Nadja Pöllath

• Dr. phil.
• Curator at Staatssammlung für Paläoanatomie München

The origins and prehistory of domestic sheep (Ovis aries) are incompletely understood; to address this, we generated data from 118 ancient genomes spanning 12,000 years sampled from across Eurasia. Genomes from Central Türkiye ~8000 BCE are genetically proximal to the domestic origins of sheep but do not fully explain the ancestry of later populati...

This contribution investigates the animal exploitation at the late Roman fort castra Madensia/Gheriat el-Garbia in NW Libya. The main sources of meat were caprines, hunted wild bovids and camels. The consumption of pork and marine fish shows that Roman dietary habits were still maintained. While a large portion of game in the diet is also attested...

Based on the species-rich avifaunas from Early Neolithic sites across Upper Mesopotamia (southeast Türkiye, northern Syria, northern Iraq), we compared seven species' Early Holocene distribution patterns with that of their modern species ranges. The avifaunal remains from four sites were analysed by the authors and bird identifications from 10 addi...

Fish was an important natural resource in Lower Mesopotamia. The ancient inhabitants could easily rely on the nutrients and fats derived from fishes abundant in the diverse aquatic biomes of its rivers, lakes, marshes and the gulf. Specifically, fats held significant value in ancient societies, and, besides its nutritional benefit, fish can also pr...

Occupied between ~10,300 and 9300 years ago, the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Aşıklı Höyük in Central Anatolia went through early phases of sheep domestication. Analysis of 629 mitochondrial genomes from this and numerous sites in Anatolia, southwest Asia, Europe, and Africa produced a phylogenetic tree with excessive coalescences (nodes) around t...

Early Neolithic avifaunas excavated at the sites of Göbekli Tepe and Gusir Höyük illustrate two entirely different modes of bird exploitation in south-eastern Anatolia during the 10th and 9th millennia BCE, which prompted us the re-evaluation of other substantial bird bone assemblages from contemporaneous sites in the upper basins of the Euphrates...

There is a growing demand for monitoring pests in natural history collections (NHCs) and establishing integrated pest management (IPM) solutions (Crossman and Ryde 2022). In this context, up-to-date taxonomic reference lists and controlled vocabularies following standard schemes are crucial and facilitate recording organisms detected in collections...

On the whole, foxes are rarely represented in the symbolic and ritualistic Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) world of the Upper Mesopotamian basin and are even scarcer in both art and textual sources in later periods. The exception to this generalisation are the numerous depictions of fox at the PPN site of Göbekli Tepe, where they are among the most com...

Tolksdorf, Johann Friedrich/Woidich, Manfred/Herbig, Christoph/Grigat, Andrea/Pöllath, Nadja/Presslee, Samantha 2023, Eine frühlatènezeitliche Bestattung in einer Kegelstumpfgrube in Nördlingen. Archäozoologische und archäobotanische Untersuchungen. Bericht der Bayerischen Bodendenkmalpflege 63, 2023, 43-55.

Growing reliance on animal and plant domestication in the Near East and beyond during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) (the ninth to eighth millennium BC) has often been associated with a "revolutionary" social transformation from mobility toward more sedentary lifestyles. We are able to yield nuanced insights into the process of the Neolithizati...

The faunal remains from Holocene sites in the Western Desert of Egypt form the basis of this contribution. Following considerations concerning taphonomy, the wild species' composition of the assemblages is discussed in a diachronic overview. Major changes in the preferences of game species could not be observed. Subsistence strategies, however, sho...

Traditional methods for estimating age-at-death of caprines are based on dental and epiphyseal fusion data and known to produce rather wide age intervals. In order to better interpret prenatal to early infantile mortality of sheep in prehistoric assemblages more precise age predictions are needed. We address this issue using a Generalized Additive...

A preliminary report on the animal bones from the New Kingdom town on Sai Island (excavated between 2015–2017). Part of the book AcrossBorders 2. Online access to the book: https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at/acrossborders-2

This study presents a meta-analysis of radiocarbon ages for the environs of Göbekli Tepe-one of the oldest monumental structures worldwide-using cumulative probability functions to diachronically assess phases of geomorphodynamic activity as controlled by natural or anthropogenic drivers. We employ sediment cascades as a heuristic framework to stud...

Southeast Anatolia is home to some of the earliest and most spectacular Neolithic sites associated with the beginning of cultivation and herding in the Old World. In this article we present new archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data from Gusir Höyük, an aceramic Neolithic habitation dating to the 12th-late 11th millennia cal BP. Our results sh...

The faunal remains unearthed at the Roman amphitheatre represent yet another exceptional assemblage from the Quintana/Künzing (Lower Bavaria) site and are presented in this report. The quantitative composition of the fauna as well as the numerous complete and partial canine and equine skeletons prove that the assemblage does not just consist of nor...

The cognitive principles of the social brain have remained unaltered since their appearance in anatomically modern humans in Africa some 200,000 years ago. However, by the Early Holocene these capacities were being challenged by the outcomes of newly emerging lifeways, commonly referred to as ‘Neolithic’. Growing levels of sedentism and new and exp...

