Investigation of dietary change of Neolithic humans produced by the animal domestication of and the milk use in the west Asia.

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16H06684
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Cultural assets study and museology
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Itahashi Yu 東京大学, 総合研究博物館, 特任研究員 (80782672)
• Research Collaborator: KONDO Osamu ; NISHIUCHI Takumi ; HONGO Hitomi ; MIYAKE Yutaka ; YONEDA Minoru
• Project Period (FY): 2016-08-26 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 西アジア / 新石器時代 / 家畜化 / ヒトの食性 / 同位体分析 / δ15N / アミノ酸 / 乳利用

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this research, I investigated the dietary change of Neolithic humans produced by the domestication of animal and the milk use in the west Asia. In order to solve the question, I measured stable isotopic analyses of bone collagen and amino acids for humans in addition to identify biomarker of ruminant milk.
By the results, trophic positions of Neolithic humans show no significant change between before and after the domestication of animals, except a hunter-fisher community. Further, estimated breast-feeding periods stay constant during the Neolithic period, whereas a breast-feeding period of a Chalcolithic community seems shorter than that of the Neolithic period.
Contrary to initial hypothesis, these results disagree that the change of contribution of animal protein to human happened in association with the animal domestication in the Neolithic period.

Free Research Field

同位体生態学