Revealing Earliest Animal Domestication in the Fertile Crescent

Project Information

READ

Grant agreement ID: 101088071

DOI

10.3030/101088071

EC signature date 17 April 2023

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 31 December 2028

Funded under

• European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 915 691,00

EU contribution

€ 1 915 691,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - READ (Revealing Earliest Animal Domestication in the Fertile Crescent)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2026-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Animal domestication is a key topic in Neolithic archaeological research since the early 1960s. The earliest steps of this
phenomenon are, still today, very difficult to achieve. Traditional zooarchaeological analyses used to date domestication
rely on detecting the appearance of genetically-driven morphological changes in animals. These morphological markers,
however, if they occur at all, only appear after the process is well underway, after hundreds, if not thousands, of years,
making it difficult to study them. The READ project will build an alternative approach to detect early evidences of
sheep and goat management. The project will investigate the historical life-traits of the animals with a high-resolution
time analysis by performing biogeochemical analyses on fossil teeth. Scientific approaches employed are not all
highly innovative but their combination together with the themes addressed will involve a high-gain. This will allow
reconstructing the three clue mechanisms that were pivotal in the lead up to domestication: the control of the animals’
reproductive cycles; the induced changes to their feeding habits; and the interruption of migratory-seasonal movements.
The project will evaluate and compare data from what are known to be the three key regions for this research area: the
Southern Levant, the Northern Levant and the Eastern Fertile Crescent. READ will analyses a set of the most important
and significant available faunal assemblages for these regions and will put together a reference dataset from wild relatives
available in museum collections and current living populations found in breeding centres. At the end of the project I will
unravel the current unresolved paradigms on the origin of animal domesticates not relying on how the animals changed
but rather what the human societies did to change the animals; revealing how early caprine management was done and
where and when processes of animal domestication were initiated.

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

During the first 24 months of the READ project, a very substantial effort has been devoted to
establishing the analytical, empirical, and technological foundations required to achieve the
project’s objectives. This has resulted in major progress in the acquisition, analysis, and
interpretation of key archaeological and modern reference datasets, as well as in the successful
implementation of novel analytical methodologies.
A central achievement has been the completion of extensive sampling campaigns in major
international collections, including the Smithsonian Institution (Washington DC, USA), University of
Cambridge (Cambridge, UK), the Université Côte d’Azur (Nice, France), CNRS facilities in Jalès
(France), and the Field Museum (Chicago, USA), in addition to the extensive collections available
at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). This effort has enabled the project to target
some of the most iconic and influential archaeological sites in the study of animal domestication,
including Abu Hureyra, Tell Mureybet, Hallan Çemi, Shanidar, Dja’de, Cheikh Hassan, and Tell Halula, among others. The number and quality of specimens now available far exceed the initial
requirements and constitute one of the most comprehensive datasets ever assembled to
investigate the origins of animal domestication.
Across these assemblages, the full analytical potential of the project has been deployed. This
includes high-resolution biogeochemical analyses (stable isotopes of C, N, O, and Ca, as well as
trace element ratios such as Sr/Ca and Ba/Ca), complemented by the implementation of
innovative approaches such as histological analysis and dental microwear studies. These
combined methodologies provide an unprecedented multi-proxy framework for reconstructing
animal life histories and human management practices.
In parallel, the project has made outstanding progress in the construction of modern reference
datasets, based on present-day animals raised under controlled conditions. This work, conducted
in close collaboration with the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at UAB, has generated unique
comparative datasets supported by detailed life-history and clinical records. These references are
essential for securely interpreting archaeological signals related to reproduction, feeding, and
mobility.

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 state-of-the-art in zooarchaeological research on early animal management and domestication,
particularly through the development and implementation of high-resolution biogeochemical and
histological approaches.
One of the most notable scientific contributions has been the advancement of sequential stable
isotope analysis of dentine collagen as a high-resolution proxy for reconstructing life-history traits
in caprine species. Traditional intra-tooth isotope studies have largely focused on enamel due to
the technical challenges associated with sampling dentine, whose complex growth geometry
makes it difficult to isolate time-specific increments. By contrast, the methods developed in the
context of READ allow sequential δ13C and δ15N isotopic data to be obtained from dentine
collagen in high-crowned teeth with substantially reduced isotopic damping, yielding temporal
resolution comparable to enamel sampling while preserving biologically meaningful dietary signals.
This advance has multiple implications: it opens up new analytical opportunities for investigating
short-term and seasonal changes in diet and physiology, which are directly tied to key aspects of
animal management such as reproductive control, weaning practices, and feeding strategies. It
also expands the range of biological tissues that can be used in high-resolution isotopic research,
providing a complementary dataset to enamel that is especially rich in information about the
organic component of diet through collagen. The development of this dentine sampling protocol —
first presented in peer-reviewed research by Díez-Canseco and Tornero and already disseminated
through international scientific outlets — represents a methodological breakthrough that goes
beyond existing protocols and has broad applicability not only within the READ project but also for
future zooarchaeological and archaeological studies of past animal populations. In addition to this
methodological innovation, READ’s integrated use of multiple proxies — including sequential
biogeochemical signals, histological data, and dental microwear patterns — constitutes a
conceptual advance in the field. By reconstructing dynamic life-history traits rather than relying
solely on morphological change, READ is shifting the focus toward direct evidence of human
influence on animal biology, providing unprecedented insight into the mechanisms that underlie
early sheep and goat management. Although iterative methodological refinement is a normal part
of frontier research, the achievements in sequential dentine analysis were not foreseen in detail at
the outset of the project and have already generated new scientific opportunities and discourse in
the field. These advances underscore the transformative potential of combining innovative
analytical techniques with classical zooarchaeological questions, thereby advancing our
understanding of one of the most significant transitions in human prehistory.