ABSTRACT
From the start of the Epipalaeolithic period, at least in some areas, hunter-gatherer communities were beginning to live for most or all of the year in a location from which they could hunt and trap a ‘broad spectrum’ of animals large and small, plus birds and reptiles, while also harvesting and storing wild cereals and grasses. By the beginning of the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic, some communities were managing small numbers of sheep or goat in their settlements. Morphological identification of domesticated species of sheep and goat can be documented by the beginning of the later Pre-Pottery Neolithic. By the latter centuries of that period, many communities relied on their flocks of sheep and goat, and, for some communities, also on domesticated cattle. The picture is a mosaic: there was no centre where sheep and goat were first domesticated, and from which domesticated animals were widely spread. The process was different in different areas, but, by the end of the Neolithic, communities everywhere in southwest Asia were reliant on their flocks and herds not only for meat but also for ‘secondary products’ such as milk, cheese, yoghurt, woollen textiles, and traction.
