ancient food residues analyses and radiocarbon dating)

Reporting period: 2021-06-01 to 2023-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The Vargah project seeks to understand the development of agropastoralism in South West Asia, and in particular the Iranian Plateau, a center for the domestication of sheep and goat ten thousand years ago. The Zagros mountains are a natural habitat for caprines that favoured their domestication from the Neolithic period. Pastoralism development revolutionised human food procurement up to the present day with the reliance on domesticated animals for their meat and milk products.

The objectives are to understand better the subsistence economies of ancient pastoral populations and when they started exploiting the secondary products, particularly the milk of their domesticated goats. Contextualisation of the social organisation of sedentary and mobile groups of pastoralists in a secure timeframe and chronology is also important for the understanding of everyday life and of related aspects of animal management and husbandry practices.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

For the Vargah project, hundreds of archaeological pottery vessels were analysed for their lipid residues of dozen human dental calculus for their protein preservation in order to identify ancient food residues and reconstruct ancient diets.

At all the sites we analysed, both the meat and milk originating from domesticated animals (mainly carpines) have been identified. A freshwater aquatic contribution is also suspected at half of the sites and further work needs to be performed to confirm this hypothesis. The results obtained show that dairy exploitation is as least as old as the 7th millennium BC and dental calculus analysis suggest this could be even earlier. Dairy originating likely from sheep/goats was exploited by both mobile and sedentary groups of pastoralists.

Radiocarbon dating of lipids preserved in archaeological pottery vessels allows precision of the chronologies of the sites and provides direct radiocarbon measurement on milk exploitation in the region, thus verifying their antiquity, especially for pottery from disturbed contexts. These results are currently being compiled for publication in a very high-rank journal and they have been presented on several occasions at international conferences in the field of archaeology.

Scientific mediation was also regularly performed to exchange directly with the general public regarding the objectives of the project and method used, or via scientific social media such as blogs (forthcoming online publication, on Bioarchéologie Blog ( https://sstinrap.hypotheses.org/4845 ), the website of the research group (https://archeozoo-archeobota.mnhn.fr/fr) and Twitter (@EmmCasa and @ArchZooBota).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project allowed to start documenting and understanding the development of agro-pastoral communities in Iran and South West Asia especially related to the early exploitation of dairy products from caprine. Results obtained to date, show a similar dynamic to the domestication of cattle in Anatolia and Europe, while focussing on diverse animals. The project allowed us to better understand the origins of pastoralism that have impacted the modern food industry.

E. Casanova sampling pottery sherds for lipid residue analysis with collaborator R. Bernbeck

E. Casanova identifying presence of dental calculus for paleoproteomic analysis