LAUSR

Significance Sheep and goats (caprines) were domesticated in Southwest Asia, but how and in how many places remain open questions. Our analysis of caprine age and sex structures and related data reveal a local (endemic) domestication process at Aşıklı Höyük in Central Anatolia. Beginning ca. 10,400 y ago, caprine management segued through a series of viable systems over the next 1,000 y. The earliest stage simply involved capturing wild lambs and kids and growing them on site to supplement a broad-spectrum forager diet. Soon, low-level breeding began within the settlement along with catching and raising wild infants. By the end of the archaeological sequence, large numbers of animals were produced from captive herds, which gave rise to early domesticated forms. Sheep and goats (caprines) were domesticated in Southwest Asia in the early Holocene, but how and in how many places remain open questions. This study investigates the initial conditions and trajectory of caprine domestication at Aşıklı Höyük, which preserves an unusually high-resolution record of the first 1,000 y of Neolithic existence in Central Anatolia. Our comparative analysis of caprine age and sex structures and related evidence reveals a local domestication process that began around 8400 cal BC. Caprine management at Aşıklı segued through three viable systems. The earliest mode was embedded within a broad-spectrum foraging economy and directed to live meat storage on a small scale. This was essentially a “catch-and-grow” strategy that involved seasonal capture of wild lambs and kids from the surrounding highlands and raising them several months prior to slaughter within the settlement. The second mode paired modest levels of caprine reproduction on site with continued recruitment of wild infants. The third mode shows the hallmarks of a large-scale herding economy based on a large, reproductively viable captive population but oddly directed to harvesting adult animals, contra to most later Neolithic practices. Wild infant capture likely continued at a low level. The transitions were gradual but, with time, gave rise to early domesticated forms and monumental differences in human labor organization, settlement layout, and waste accumulation. Aşıklı was an independent center of caprine domestication and thus supports the multiple origins evolutionary model.