<p align="justify"><a href="images/stories/archeologie/peneo/tableau-discussions.jpg"><span style="color: #800000;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Apparition of herding</strong></span></span></a><strong><a href="images/stories/archeologie/peneo/tableau-discussions.jpg"><span style="color: #800000;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"> in the Near Eastern Neolithic: a chart (2008).</span></span></a><br /></strong></p>
<p align="justify">The analyses undertook for my doctoral thesis, allowed to set up a provisional chart of the invention and the intensification of animal domestication during the Neolithic period of the Near East. In this chart, the type of human/animal relationship is determined for every subphase of the Neolithic period and for every (sub)region of South-West Asia concerned with<em> </em>prime neolithisation. This determination follows a set of consideration, described in  details in the thesis, divided between direct (genetic) and indirect hints (sex/age ratio, changes in species geographical distribution etc.).</p>
<p align="justify">The chart is  not meant to stay still, its advantage lying in the possibility to integrate changes, as (re) analyses are currently being undertaken. This page is primarily  conceived as a place for interaction and discussion, and everyone is welcome to modify these interpretations. Each author's intervention shall, of course, be duly mentioned. Suggestions can be sent to cedric.bodet@mailcity.com</p>
<p align="justify">This space is not only concerned with the herding process of production but is dedicated to the Neolithic socio-economy at large. Providing a chart for the emergence of  plant domestication, with a similar manipulation of the archaeobotanical data, is a definite aim in the near future.</p>
<p align="justify"> </p>
<strong>Legend for the chart</strong> :
<p align="justify"><strong><em>Chasse opportuniste,</em></strong><strong> or Opportunistic hunting</strong> :  starting line of the  evolution process, defined by the lack of human implication in the reproduction of wild animals.</p>
<p align="justify"><strong><em>Phase Préliminaire</em></strong>, <strong>or Preliminary  phase</strong>: herds are still living in the wild but a special care or manipulation is  evident on the faunal structure  as seen on changes in species or age/sex ratio. Selective hunting is an exemmple, nursing instinct (when newly born animals are taken care of by humans) is another.</p>
<p align="justify"><strong><em>Proto-domestication</em></strong>: a faunal assemblage for which the practice of herding (reproduction in  captivity) has been recognized from indirect evidence (demographic trends, species proportions, parts of the animal retrieved, archaeological evidence of  enclosures etc.), but has not yet entailed visible repercussions on the animal’s  genome (visible on the morphology).</p>
<p align="justify">‘<strong><em>Domestication achevée</em></strong>’ <strong>or ‘complete domestication</strong>’: a faunal assemblage  displays full morphological/genetic change. ‘<em>Domestication quasie-achevée</em>’, or ‘almost complete’, applies when physical  modification can be attributed to domestication, though not quite to their full extent.</p>