Animal Domestication in the Zagros : A Review of Past and Current Research.

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Abstract
For more than fifty years the Zagros region of modern day Iran and Iraq has been recognized as one of the primary independent centers of animal domestication, particularly the domestication of sheep and goats. Beginning with the work of Robert Braidwood and affiliated researchers, a number of excavation projects sought evidence of the transition from hunting to herding in this region. Pioneering archaeozoological studies of the animal remains generated by these early expeditions succeeded in tracing the general outlines of caprine domestication in the Zagros. However, given the diversity of approaches and perspectives of the various researchers engaged in these studies, there is still little consensus on the precise timing, location, and causes of the domestication of sheep and goat in this region. Moreover, efforts to date these assemblages during the early days of radiocarbon dating often failed to provide a clear idea of the temporal placement of key Early Holocene sites in the region. This article summarizes these previous efforts to trace the course of animal domestication in the Zagros. It also presents initial results of a new study that seeks to reanalyze and redate all assemblages with bearing on the origin of caprine domestication in the Zagros. Using a new method for marking the initial stages of the domestication process, this research demonstrates that the domestication of the goat took place in the highland natural habitat region of goats at about 9 000 uncal BP, and then spread to more marginal areas outside this zone. Domestic sheep, however, seem to have been introduced into the region later, probably from their site of original domestication to the north and west the eastern fertile crescent.

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