Human behavioral ecology, domestic animals, and land use during the transition to agriculture in Valencia, eastern Spain

Most applications of Human Behavioral Ecology (HBE) to questions of agricultural origins have focused on plant domestication in archaeological contexts in the New World, where domestic animals were generally less important in early agricultural societies. In contrast, domestic animals play an important part in subsistence strategies and land use in Old World early agricultural societies. In this chapter, we examine the role of domestic animals in changes of land use during the transition to, and consolidation of, food producing economies in Valencia, Spain. Using the behavioral ecological model of ideal free distribution as a heuristic concept, we show the tight linkage between agricultural subsistence strategies, herd management, and long-term dynamics of human land use. Two broadly different herd management strategies were stable for long periods of time and the shift from one to the other was tightly linked with socioecological changes during the Neolithic.