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Experimental Data from Lacaune and Merino Sheep Provide New Methodological and Theoretical Grounds to Investigate Autumn Lambing in Past Husbandries

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Abstract

In temperate Europe, sheep predominantly mate in autumn and lamb in the spring. In contrast, present-day Mediterranean husbandries practice autumn lambing, with benefits in terms of natural resource use and seasonal availability of animal products. Autumnal lambing is enabled by the conjunction of a capability of some Mediterranean breeds for “out-of-season” breeding, intentional scheduling by the herder, and autumnal rains providing forage resources for lactation. Autumn and winter sheep births have been demonstrated at Neolithic sites in the western Mediterranean. More works are needed to define the conditions leading to their emergence. This line of research uses oxygen isotope analysis in sheep teeth and involves modern references to define birth season. The existing references were biased in favor of winter and spring births. In this study, we enlarge them with 30 additional teeth from Lacaune and Merino sheep, including mainly summer and autumn births. Experiments were also conducted on Lacaune ewes, to address theoretical grounds on the implementation of autumn births: it implies to preserve females from conceptions by separating the sexes in autumn and re-introducing the rams among females in the spring. This second step also produces a “male effect.” We show that in the Lacaune breed, the proportion of spontaneously cyclic ewes in the spring is low in the absence of males and remains minor when the ewes are left in permanent contact with rams. On the other hand, we were able to implement a highly efficient male effect using non-sexually stimulated males, demonstrating that this practice could have been implemented by Neolithic herders.

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Data Availability

Data generated in this study are included in this article and its supplementary information files.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank David Portes and Charlotte Allain (INRAE La Fage experimental unit) for taking blood samples on the Lacaune sheep, the INRAE hormone assay laboratory at Tours-Nouzilly. The Lacaune sheep mandibles were provided by the Confédération Générale de Roquefort- Service élevage; we thank the butchers at the Theix INRAE center for the Lacaune sheep mandibles’ treatment. The Domaine du Merle experimental farm is part of Montpellier SupAgro. We thank Pierre-Marie Bousquet and his team for providing us the Merino sheep teeth, in particular Gaëlle Besche for her technical support. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their meaningful comments.

Funding

This project has received financial support from the INRAE and the CNRS through the MITI interdisciplinary programs (“AgroPaléoRepro” project, 2019–2020).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. AASPE “Archéozoologie, Archéobotanique: Sociétés, Pratiques, Environnements”, CNRS, MNHN, Paris, France

    Marie Balasse & Denis Fiorillo

  2. Physiologie de la Reproduction et des Comportements, INRAE, CNRS, Université de Tours, IFCE, Nouzilly, France

    Philippe Chemineau & Matthieu Keller

  3. Unité Expérimentale de La Fage, INRAE, St Jean St Paul, France

    Sara Parisot

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  1. Marie Balasse
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Contributions

Marie Balasse, Philippe Chemineau, and Matthieu Keller conceptualized the study. Material preparation and data acquisition and analysis were performed by Marie Balasse, Philippe Chemineau, Matthieu Keller, Sara Parisot, and Denis Fiorillo. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Marie Balasse, Philippe Chemineau, and Matthieu Keller, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Marie Balasse.

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The experiment on the Lacaune sheep received approval by the ethics committee on animal experimentation, science and health (SSA), no. 115. The decision to authorize the project is referenced as APAFIS#22807–2019110814002486.

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Balasse, M., Chemineau, P., Parisot, S. et al. Experimental Data from Lacaune and Merino Sheep Provide New Methodological and Theoretical Grounds to Investigate Autumn Lambing in Past Husbandries. J Archaeol Method Theory 31, 75–92 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-022-09600-7

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