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Little is known regarding the location and mode of the early domestication of animals such as goats for husbandry. To investigate the history of the goat, Daly et al. sequenced mitochondrial and nuclear sequences from ancient specimens ranging from hundreds to thousands of years in age. Multiple wild populations contributed to the origin of modern goats during the Neolithic. Over time, one mitochondrial type spread and became dominant worldwide. However, at the whole-genome level, modern goat populations are a mix of goats from different sources and provide evidence for a multilocus process of domestication in the Near East. Furthermore, the patterns described support the idea of multiple dispersal routes out of the Fertile Crescent region by domesticated animals and their human counterparts. Science , this issue p. 85 Ancient goat genomes elucidate a dispersed domestication process across the Near East. Current genetic data are equivocal as to whether goat domestication occurred multiple times or was a singular process. We generated genomic data from 83 ancient goats (51 with genome-wide coverage) from Paleolithic to Medieval contexts throughout the Near East. Our findings demonstrate that multiple divergent ancient wild goat sources were domesticated in a dispersed process that resulted in genetically and geographically distinct Neolithic goat populations, echoing contemporaneous human divergence across the region. These early goat populations contributed differently to modern goats in Asia, Africa, and Europe. We also detect early selection for pigmentation, stature, reproduction, milking, and response to dietary change, providing 8000-year-old evidence for human agency in molding genome variation within a partner species.

Genome-wide analysis of 67 ancient Near Eastern cattle, Bos taurus, remains reveals regional variation that has since been obscured by admixture in modern populations. Comparisons of genomes of early domestic cattle to their aurochs progenitors identify diverse origins with separate introgressions of wild stock. A later region-wide Bronze Age shift indicates rapid and widespread introgression of zebu, Bos indicus, from the Indus Valley. This process was likely stimulated at the onset of the current geological age, ~4.2 thousand years ago, by a widespread multicentury drought. In contrast to genome-wide admixture, mitochondrial DNA stasis supports that this introgression was male-driven, suggesting that selection of arid-adapted zebu bulls enhanced herd survival. This human-mediated migration of zebu-derived genetics has continued through millennia, altering tropical herding on each continent.

Faunal remains comprise a significant portion of finds recovered from most archaeological sites in Israel. Among other issues relating to factors such as animal evolution and ecology, their examination can elucidate past human diet, symbolic and cultural behavior, technology relating to animals and animal products, as well as the site's environment and even paleoclimate of a region (e.g., Reitz and Wing 2008; Russell 2011). These issues were considered when we examined the faunal assemblage recovered from the late Iron Age I (tenth century B.C.E.) through Iron Age IIA-B (post-830 B.C.E.) deposits excavated in Area D at Tell eṣ-Ṣâfi/Gath.

In 2006, we published in Near Eastern Archaeology a bone tool workshop dating to the Iron IIA destruction level at Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath. We managed to reconstruct the chaîne opératoire of the production of this workshop and although we did not find a finished object, we suggested that bone arrowheads were manufactured here and that they may have been produced in connection with the Aramean siege and destruction of Tell eṣ-Safi/Gath in ca. 830 BCE. In the present article, we describe and discuss a bone arrowhead from the same destruction, but from Area M in the lower city of the site. We suggest that it may very well have been produced in this previously reported workshop (or in a very similar one).