Ancient Pee Reveals Switch From Hunting to Herding

https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/ancient-pee-reveals-switch-from-hunting-to-hearding-318415?utm_campaign=NEWSLETTER_TN_Breaking%20Science%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=71887646&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--b9MmlkT3XwJTQmxS6aZsttCVfX6sOVgEQ42Lf_PJFbW540P6rOS2DoeO4dBp8pt-kswuGDf96OMDSCWVIBztZqjLtyA&_hsmi=71887646 The transition from hunting and gathering to farming and herding is considered a crucial turning point in the history of humanity. Scholars think the intensive food production that came along with the Neolithic Revolution, starting around 10,000 B.C., allowed cities to grow, led to technological innovation and, eventually, enabled life as we know it today. It has been difficult to work out the details of how and when this took place. But a new study published in Science Advances begins to resolve the scale and pace of change during the first phases of animal domestication at an ancient site in Turkey. To reconstruct this history, the authors turned to an unusual source: urine salts left behind by humans and animals. Whereas dung is commonly used in all sorts of studies, “this is the first time, to our knowledge, that people have picked up on salts in archaeological materials, and used them in a way to look at the development of animal management,” says lead author Jordan Abell, a graduate student at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The team used the urine salts to calculate the density of humans and animals at the site over time, estimating that around 10,000 years ago, the density of people and animals occupying the settlement jumped from near zero to approximately one person or animal for every 10 square meters. The results suggest that domestication may have been more rapid than previously expected. They also support the idea that the Neolithic Revolution didn’t have just one birthplace in the Fertile Crescent of the Mideast, but rather occurred across several locations simultaneously.