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Climatic Change and the Advent of Domestication : The Succession of Ruminant Artiodactyls in the Late Pleistocene-Holocene in the Israel Region

[article]

Année 1982 8-2 pp. 5-15
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Page 5

PALEORIENT. vol. X - 2 - 1 982

CLIMATIC CHANGE AND THE ADVENT

OF DOMESTICATION :

THE SUCCESSION

OF RUMINANT ARTIODACTYLS

IN THE LATE PLEISTOCENE-HOLOCENE

IN THE ISRAEL REGION

S. J. M. DA VIS

Introduction

This paper is a discussion of two shifts in the frequencies of ungulate species during the last 50,000 years in Israel (Fig. 1 and Table 1). Two changes occur in the faunal spectra in certain regions between 12 and 8,000 BP as the result either of changing environmental conditions or of human interference. I favour the former explanation for the first faunal change, and the latter for the second.

Most faunal work in the Levant to date has dealt with single sites and/or with one of the two faunal changes. In this study, sequences were examined which extend through the whole Late Pleistocene-Holocene in north and central Israel as well as most of the Israel region. The study therefore endeavours not only to separate spatial from temporal variation, but also to establish the relationship between the two faunal changes in time.

Interpretation of the first shift has been dominated by the pioneering work of Dorothea Bate, who constructed a graph of the frequencies of deer and gazelle in the Mount Carmel caves, and interpreted this

as indicating climatic changes in the past(l). Her conclusion was based on the fact that gazelle live in wide open spaces and are well adapted to arid conditions, while deer inhabit woodland and wetter environments than gazelle.

Although her palaeontology is highly regarded, and her assumptions concerning the animals' habitats are correct, there are two methodological objections to her graph.

The first objection concerns her samples, which were collected from archaeological excavations carried out in the 1920s and 1930s. Archaeological practices at that time undoubtedly produced bias. For example, examination of the Mount Carmel collections in the British Museum revealed gross under-representation of the smaller un fused long bone epiphyses. Either the material was not sieved in the field or selective collection occurred. It is probable however, that at least for interspecific purposes the larger ungulates such as deer and gazelle were affected alike. Indeed, the results to be presented in this paper - based upon material from the modern excavations of Stekelis and Bar Yosef. both

J BATE 1937.

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