Data copyright © Prof James Conolly, Dr Sue Colledge, Dr Katie Manning, Prof Keith Dobney, Dr Barbara Stopp, Prof Stephen J. Shennan unless otherwise stated
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Prof
James
Conolly
Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Archaeology
Trent University
1600 West Bank Drive
Peterborough
Ontario
K9J 7B8
Canada
Tel: 0171 3877050
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.
The aims of the project were to establish the most significant characteristics of early Neolithic animal exploitation economies through time and over broad and geographic regions, and specifically to
The basis for the study is a comprehensive database of selected animal bone data from relevant sites. The database includes c.650 site records (comprising over 950 different phases) and c.13,500 faunal records of approximately 600 different taxa. All the zooarchaeological data are spatially and chronologically referenced.