Page 27 - TINA Dergi Sayi 7

TINA TINA

Denizcilik Arkeolojisi Dergisi Maritime Archaeology Periodical

OVerSeAS trAnSPOrt OF AnImALS AnD PLAntS In lithic Period should have been transported there via
tHe eAStern meDIterrAneAn: tHe CASe OF CYPruS seafaring vessels. Data suggests that the first farm-
er-herders who arrived on the island had the intention
Sedentary life based on food production has devel- to recreate the natural habitat of the Levant in Cy-
oped independently at different parts of the south- prus. They did not only transport domesticated fauna
western Asia since the terminal Pleistocene Period, and flora, but also wild animals such as fallow deer,
40
but soon it became a common lifestyle adopted by and fox . In addition to domesticated cats and dogs,
many societies. One of the most notable among these mice also came to Cyprus from the outside, possibly
developments is the domestication of plants and ani- secretly infiltrated into the cargo. Of all these ani-
mals. Following the completion of the domestication mals, it is suggested that only the pig was brought to
process in ca. 8500-7000 BC, these new species were the island before the Holocene Period, and was do-
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transported to Anatolia and the Mediterranean both mesticated locally .
overland and by sea . The island of Cyprus is among Apparently, this situation led to new disadvantages
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the places where this transport was done by seafar- in terms of seafaring. The main challenges that need-
ing. Previously, we have mentioned foragers were ed to be overcome during a voyage to Cyprus by the
visiting Cyprus from the Late Epipaleolithic Period. Neolithic seafarers may have been the need to supply
Therefore, access to Cyprus was not the first-time animals with water, the necessity of the cattle to stay
for societies living on the Levant -Anatolian shores. standing during the entire travel, the need for a water-
However, starting with the Neolithic Period, they craft to have adequate capacity for transporting bulky
were not only making temporary or seasonal visits and heavy cargo, and lack of stopovers. However, de-
to the island, but establishing year-round settlements spite all these challenges, pigs were imported to the
around 9000-8500 BC . Among those, zooarchae- island ca. 9000 BC (perhaps even earlier), and sheep,
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ological and botanical data from the Early Aceram- goats, and cattle reached the island ca. 8500-8000
42
ic Neolithic Period camp sites/settlements, such as BC . As a matter of fact, it has been argued that these
Asprokremnos, Mylouthkia and Klimonas, yielded species imported to the island had not completed their
significant information on the nutrition and cultural domestication process yet, therefore morphologically
practices of the groups who migrated to these islands they were transferred there as wild species. Besides
for settlement . the grazing animals, undomesticated Persian fallow
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Another characteristic of Cyprus is that the endem- deer (Dama mesopotamica) and red fox (Vulpes vul-
ic fauna became extinct following the Pleistocene. pes) were imported and released onto the island. We
Particularly, two of the most important mammal spe- know that particularly fallow deer have been the most
cies of the island (the pygmy hippopotamus, Phanou- dependable resource for hunting by the Cypriots for
43
rios minutus, and the pygmy elephant, Elephas cypri- thousands of years . Among all these animals cattle
otis) known from sites such as Aetokremnos, became was the hardest one to adapt to the environment of
completely extinct (Fig. 7) . Besides, Cyprus is not the island since they necessitated large meadows, and
39
the homeland of any cereals or pulses or any animal they were not easily maintained by humans, therefore
domesticated in southwestern Asia. Therefore, all were completely excluded from alimentation in Late
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mammalian species, and all the domesticated cereals Neolithic Period . Cattle was not imported again to
and pulses found on the island from the Early Neo- the island until the Early Bronze Age, i.e. 2500 BC.

36 ZEDER 2008.
37 KNAPP 2013, 74.
38 KNAPP 2013, 66-69.
39 STEEL 2004, 23.
40 STEEL 2004.
41 VIGNE et al. 2012.
42 KNAPP 2013, 74.
43 STEEL 2004, 5.
44 STEEL 2004, 125.
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