 | This article includes a list ofgeneral references, butit lacks sufficient correspondinginline citations. Please help toimprove this article byintroducing more precise citations.(April 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Shillourokambos (Greek:Σιλλουρόκαμπος) is aPre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) site near Parekklisia, 6 km (3.7 mi) east ofLimassol in southernCyprus. It is located on a low plateau. Excavations began in 1992. The settlement has four phases and was occupied from the end of the 9th millennium to the second half of the 8th millennium.
The architecture of phases A and B (8200–7500 BC, calibrated) is characterised by circularwattle and daub structures, with post holes cut into the bedrock. Some deep pits may have served as wells.
Around 300 blades of Anatolianobsidian point to trade connections with the mainland.Sickles are made of multiple parts, and projectile points made of bipolarblades, lacking in the laterKhirokitia culture, are common. The site contains wells and cattle enclosures as well. The middle and late phases (7500 BC) conform more closely to the Khirokitia culture with circular stone houses, comparable to those atKastros. Imported obsidian is rare, and sickles are made from single robust blades.
The site is important because it attests to the presence of cattle in the aceramic Neolithic period. Cattle died out in the course of the 8th millennium and were not reintroduced until the ceramic Neolithic. Only dog and pig bones show morphological signs ofdomestication (size reduction), sheep, goat and cattle bones are in the size range of the wild species (Mouflon,bezoar ibex andwild cattle, respectively). The range of bones present point to a killing near the site, thus making a state of pre-domestication probable.Fox andPersian fallow deer are present as well, but seem to have been hunted. There are no bones of theHolocene dwarf fauna present in Shillourokambos.
Shillourokambos is also the site where the oldest evidence of human domestication ofcats was found.[1][2]
Until recently the cat was commonly believed to have been domesticated inancient Egypt, where it was acult animal. But three years ago a group ofFrencharchaeologists led by Jean-Denis Vigne discovered the remains of an 8-month-old cat buried with its human owner at aNeolithic site in Cyprus.The date of the burial far precedes Egyptian civilization. Together with the new genetic evidence, it places the domestication of the cat in a different context.
— Wade, Nicholas,The New York Times, 2007[3]
Historians previously accountedEgypt as the earliest site of cat domestication due to the clear depictions of house cats in ancient Egyptian paintings from about 3,600 years ago. However, in 2004, a Neolithic grave was excavated in Shillourokambos that contained skeletons, of both a human and a cat, laid close together. The grave is estimated to be 9,500 years old, pushing back the earliest known feline-human association significantly.[4][5] The cat specimen is large and closely resembles theAfrican wildcat, rather than present-daydomestic cats.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
