Using cattle for traction and transportduring the Neolithic period. Contribution of the study of the first and second phalanxes

Abstract

During the Neolithic period, cattle were used not only for their meat and their milk but also for their strength. Unfortunately, apart from the discovery of specific instruments (yokes, travois, wheels, ards, etc.), it is not easy to demonstrate archaeologically their use for work. Nevertheless, the bone pathologies related to this activity can be analyzed. The methodological approach employed in this study is based on multivariate analyses (PCA) applied to the dimensions of the first and second phalanxes, as well as to shape indices of the same bones determined by the Mosimann method. The measurements of aurochs and domestic cattle bones from nineteen Mesolithic and Neolithic sites form the data matrix. The results of this study attest, on the one hand, that cattle were used for draught and transport during the Neolithic in various parts of Europe and the Near East and, on the other hand, that this use and its corollary, castration, are practices that can be dated back earlier than is generally accepted.

Sheep husbandry in the early Neolithic of the Pyrenees: New data on feeding and reproduction in the cave of Chaves

“…Animal husbandry would have been restricted to crop fields (because woodland clearings are limited), where small numbers of sheep would have been grazed at some time of the year, resulting in direct manuring (Halstead 1981). Animal husbandry would have been diversified into different species and different products (meat, milk and traction) (Halstead 1996), as documented in the Neolithic period on the Iberian Peninsula (Antolín et al, 2014;Helmer et al, 2018;Sierra et al, 2019). Intensively managed herds would generally be kept on the settlement, especially during the winter.…”

Management and domestication of cattle (Bos taurus) in Neolithic Southwest Asia

“…However, at Tell Aswad in the Damascus basin, changes in horn morphology and a loss of sexual dimorphism in the MPPNB suggest that “domestic” cattle were present prior to the PN in the southern Levant ( Helmer and Gourichon, 2008 ). Helmer and Gourichon (2008 :138) also note the presence of pathologies thought to represent the use of cattle for labor and hypothesize that milk was also exploited in the eighth millennium BC ( Helmer et al, 2018 ). In addition, small-sized “domestic” cattle have been identified at Yiftahel in Israel, and Basta and Ain Ghazal in Jordan dating to the eighth millennium BC ( Hecker, 1975 ; von den Driesch and Wodtke, 1997 ; Becker, 2002 ; Sapir-Hen et al, 2016 ).…”

“…These biometric patterns indicate that body size is a dynamic variable which has temporal and geographic dimensions not clearly linked to categories of wild versus domestic. In their careful study of the cattle from Tell Aswad, Helmer and Gourichon (2008 :136) warn that body size is not a good criterion for distinguishing wild and domestic cattle and that large size does not necessarily equate to a wild animal, thereby recognizing the problems of conflating phenotype with management (also Helmer et al, 2018 :85).…”

First evidence for cattle traction in Middle Neolithic Ireland: A pivotal element for resource exploitation

“…In Southwest Asia, the use of cattle for work, most likely for draught and transport, appears to begin during the Middle PPNB, c. 8200–7500 cal. BC, and castration seems attested during the same period in Syria (at Tell Aswad) and in Turkey (at Cafer Höyük) [ 10 , 11 ]. In the Western Mediterranean, the occasional exploitation of cattle for the pulling of heavy loads has been argued as early as the onset of the Neolithic at La Draga in Catalonia c. 5300–4900 cal.…”