Ancient sheep dung has revealed that humans reared animals for food thousands of years ago.
Ancient dung reveals humans reared animals for food thousands of years ago
Archaeologists analysed a 13,000-year-old stool sample taken from a sheep in the stone age in Abu Hureyra, Syria, which showed that our ancestors hunted and gathered food long before first thought.
The remnants of the faecal matter that dates back to 12,800 were found in soil during excavations being carried out at a prehistoric archaeological site in present-day Syria at the Euphrates Valley. The findings suggest that people tended to sheep and other livestock 2,000 years earlier than first thought.
Professor Alexia Smith, of the University of Connecticut said: “'It is really exciting to see that remnants of animal dung can help us track the differing ways that people interacted with animals early on.
“This is almost 2,000 years earlier than what we have seen elsewhere, although it is in line with what we might expect for the Euphrates Valley.
“As hunter-gatherers began to experiment, bringing live animals to the site — even if it was for a short period of time — they would have had no idea of the massive societal changes they were setting in motion."