111 INTRODUCTION Reconstructing animal husbandry from food remains from ancient settle- ments is a formidable task. In contrast to the allegoric “herding language” that has developed in archaeozoology, we are not dealing with remains of bona fide herds, but rather the negative imprint of live- stock, individuals of herds that were once consumed and thus went missing from the herd itself. In other words there is a demographic paradox. We study thana- tocoenoses, death assemblages, in an effort to say something about “production strategies”, whether the domestic ani- mals were killed and utilized for prima- ry resources (meat, fat, bone), or whether they were first exploited for secondary products (sensu Sherratt 1983; milk, wool, traction). The underlying logic is that these forms of animal use are asso- ciated with different patterns of longevi- ty (Payne 1973; Hesse 1982). Animals need to be kept alive long enough to re- produce and then be used, season after season, for sustainable secondary ex- ploitation, e.g. milking during relatively short periods of lactation. Wool is also worth harvesting repeatedly over several seasons. In the case of working animals (not part of this study) fully grown indi- viduals have the best draught capacity and the investment made in training them would be wasted if they had only a short working life. MATERIAL AND METHOD In this paper, patterns of domestic an- imal exploitation at the site of Arslantepe XXXIV, 2012: 111-123 ORIGINI ABSTRACT – Following the Chalcolithic period, major changes took place at beginning of the Early Bronze Age the site of Arslantepe, Anatolia. Sheep and goat became dominant among the animals ex- ploited for meat. While the bones of these species are frequently difficult to distinguish from each oth- er, the ages at which the animals were killed reveal important details concerning their possible uses. Sheep seems to have been represented in the meat diet by greater numbers of bones than goat and lambs/kids were often killed when they were young. This pattern of mortality may indicate that mut- ton was not only important in comparison with meat from other domesticates but also played a promi- nent role in sheep and goat exploitation. Mortality profiles show a relatively low contribution of both dental remains and postcranial skeletal fragments from older individuals. The find material is thus not indicative of the longevity usually resulting from exploitation of secondary products (milk, wool) usually associated with these species in later periods. Beginning with the Late Chalcolithic 5, bones of sheep dominate in the material and there is a consistent absence of 6-12 months old individuals un- til the Early Bronze Age III. This may be explained by the absence of winter culling. KEYWORDS – Late Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, sheep and goat, Eastern Anatolia MEAT CONSUMPTION AND SHEEP/GOAT EXPLOITATION IN CENTRALISED AND NON-CENTRALISED ECONOMIES AT ARSLANTEPE, ANATOLIA Giovanni Siracusano*, Laszlo Bartosiewicz**