ASIAPAST
2024 - current | PI Dr. Cheryl Makarewicz
Funded by the European Research Council, this multi-disciplinary project explores the emergence of mobile pastoralism in the ancient Eurasian steppe. In this region, a unique transformation in human lifeways was initiated five thousand years ago, when people began to rely on sheep, goat, cattle, and horses for both their daily subsistence and as symbols. This dramatically altered human diets, changed the ways people moved across landscapes, and generated altogether new forms of socio-political organization exceptional to the steppe that, ultimately, laid the foundations for pastoral nomadic states and empires. ASIAPAST investigates multi-trajectory pathways to pastoralism in Central Asia and Inner Asia, focusing on the connected regions of Kazakhstan, southern Russia, Mongolia, and Uzbekistan. It explores how regional differences in environment, subsistence strategies, and cultural traditions contributed to the initial spread of pastoralism, its subsequent intensification during the Bronze Age and its further consolidation as a means to political power during the Iron Age.
The project centers on four main research topics:
- Hunter-gatherer and pastoralist mobility patterns
- The origins and evolution of steppe husbandry systems
- Pastoralist diets in steppe environments
- Transformation of livestock from subsistence to symbol
Visit the project's homepage for more information.
The PaleoBIRD Project
2024 - current | Co-PI Dr. Linda Amos, Co-PI Dr. Cheryl Makarewicz
PaleoBIRD aims to use collagen extracted from bird remains found at Stone Age sites in the Levant to investigate how climate conditions outside the Levant affected bird populations during the dynamic climatic cycles of the Mid to Late Pleistocene. By applying both proteomic and isotopic analysis to the preserved collagen the project takes a two-pronged approach in order to a) better identify small songbird species that are excellent indicators of environmental change due to strict niche requirements and b) to investigate whether we can see changes in the range of migratory species that correlate with the fluctuating northern ice sheets.
Furthermore, the isotopic signatures of sedentary species will allow us to evaluate whether displaced northern species, theorised to have congregated in peri-Mediterranean refugia, led to increased dietary pressures which would have affected the species available to human hunters and foragers in the Levantine landscape. The results of these analyses will enhance our understanding of the landscape that ancient Levantine humans inhabited during a dynamic period on human development. Additionally, the study will provide insight into avian responses to climate change that may have relevance to conservation challenges in the present day.
Sites participating in PaleoBIRD: Tabun Cave, Sefunim Cave, Ohalo II, and el-Wad Terrace in Israel, and the PPNA levels of el-Hemmeh in Jordan.
Agricultural Regional Diversity and Social inequality
2022 - 2025 | Co-PI Dr. Paul Duffy, Co-PI Dr. Cheryl Makarewicz
Social inequality remained low-level and sporadic in prehistoric Europe until the Bronze Age (ca. 2700 to 750 BCE) when profound social inequality first emerged and persisted. The Agricultural Regional Diversity and Social inequality (ARDS) project examines how plough agriculture and shifts in place-centered pasturing regimes – two highly malleable food production strategies shaped by land and labor availability – promoted the rise of social inequality in Bronze Age communities in the Carpathian Basin through intensification of production, household capture of production-limiting land and labor resources, and wealth accumulation. ARDS employs an integrated approach that weaves together isotopic, paleobotanical, and zooarchaeological datasets. The methods identify agricultural extensification vs. intensification, livestock production, and traction that may have supported the development of social inequality in Carpathian communities where large tell settlements were well positioned to control trade in horses, metal, and prestige goods.
Top image: The site of Vésztő-Mágor, Hungary, from the air. (Credit: István Pánya)
Bottom image: Excavation and conservation work at the Hungarian tell site Vésztő-Mágor. Animal bone and charred cereals recovered from current and past campaigns are being studied in the ARDS project. (Credit: Paul Duffy).
The Terminal Pleistocene-Early Holocene transition in the Southern Levant: High-resolution multi-proxy approach to test regional climatic impact on early sedentism, resource intensification and the rise of agriculture
2024 - 2027 | Co-PI Ma'ayan Lev, Co-PI Makarewicz
Dr. Ma'ayan Lev explores the environmental and climatic factors that influenced the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to early sedentism and agriculture in the southern Levant during the Terminal Pleistocene-Early Holocene. This postdoctoral study aims to investigate the environmental and climatic factors shaping this transition and its impact on human societies in two distinct climate zones: the Mediterranean and the Irano-Turanian steppe.
By employing high-resolution multi-proxy approaches - including isotopic analysis of fossilized herpetofauna remains and leaf wax n-alkane - this study aims to test the influence of regional climate shifts on sedentism, resource intensification and subsistence practices. Specifically, the project aims to reconstruct the role of herpetofauna remains in early settled societies and examine potential regional differences in subsistence practices. Furthermore, it seeks to utilize herpetofauna taxonomy and diversity, along with isotopic analysis, to reconstruct paleoclimates, to explore the interplay between climatic variability and cultural development.
The project focuses on two well-stratified archaeological sites in the southern Levant: el-Wad Terrace on Mt. Carmel and el-Hemmeh in Wadi el-Hasa. By integrating advanced zooarchaeological and paleoenvironmental methods, this study aims to provide insights into the complex interactions between humans and their environment during this critical period of human history.