In this contribution, Geometric Morphometrics and Log Shape Ratio are applied to the astragali of domestic Karakul sheep (Ovis aries) and wild sheep (Ovis orientalis) to test the suitability of these methods for distinguishing these two sheep populations. Both methods successfully separated the wild sheep excavated at Göbekli Tepe and Gusir Höyük (...

From the very beginning sheep keepers (un-)consciously selected animals with traits amenable to life and reproduction in an anthropogenic environment. Over the millennia sheep lineages developed which were adapted to the diverse landscapes and climates currently inhabited by the species. With time, human selection also fostered desired traits, such...

The animal bones originating from the post-Roman occupation of Dülük Baba Tepesi can be subdivided into two units: Finds from the filling of the kitchen of the Byzantine monastery and Late Antique-Byzantine finds from others trenches. Remains of sheep, goat and cattle dominate the assemblages summing up to 90% within both units. Differences become...

Short note on an aurochs bone with an embedded flint projectile Point from Göbekli Tepe, in Turkish.

This paper is dedicated to the memory of Klaus Schmidt who set me on the track of Archaeozoology. a b s t r a c t 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 bee...

An aurochs right humerus with a fragment of an embedded projectile point was discovered during excavations at early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe in south-eastern Turkey. Evidence for hunting trauma in bones is extremely rare in the prehistoric record from the Near East and Africa, while the dataset from Europe is much larger. In this contribution a hunti...

A carpometacarpus recovered during archaeological excavations in the town of Quaregnon is the westernmost find ever reported in Europe of a Ural Owl (Strix uralensis), and the first occurrence for Belgium. Both the morphology of the skeletal element and its measurements rule out an identification as any of the other Strigiformes from the Western Pa...

Seventeen thousand six hundred and forty-five faunal remains from recent excavations at the pre-Napatan and Napatan fortress Gala Abu Ahmed, about 110 km west of the Nile in the lower Wadi Howar, have been identified. The results are described in detail as they represent the first large dataset for the period and region and can therefore serve as a...

Popular scientific paper (in Turkish) on recent research at the PPN site of Göbekli Tepe, Turkey, and the role of cult, feasting, and communal projects in the emergence of larger communities and the so-called Neolithic way of subsistence.

This study presents the results of a major data integration project bringing together primary archaeozoological data for over 200,000 faunal specimens excavated from seventeen sites in Turkey spanning the Epipaleolithic through Chalcolithic periods, c. 18,000-4,000 cal BC, in order to document the initial westward spread of domestic livestock acros...

Significance This article provides original results on the formative conditions of sheep domestication in the Near East. To our knowledge, none of the results has been published before, and the results are expected to be of wide interest to archaeologists, biologists, and other professionals interested in evolutionary and cultural processes of anim...

With its impressive megalithic architecture dating to the tenth to ninth millennium cal. bc, the site of Göbekli Tepe (south-east Anatolia) is singular in the cultural history of mankind. Excavations at this ritual centre produced a rich archaeofaunal assemblage dominated by skeletal remains of Persian gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa). In order to tr...

Im traditionsreichen Bergbaugebiet von Schwaz/Brixlegg in Nordtirol ist seit Mitte der 1990er Jahre eine umfangreiche prähistorische Kupfergewinnung auf der Basis von Fahlerzen nachgewiesen. Zahlreiche, noch heute erhaltene Gruben, deren prähistorisches Alter lange Zeit unerkannt geblieben war, können mittlerweile einem spätbronzezeitlichen bis frü...

The Marmarica, covering northwestern Egypt and northeastern Libya, is little known archaeologically apart from some coastal sites. Recent research has enhanced our knowledge about settlement and land-use patterns as well as subsistence strategies on the northern fringe of the Libyan Desert in Greco-Roman times. Due to the semi-arid and arid environ...

Fragestellung Die Rohmaterialversorgung im Rahmen der Metallherstellung verlangte schon sehr früh spe-zialisierte Formen von Abbau-und Verhüttungsplätzen sowie Unterkünften für die Bergleute. Die Mineralien, welche die gesuchten Rohstoffe enthielten, finden sich vielfach in sehr gebir-gigen und deshalb nicht selten an schwer zugänglichen Orten. Des...

The results of the interdisciplinary project ACACIA support the assumption of a more humid climate at Djara, on the Egyptian Limestone Plateau, which is a hyper-arid desert today, during the early and mid-Holocene. The ancient plant and animal inventories give new impetus for the suggestion of an interfingering of two climatic regimes, the winter r...

In order to be able to evaluate cattle bone assemblages containing only smaller, compact skeletal elements in terms of body size and stature, the LSI technique has been applied using paired (length/breadth) measurements. Based on two case studies, it could be shown that the LSI-values obtained for such smaller elements, considered hitherto of limit...

The article presents two pharaonic sites in the desert approximately 15-20 km southwest of Dakhla Oasis. The excavation and survey of the sites (small hills with some stone structures) produced pottery, stone artefacts, animal bones, plant remains, and a number of rock engravings as well as a short hieroglyphic inscription. There is evidence of at...

Wadi Hariq is a complex valley system in the Northwest Sudan about 400 km west of the Nile. Stratigraphic investigations provide new data on the environmental and climatic history of the present-day hyperarid centre of the southeastern Sahara. Archaeological work there only started at the end of the 1990s, with a survey and excavations carried out...