The Origin and Spread of Stock-Keeping in the Near East and Europe

In western Eurasia the earliest evidence for domestic livestock is dated to c.10,000 cal BP. Farming then spread westwards through Europe over the subsequent millennia, arriving in the far west and north of the continent by c.6,000 cal BP. For decades there have been major debates as to the nature of this spread, with many basic questions still remaining largely unanswered. The objective of this major research project, which was funded for four years by the AHRC from January 2007, was to address these questions. The largest and most systematic survey of published/archived archaeological zooarchaeological data ever undertaken has been carried out in order to re-examine the evidence for the origins of stock-keeping in the Near East and its spread into Europe during the Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic periods, c.12,000 to 6,000 cal BP.