Joint health in free-ranging and confined small bovids - Implications for early stage caprine management Michaela I. Zimmermann a, * , Nadja P € ollath a , Mihriban € Ozbas ¸ aran b , Joris Peters a, c a Department of Veterinary Sciences, Institute of Palaeoanatomy, Domestication Research and the History of Veterinary Medicine, Ludwig Maximilians University, D-80539, Munich, Germany b Department of Prehistory, Istanbul University, Laleli, 34134, Istanbul, Turkey c SNSB, State Collection of Anthropology and Palaeoanatomy, D-80333, Munich, Germany article info Article history: Received 11 September 2017 Received in revised form 5 February 2018 Accepted 8 February 2018 Available online 17 February 2018 This paper is dedicated to the memory of Klaus Schmidt who set me on the track of Archaeozoology. Keywords: Caprine management Domestication Early Neolithic Near East Palaeopathology Intra-articular lesions Pathologic profiling abstract Human interference with the life cycle of wild ruminant species in the 10 th -9th millennia BCE was essential to the ‘Neolithic Revolution’ in the Near East. Being a process of learning by doing, initial ruminant management must have been challenging to both founder flocks and people, but information about potential problems is hitherto lacking in the archaeological record. Here we report on a skeletal condition affecting joint health in small bovids. Detailed examination of the bone surfaces of astragalus of modern and Goitered gazelles as well as wild and domestic sheep revealed circumscribed mesoscopic lesions that we classified into five stages based on their size and properties. Our study demonstrates that intra-articular bone damage is significantly more pronounced in animals living confined to enclosures. Similar non-physiologic conditions have been evidenced in juvenile and adult sheep from early Neolithic contexts throughout Anatolia and interpreted as evidence for locomotor stress due to restricted mobility and stabling on-site. Still in the course of the early Neolithic, joint health improved significantly, implying a better mastering of sheep management over the centuries. In conclusion, pathologic profiling yields the potential for tracing initial management of captive ruminants. Apart from Southwest Asia, the meth- odological approach presented here seems appropriate for detecting similar developments in the human-animal relationship of behaviorally comparable medium- and large-sized herbivore taxa in other parts of the Old and New Worlds. © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). 1. Introduction The transition from a foraging lifestyle to plant cultivation and animal husbandry represents a milestone in the history of hu- mankind. With respect to initial domestication efforts in cattle, sheep, goat and pig, spatio-temporal analysis of archaeofaunal as- semblages across mainland SW Asia assigns a pioneer role to the 9th millennium BCE communities inhabiting the northern Fertile Crescent (Conolly et al., 2011; Ervynck et al., 2001; Helmer et al., 2005; Peters et al., 1999, 2005, 2014), yet early management of caprines has also been demonstrated beyond this region, e.g. in Central Anatolia since ~8200 BCE (Stiner et al., 2014) and the Zagros since ~8000 BCE (Zeder and Hesse, 2000). However, the osteological markers most relevant to the recog- nition of early ungulate management and domestication remain a matter of debate (Dobney et al., 2013; Peters et al., 2014; Zeder, 2008). Traditionally, the presence of individuals, which are on average smaller in size than their wild ancestor was considered a good indicator for their domestic status (B€ ok€ onyi, 1989; Meadow, 1989; Peters et al., 1999, 2005, 2014; Uerpmann, 1978, 1979), but due to restocking from the wild and/or backcrossing with the wild ancestor, size decline could well be a delayed phenomenon rather than a marker of initial management and early domestication (Ervynck et al., 2001; Marshall et al., 2014; Rossel et al., 2008; Vigne et al., 2005; Zeder, 2008; Zeder and Hesse, 2000). Sex-related demographic profiling of post-cranial elements is considered another leading edge marker to trace early manage- ment. It is based on the assumption that early animal keepers selectively culled young males at the advantage of females (Ducos, 1978; Hesse, 1978, 1984; Payne, 1973; Zeder, 2008; Zeder and Hesse, 2000), thus, leading to a relatively higher number of * Corresponding author. E-mail address: michaela.zimmermann@palaeo.vetmed.uni-muenchen.de (M.I. Zimmermann). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jas https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2018.02.004 0305-4403/© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Journal of Archaeological Science 92 (2018) 13e27