Aurochs bone deposits at Kfar HaHoresh and the southern Levant across the agricultural transition

Meier, Jacqueline; Goring-Morris, A. Nigel; Munro, Natalie D.

doi:10.15184/aqy.2017.179

Cited by 18 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…Symbols of leadership in the Middle East included not only Auroch horns and bucrania, but also phallic pillars and posts inscribed with symbols of oxen for community gathering places (e.g., [52]). Wild Aurochs still ranged in increasingly contracted regions around Middle-Eastern settlements and communal hunting and feasting on these animals particularly for funereal celebrations probably underscored their early religious symbolism (e.g., [50]).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several sites across the Middle East show persistent use for community feasting on Aurochs and hunting over a long period of time during the pre-pottery Neolithic period (8600–6700 BCE) [50]. Together with a range of studies, a pattern of cooperative hunting, community feasting and ritualistic practices support the premise of an early “cult of the bull” by farmers early in the agricultural revolution taking place in the Middle East and Asia Minor [51].…”

Section: Cattle Domestication and Early Religious Symbolismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In those latter examples, specific breeding aims had been developed from the understanding gained from earlier domestication events [23]. However, the domestication of cattle is somewhat unique in that although cattle became regarded for their meat, hide, milk, and traction, they were originally bred for religious and sacrificial roles [50,53,54]. The oldest evidence for dairy and traction roles served by domestic cattle is the discovery of a ceramic bull with a churn on its back, found in the southern Levant and dating around 4000 BCE [23].…”

Section: Cattle Domestication and Early Religious Symbolismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Alpha Hypothesis: Did Lateralized Cattle–Human Interactions Change the Script for Western Culture?

Robins

2019

Animals

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Simple SummaryThe domestication of cattle was a key innovation early in the development of Western civilization. Cattle provided the main tractor force to enable broad-scale agriculture and the land transportation of goods. Their initial significance was religiously celebrated as the bull-like creator god ’El, in Canaan (modern day Lebanon and Syria), and for over 6000 years in Ancient Egypt as the sky-goddess Hathor, often depicted as a sacred cow. In addition, the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic logogram of a horned ox head profile viewed from either the left or right side was used to signify the concept of “wisdom”. Stylizations of the ox head logogram seen from the left, and not right side have recently been found used in Egyptian graffito dating from around 1900 BCE (Before the Common Era). The strings of symbols have provided the earliest known examples of writing using phonemes such as used in the modern Western alphabet. The use of the directionally-asymmetrical left side ox-head symbol to represent a specific phoneme subsequently migrated around the Eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea variously as ’al, ’el, alep, allup, eleph and alif in Ancient Semitic cultures, including Phoenician, Hebrew and Arabic, before becoming “alpha” in Ancient Greece by 700 BCE. For reasons that have not been fully understood, the ox-head symbol has always been positioned as the first letter in the lexicographical order of the respective Western languages. This review outlines the etymology of the strongly conserved position and directional asymmetry of the alpha symbol, and of its religious connection. In the light of recent behavioural studies, the hypothesis was presented to argue that the directional asymmetry of alpha represents early recognition and critical importance of behavioural lateralization in domesticated cattle when interacting with their human handlers.AbstractDomestic cattle possess lateralized cognitive processing of human handlers. This has been recently demonstrated in the preference for large groups of cattle to view a human closely within the predominantly left visual field. By contrast, the same stimulus viewed predominantly within the right visual field promotes a significantly greater frequency of dispersal from a standing position, including flight responses. The respective sets of behaviours correspond with the traditional terms of “near side” for the left side of cattle and horses, and the “off” or “far side” for the right side. These traditional terms of over 300 years usage in the literature communicate functional practicalities for handling livestock and the recognition of lateralized cognitive processing. In this review, the possibility of even earlier recognition and the significance of laterality in cattle-human interaction was argued, from the earliest representations of the letter "A", originally illustrated from nearly 4000 years before the present time as the head of an ox as viewed not from the front or from the right, but from the left (near) side. By extension, this knowledge of latera...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cattle Domestication and Early Religious Symbolismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cattle Domestication and Early Religious Symbolismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Alpha Hypothesis: Did Lateralized Cattle–Human Interactions Change the Script for Western Culture?

Robins

2019

Animals

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“…comm.). At the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B ritual site of Kfar Hahoresh, human skulls were found with numerous fox mandibles, and partly articulated fox bones were excavated from two child burials (Horwitz & Goring-Morris 2004;Goring-Morris 2005;Meier et al 2017). Small carnivores, especially foxes, are associated with human burials before the Neolithic, and seem to have been symbolic.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Human burials with animals dating to the transition from hunting and gathering to farming are particularly important in understanding shifting relations between humans and animals at this time (Horwitz & Goring-Morris 2004;Vigne et al 2004;Grosman et al 2008;Maher et al 2011;Meier et al 2017). The move to permanent settlements had a dramatic effect on the immediate environment.…”

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confidence: 99%

Tails of animism: a joint burial of humans and foxes in Pre-Pottery Neolithic Motza, Israel

et al. 2019

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The recent discovery of a Late/Final Pre-Pottery Neolithic B burial of an adult and two children associated with fox bones at the site of Motza, Israel, demonstrates the broader socio-cultural perspective, and possibly continued animistic world views, of Neolithic foragers at the onset of the agricultural revolution.Recent excavations at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B mega-site of Motza (7600-6000 BC), central Israel, have revealed a rare human burial with two foxes. The fox bones were dismembered, except for one foot found in articulation, and scattered among the human remains. What could this burial reveal about interactions between humans and small carnivores in the eighth and seventh millennia BC? We propose that Neolithisation entails closer relations between humans and small carnivores, relations that find expression in ritual practice. This is an animistic reflection of an anthropogenic ecology, which is advantageous to such animals and can be related to the general transition to agriculture in the Levant during this period.Motza, located in the Judean Hills west of Jerusalem, is one of the largest sites in the southern Levant, approximately 40ha (Figure 1). It was previously excavated (Khalaily et al. 2007) and is remarkable for its architecture, plaster floors, a lithic assemblage rich in arrowheads, multiple graves and numerous animal bones. As one of the earliest and largest agricultural villages in the Mediterranean phytogeographic zone, Motza has much to

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Göbekli Tepe: Agriculture and Domestication

Peters

Schmidt

Dietrich

et al. 2020

Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

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Aurochs bone deposits at Kfar HaHoresh and the southern Levant across the agricultural transition

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 18 publications

References 34 publications

The Alpha Hypothesis: Did Lateralized Cattle–Human Interactions Change the Script for Western Culture?

The Alpha Hypothesis: Did Lateralized Cattle–Human Interactions Change the Script for Western Culture?

Tails of animism: a joint burial of humans and foxes in Pre-Pottery Neolithic Motza, Israel

Göbekli Tepe: Agriculture and Domestication

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