Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Anthropological Archaeology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa Depositional histories of faunal remains from the Neolithic cultic site of Kfar HaHoresh, Israel Jacqueline S. Meier a, ⁎ , A. Nigel Goring-Morris b , Natalie D. Munro a a Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs 06269, CT, USA b Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 91905, Israel 1. Introduction Many significant social changes in the prehistory of Southwest Asia can be traced back to the increasingly sedentary human communities that arose as foragers became farmers. In the southern Levant region, greater site permanence is first evidenced by more invested site features and increasingly structured use of space in the Epipaleolithic (21,500–11,600 cal BP) (Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen, 1989; Belfer- Cohen and Bar-Yosef, 2002; Goring-Morris and Belfer-Cohen, 2003; Maher et al., 2016). By the start of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) period (10,500 cal BP), larger sites with new forms of compartmenta- lized architecture reflect changes in settlement organization and more differentiated functional space within sites and homes (Byrd, 1994; Goring-Morris and Belfer-Cohen, 2008; Kuijt et al., 2011). As the re- liance on agricultural life-ways and sedentism increased, the diversity of human activities practiced at occupation sites, including ritual practice, also expanded (Goring-Morris and Belfer-Cohen, 2002; Kuijt, 1996). Changes in the structure of archaeological sites had observable impacts on how humans used space, the range of activities that they undertook and how they disposed of their trash. These changes are captured in patterns of deposition of material remains at archaeological sites. Understanding how larger questions of site function are related to patterns of ritual and mundane deposition can thus be conveniently explored by reconstructing the sequences of events that formed and impacted deposits in different contexts (Kunen et al., 2002; LaMotta and Schiffer, 1999). Such studies have begun for Epipaleolithic (Grosman and Munro, 2016; Maher et al., 2011; Yeshurun et al., 2014a) and PPN sites (Bogaard et al., 2009; Horwitz, 2003; Portillo et al., 2009). Yet, further exploration of depositional practices is needed to investigate the relationship between intensified site occupation, the organization of space, diversified site use, and their links to the agri- cultural transition. In recent multivariate studies of contextual variation in faunal as- semblages, researchers have developed new methods to explore the nuances of depositional histories at earlier Natufian sites. These studies combine detailed histories of contexts and assemblages to highlight site use (Yeshurun et al., 2014b), and both domestic (Yeshurun et al., 2016), and ritual (Grosman and Munro, 2016) human behaviors. Faunal remains are especially useful for exploring the history of ar- chaeological deposits as bone records evidence of multiple anthro- pogenic and natural processes that may be used to discern rates of deposition and burial (Bar-Oz and Munro, 2004; Munro and Bar-Oz, 2005). The ceremonial site of Kfar HaHoresh (KHH) in the Lower Galilee of Israel (Fig. 1) provides a remarkable opportunity to study both sacred and mundane aspects of depositional histories of faunal remains from the PPNB period. The site is interpreted as a communal cult center based on abundant human burials (85+), striking ritual practices such as feasting on wild cattle, and a lack of habitation structures (Goring- Morris et al., 1998; Goring-Morris, 2000; Goring-Morris and Horwitz, 2007). A strong relationship between animal use and ritual practice has been detected (Horwitz and Goring-Morris, 2004; Meier et al., 2016) and thus it is an exceptional location to study faunal deposition across diverse sacred and secular contexts. KHH also offers the rare opportu- nity to investigate change in site use across the PPNB owing to its multiple phases of occupation (EPPNB–LPPNB) (Birkenfeld and Goring- Morris, 2015). Here, we combine classic zooarchaeological methods and taphonomic analyses to explore differential faunal deposition among numerous contexts and to obtain insight into ritual and mun- dane behaviors at a ceremonial site. This study of the 2010–2012 faunal assemblage from KHH explores intra-site patterns of deposition. The presence of middens at KHH (Barzilai and Goring-Morris, 2010; Goring-Morris, 1991) and evidence of cleaned surfaces at Beidha and ‘Ain Ghazal have been associated with a regional shift towards more organized depositional practices and site use that became necessary as settlement size expanded (Hardy-Smith and Edwards, 2004). Nevertheless, the ritual function of these deposi- tional contexts must also be considered to better understand changing site use patterns in the PPNB. As a non-habitation site, KHH enables the examination of patterns of deposition that were not governed by the confines of living area space constraints and the domestic activities found at other sites. In this study, we use faunal indicators of the number of depositional http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2017.08.002 Received 28 February 2017; Received in revised form 21 August 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: jacqueline.meier@uconn.edu (J.S. Meier). Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 48 (2017) 233–249 0278-4165/ © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. MARK