LAUSR

Abstract Pastoralism played a foundational role in the subsistence economies of the Kura-Araxes cultural tradition of the fourth and third millennia BCE. Until recently, because of a lack of zooarchaeological data, interpretations of Kura-Araxes subsistence economies were largely based on indirect proxies, including settlement patterns, site size, and the geographic distribution of material culture. These indicators, while important, are insufficient for investigating the most fundamental aspects of animal economies: what animals were herded, what animal products were exploited, and how people prepared and accessed those products. Herd management and food provisioning strategies are best addressed using meticulous zooarchaeological studies. In this paper, we use animal remains to examine animal husbandry and food provisioning strategies at the Kura-Araxes settlement of Kohne Shahar (ca. 3200–2500 BCE). The animal economy at Kohne Shahar focused on maintaining herd security and a generalized exploitation of sheep, goat, and cattle products that were primarily accessed by residents of Kohne Shahar through direct provisioning. Comparison with other contemporaneous sites demonstrates that Kura-Araxes animal economies focused on flexible and extensive household-based herd management strategies that enabled a wide range of subsistence adaptations with little evidence for specialized pastoral production.