Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 116, Issue 26, Pages 12615-12623Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1904345116
Keywords
Neolithic farmers; Turkey; bioarchaeology; health; lifestyle
Categories
Funding
- John Templeton Foundation
- National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration [8037-06, 8646-09, 9675-15]
- French State under the Investments for the Future Program
- Initiative d'Excellence of the University of Bordeaux [ANR-10-IDEX-03-02]
- European Commission H2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Program [752626]
- Collaborative Projects of the France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies
- National Science Foundation [NSF BCS-1827338]
- American Research Institute in Turkey
- American Association of Physical Anthropologists Professional Development Grant
- Marie Curie Actions (MSCA) [752626] Funding Source: Marie Curie Actions (MSCA)
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The transition from a human diet based exclusively on wild plants and animals to one involving dependence on domesticated plants and animals beginning 10,000 to 11,000 y ago in Southwest Asia set into motion a series of profound health, lifestyle, social, and economic changes affecting human populations throughout most of the world. However, the social, cultural, behavioral, and other factors surrounding health and lifestyle associated with the foraging-to-farming transition are vague, owing to an incomplete or poorly understood contextual archaeological record of living conditions. Bioarchaeological investigation of the extraordinary record of human remains and their context from Neolithic Catalhoyuk (7100-5950 cal BCE), a massive archaeological site in south-central Anatolia (Turkey), provides important perspectives on population dynamics, health outcomes, behavioral adaptations, interpersonal conflict, and a record of community resilience over the life of this single early farming settlement having the attributes of a protocity. Study of Catalhoyuk human biology reveals increasing costs to members of the settlement, including elevated exposure to disease and labor demands in response to community dependence on and production of domesticated plant carbohydrates, growing population size and density fueled by elevated fertility, and increasing stresses due to heightened workload and greater mobility required for caprine herding and other resource acquisition activities over the nearly 12 centuries of settlement occupation. These changes in life conditions foreshadow developments that would take place worldwide over the millennia following the abandonment of Neolithic Catalhoyuk, including health challenges, adaptive patterns, physical activity, and emerging social behaviors involving interpersonal violence.
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